Differences between automotive & airplane engines

wrote:
Well put.. Converting an auto engine for aircraft use is not for the
novice to try.



Neither is building airplanes. Or flying. Or driving a car. Or using
power tools... Or playing a sport... Or eating solid food...


Building the airplane involves following published
instructions.

You never seen published standards for engines? The physics involved
are well understood. All the data necessary relatively easy to come by.

Flying involves taking lessons with someone who both
knows what they're doing and how to teach it.

Who taught Orville and Wilbur?

Driving a car is similar.
Using power tools without knowing something about how to use them
sometimes involves some hard lessons and a missing digit or two, or an
eye. Playing a sport involves rules, and we can step aside anytime if
the risks mount. The food should get gradually more solid while we
learn to eat it, but even then it's not pretty and even fatal once in a
long while.
Converting engines, for the uninitiated, seems to involve
making a prop hub and bolting it on and expecting reliability,
performance, good fuel economy and great engine life. Those of us
who've done it know otherwise; we have run into many obstacles.

I agree with you 100%, and will take it one further. Building an
airplane for the uninitiated seems to involve bolting an unquantified
entity called a 'wing' to an equally unquantified entity called a
'frame' then heading off into the clear blue. Quick and easy. A few
weeks work. That's the way I thought of it...four years ago.
Fortunately, the less we know of a subject, the more we think we know;
otherwise, I might not have started.

All of your responses reinforce my point. Every endeavour we choose to
undertake, whether it be converting an engine, buiding an airplane,
playing a musical instrument, the first requirement is always to study
and understand the problem space. I believe that the only point we
disagree on is the degree of difficulty you perceive in an engine
conversion.

My argument is that an engine conversion just adds another facet to the
long list of things to learn. Which brings us back to the original
addage. If you want to build, build, even if that build involves an
auto conversion and with all the study and education that involves. If
you want to fly, buy.

--
This is by far the hardest lesson about freedom. It goes against
instinct, and morality, to just sit back and watch people make
mistakes. We want to help them, which means control them and their
decisions, but in doing so we actually hurt them (and ourselves)."