(Fred the Red Shirt) wrote in message news:

Holy crap! How does Limbach do that?

It's a TWO STROKE engine. Compare it to Solo or Rotax engines and it
looks less remarkable.

According to what I can find
on the history of Limbach, the design is based on a VW, but
is built from the ground up to be an airplane engine.

THIS Limbach engine has NOTHING in common with a VW engine. Limbach's
larger engines do, but they are 4 stroke engines of much larger
displacement.

So, what is the down side to these engines? Do they cost a
gazillion dollars or blow up at 20 hours or something? There
has to be a downside somewhere.

How about absolutely no US distribution? Limbach engines WERE
expensive when they DID have US distribution (in the 1980's), and the
US$ to German Mark exchange rate is less favorable now than it was
then. Limbach got it's start doing VW auto engine overhauls for the
US market nearly 50 years ago. That line of business has been kaput
since the mid-60's as the German economy revved up again after WWII.