Orphaned Engine

On Jul 21, 11:47*am, erik wrote:

How about something more on the Type 4?
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Mostly because I don't consider myself qualified on them.

I've converted a couple for flight and done my share of repairs on
411's and the like, but I've never had access to enough cores to do
much in the way of experimentation.

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Most info on this engine seems
to be " That is what the VW engine should have been"

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True enough. It incorporates all of the HVX mods, for example. Plus
hydraulic cam-follwers. And it has already been converted & certified
as an aircraft engine by Porsche. But it fails the test of Critical
Mass: There aren't enough of them to trigger the investment &
experimentation that leads to a race-winning combo. Mark Stephens
devoted a lot of time to the engine's initial short-comings (bad valve
seats, head seals, sodium-filled valves, etc) and fielded a number of
race-winning cars with this engine. But having tooled-up to produce
reliable heads and so forth, found the market simply wasn't there. My
conversions of this engine were limited to the aviation-specific
items: The engine mount, prop-hub, cooling system and so forth. For
the mechanical components, I simply bought the parts from Stephen.
The be fully qualified on the engine I would have tooled-up to do ALL
of the engine-work in-house. That's the only way you can certain of
the quality of the work.

-R.S.Hoover