Other Stuff-NEW!
Alternative Engines, Auto Conversions
Real World Solutions 13B Renesis ~200 horsepower, liquid cooled
A good friend of mine, Ben Schneider, has installed this in his RV-7 just down the road from me. Honestly, he is the one that turned me on to the rotary before I started building. This is a do-it-yourself systems build, so engine skills and knowledge of the rotary engine is a MUST to go this route. RWS makes the redrive, and there are various options for props out there. There are a bunch of these flying, and the bugs are for the most part, worked out. Tracy Crook is the mastermind behind this installation, and he knows what he is doing. This is probably one of the best budget buys for an engine out there with complete firewall forward packages coming in WELL under $20k. Runs on 100LL or unleaded and cheap overhauls.
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Belted Air Power Chevy 4.3L V-6, 180 horsepower, liquid cooled
This is a new addition to my list of alternatives. This company puts out a full firewall forward package for the Chevy engine, and it appears to be very well engineered, but may be on the heavy side. They do run a fixed pitched prop on their demo airplane, and say that it climbs at over 1,000fpm with a cruise in the 190mph range. Looks neat!
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Mistral G-190 190 horsepower, liquid cooled
Another rotary engine option, but at the highest end of the price range in the engine market for this horsepower range. These are manufactured in Switzerland, and are currently being tested on the bench and in a converted Piper Arrow III. It has been flying for quite a while, and there are a couple that have been shipped to experimental customers. This is another auto-based engine that does offer the option for a constant speed propeller. I found some more pics of this engine, courtesy of Mistral's website, so I thought I'd add them.
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Deltahawk DH200V4 200 horsepower, liquid cooled
This is a revolutionary engine that has been in testing for quite some time. It's a two stroke diesel V-4. It runs on Jet A and, of course, diesel. TBO is projected at 2000 hours, and it burns between 7gph and 11.2gph. The price is way up there, and no one has developed a FWF kit for it yet. It has been flying in a Velocity in pusher configuration for several years now. That says a lot for cooling!
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Crossflow CF4-20 180 horsepower, liquid cooled
This is a company based in Ontario Canada, that has been doing engine conversions on Subaru's for over 30 years. It's under new management, and remains to be seen if their customer service and support can be turned around from the past couple of years. It's a beautiful engine, and they have their own design for a PSRU that allows the option of a hydraulic propeller. The price is right in line with all the other conversion FWF packages available.
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Powersport RE-215 Rotary 215 horsepower, liquid cooled
When I set out to build an RV, my first thoughts were to install a rotary engine on the front. There are a few options available to do this, and Powersport has one of the best engineered firewall forward packages out there. It is rather expensive considering that not ALL the FWF components are included in the price, such as prop, exhaust, engine mount, and firewall forward installation kit. However, everything you need sans the prop is available from Powersport. There are a couple flying, but this is another case of "I'll wait and see". It will run on unleaded or 100LL. Overhauls on rotary's are amongst the cheapest out there, running around $1,000. Another VERY smooth engine-there are no reciprocating parts to cause vibration.
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Eggenfellner Subaru E6 200 horsepower, liquid cooled
This is an engine package that gets you all you need to plug and play. It gets shipped to your door, and it's been said that it can installed and run in an afternoon. I like the sound of that, however, I'm part of the Subaruaircraft Yahoo group, and this doesn't happen often. This engine solves the problem if, and when, 100LL avgas goes bye bye, but it will run on 100LL. Overhauls are much cheaper here than with a traditional aircraft engine. It is said to be one of the smoothest engines out there, right up there with a turbine. Jan Eggenfellner has a great solution here with his package. The new redrive is looking to be a real winner with a 2.02:1 ratio to extract the powerband from the E6.
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Innodyn Turbines 185 TE 185 horsepower, air cooled
Here's a company that has EVERYONE'S attention. They have been developing this "mini" turbine for several years now, and are getting close to producing an engine to the market. It runs on anything. Jet A, kerosene, diesel, avgas, cooking oil, you name it! That's a big advantage. Another advantage is the fact that the oil is changed every 500 hours, and the TBO is projected at 5000 hours!! This will be quite high on the cost scale, but the TBO does offset that. Also, fuel burn has yet to be determined. They claim 7gph/100hp. There is no substantial info on this yet. Requires an electric constant speed prop.
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