Backcountry Pilot

[Zzz]

This actually looks pretty cool. How many of use have wished for something as reliable as a 4 cylinder Honda engine purring away up front? It looks like these guys have started adapting the 110hp engine from the Fit economy hatchback.

http://www.vikingaircraftengines.com/Home.html



I tend to chalk up auto conversions as builders trying to save a few bucks over lower volume selling purpose built engines like the ubiquitous Lycomings and Continentals, and even Rotaxes, but I'm starting to raise my eyebrow at stuff like this with greater interest.

[mountainmatt offline]

Nice you can throw ethanol in there and not worry. Cool little engine, nice find!

[Zzz]

Nice you can throw ethanol in there and not worry. Cool little engine, nice find!

Good point. I suppose we can assume the EFI system is resilient to ethanol, but the weak point would be the builder-designed/installed fuel delivery system and it ability to effectively trap and show water. Tanks, sumps, filters, fittings, etc.

[mountainmatt offline]

Correction, not straight ethanol, just 10% 87 octane (auto gas).

Good numbers too.
http://www.vikingaircraftengines.com/Tech.html

[58Skylane offline]

Be awesome if Yamaha would come out with an aircraft engine. I know where I'd be able to get parts for cheap

Hhmmm..... maybe I should look into LSA, too

[hotrod180 offline]

When I got into flying, about 15 years ago, it seemed like Subaru engines were the big thing for small homebuilts like the Kitfox. Several outfits (NSI, Stratus, etc) marketed such a conversion. There was also one outfit in the vancouver BC area which offered a conversion of the 4-cylinder Honda car engne. Called the CAM 100, for Canadian Air Motive. It never seemed to go anywhere & finally disappeared.

[Zzz]

One thing that would be a concern of course is continued support. Resale for auto conversions will never be like the tried and true purpose built models as well. But... all that aside, if it's lightweight and bombproof, what more can you ask for. Plus this thing is half the price of a Rotax 912.

[TonyG offline]

Zane,

Not to throw cold water on anything, but here's my experience:

I've been (off and on for 25 years now) building a very modified KR-2 with a Subaru engine, but I actually own (co-own) an RV-4 built by someone else.

On the RV-4 (with an O-320), almost everything that has come from the automotive industry has failed. Most notably, the oil cooler. The fittings developed fatigue cracks after about 400 hours. Caught it on a runup, otherwise would have been bad news indeed.

The O-320 (and the CS prop) has been bulletproof. Well, except for an oil leak that dumps out anything over 6 quars, especially if you fly any acro, but shit, I haven't owned an airplane without a quirk.

My subjective opinion: If you're thinking about automotive stuff, think about how you're going to be operating. If your continuous ops are going to be more than 50-75% full power, be careful.

Lots of folks have been very successful with auto applications in their airplanes, but I get the feeling that the most successful have been those where the accessories (and maybe even the core engines themselves) are operating at a fraction of their rated power.

My experience has certainly given me pause on the Subaru in the KR-2--but that's likely moot. At the current rate, it'll fly in 2050, and I'll be dead by then. My kids, or grand-kids, will have to worry about it.

YMMV - note that this is free advice--probably not worth a damn. See what Mr. Scout (who I think has built at least one RV) and that ol' boy from Jackson think.

Plus, while I write this, I've been drinking. But I'm happy.


--Tony

[wyomingiswindy offline]

I've been waiting for this moment all my life after beating up Honda ATVs up and down the hills. Handlebars come and go but those motors are bulletproof. I was really a happy boy when i saw the $4,500 buy button on their site. I just wrote the company.

The engine is now $13,000. Seems a little steep for an experiment.

Fuel injection would be fun. Maybe the Rotax will come out with that as standard one of these days.

[Zzz]

I've been waiting for this moment all my life after beating up Honda ATVs up and down the hills. Handlebars come and go but those motors are bulletproof. I was really a happy boy when i saw the $4,500 buy button on their site. I just wrote the company.

The engine is now $13,000. Seems a little steep for an experiment.

Fuel injection would be fun. Maybe the Rotax will come out with that as standard one of these days.

I was confused by the $4500 vs $13000 too. It's still about half the price of a 912, and I think I read that 914's are ticking $30k?

As with any aircraft engine, the difference between any of them is a track record. The Honda Fit engine core is likely bombproof, but the accessory things can bring your ship down just as easily as a stuck valve or snapped crankshaft. More reading reveals that the gearbox is Viking manufactured for 2.33:1.

I'm curious to hear, TonyG, exactly what items "from the automotive industry" have failed. I was thinking about this driving around town on saturday after reading your post, trying to mentally compare build quality of aviation sector components to automotive. With either industry, there is a spectrum of cheap to quality. Ive never been impressed with a lot of OEM automotive stuff that seems to be a riveted mish-mash of sheet metal or cast pot metal, always finely tuned to the required resilience to stress. But once you get into the aftermarket realm, quality skyrockets... lots of CNC and nicer stuff produced to be specifically better than OEM.

Will keep an eye on them. I wrote a blog on my thoughts about auto conversions, so I made a new thread.

[Zzz]

Has anyone had any additional or recent exposure to the Viking HF-110 since this thread started?

[GroundLooper offline]

I believe Viking is run by the same guy that was working on many of the more successful Suburu conversions.

Still, according to the bits and pieces I've read mostly in Kitplanes, auto conversions still prove to be vexing and builders have big hurdles to overcome. Most require PSRU's which are often built buy very small outfits, often some guy in his figurative or actual garage (though some of those garage people are masters). The cost of development is often borne buy the person doing the conversion. Kit manufacturers have very little or no support for Auto conversions leaving the builder to create the whole firewall forward package, which is not trivial.

That said, there are some tried and true engines that have companies behind them with good reputations.

There are definitely some exciting engines out there but also good reason why it takes a long time to see much use in aircraft and why so many promising ones disappear.


Hey! I just heard the first Ice Cream truck of the season! Spring has arrived!

[Bushcaddy offline]

This engine is designed by Jan Eggenfellner and I'd be careful about saying he designed most of the successful Suburu conversions. Spend some time on http://www.vansairforce.net and you will find more nightmares than successes. My sense is his Subaru conversion did not work well at all and it's interesting that he's moved on to this engine.

[courierguy offline]

Good call Bushcaddy A little TOO slick for my taste.

I remember when I first met Reiner Hoffman, the Stratus guy. He was sweaty and dirty, and had no exhibit or display, he did manage to find some business cards however. This was at Caldwell Idaho, in the early 90's, and he had just flown in from Seattle. None of that mattered, what mattered was that he had flown in, had many hundreds of hours on the plane, (NOT show planes, beater Avid flyers, very well used, and that impressed me in a back asswards way) as did his friend that flew in with him. THAT convinced me more then high dollar brochures and fancy anodizing (for parts that don't really need it). After 1300 hrs in my Soob conversion I bought from him, the only real bitch was it was just a tad too wide and tall for the svelte S-7 cowl, and yeah a bit heavy, but it sure worked good, was quiet, very smooth, and almost as fuel efficient as the 912S I now fly, and only cost $5300.00!

Let's see if the Viking cuts the mustard, and is still around for the long run, I agree the specs sounds great and the price is right.

[Zzz]

Speculation is cheap, but it'd be nice to actually hear from an owner. I thought maybe someone would have run into one of these in person by now. That Escapade for instance, I wonder whose it is?

[wyomingiswindy offline]

I ran into a nice, EAA type guy at 5NC3 who put money down on one. I can't remember his name, but he used to own a Highlander and he loves talking shop while you are all buckled into your machine and thinking about taxiing. Somebody look him up and get the scoop. There is a BBQ at that airport, so it will be worth your while--Pik-N-Pig BBQ, Carthage, NC

There was only one plane flying a couple months ago, so there's not going to be many success stories yet. I'll beat the shit out of one of them if the company wants to donate it. If it actually works I'll tell the world how awesome it is. If it doesn't then they probably should know so they quit wasting their time giving us blue balls...

[Stol offline]

This engine is designed by Jan Eggenfellner and I'd be careful about saying he designed most of the successful Suburu conversions. Spend some time on http://www.vansairforce.net and you will find more nightmares than successes. My sense is his Subaru conversion did not work well at all and it's interesting that he's moved on to this engine.

Yeah.... I agree. I have yet to see a Egg install that didn't have cooling problems right out of the box, and the factory support consisted of " hmm, ran perfect for us on our prototype"... . Don't even get me stated to the 1st/2nd/3rd/ 4th generation of redrive units either. Those Eggs seem to be like software.. you start with version 1.0 and by the time it actually works you are in the 6.22 range. It is advertised as a "plug and play" FFW.... If you are going the auto engine route you might as well do it all in house as you will be doing most of the R&D stuff anyway.

[GroundLooper offline]

This engine is designed by Jan Eggenfellner and I'd be careful about saying he designed most of the successful Suburu conversions. Spend some time on http://www.vansairforce.net and you will find more nightmares than successes. My sense is his Subaru conversion did not work well at all and it's interesting that he's moved on to this engine.

Thanks for pointing that out. I retract any implication from above regarding the successfulness of the conversions.

Interesting the builders ultimately had so much trouble with cooling. I can understand it being a lot harder with aircooled engines like the VW conversions. I'd have thought water cooling would make that problem almost trivial.

[AvidFlyer offline]

My Avid was used by NSI in the late 90's as a prototype to develop an engine mount, cowling, and cooling system for the Avid/Kitfox. 4 years later after he sued them the owner got his plane back in unairworthy condition from NSI. The poor ol bird never flew again till 2009. My Dad now has an $11,000 (I have the receipts) 224lb 100hp boat anchor on a stand in his shop. 2 years and 200 hours later I'm having a blast with my plane with a Rotax up front. I'd love to see this Honda engine compete in the market. A new 912S is now up to 19K at leading edge airfoils

[emflys offline]

They have a Yahoo group that I am a member of and monitor. Their test aircraft has something around 200-300hrs, and a Just Escapade also flying. Jan answers just about every question asked, every day. He's a hard worker its obvious. Says they are about to deliver the first batch of 35 engines sold. RV-12 will be flying shortly they report.

They published some interesting static thrust comparisons recently against the Rotax 912S and a Jab.

As unlikely real success (unfortunately), I wish them success. Its great to have options.