V-8 powered Seabee

"Bart D. Hull" wrote:


Barnyard BOb -- once again predictable


Thought I'd do a "truth in advertising" re-write of Bob's prose.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Bart,
You have nothing going for you.
Least of all, originally.

If your auto conversion carries the same level of quality
as your posts here, you are in deep **** and will be my
poster boy for... how NOT to proceed in aviation.


Barnyard BOb -- over 50 years of flight

Ron

I flew the Szekely in a Rearwin Junior 3000 in the late 30's at Des
Moines, IA. Rearwin only built about 30 of the 3000/4000 (4000 used
the Aeromarine AR-3 engine) of the Jr. Szekely started ok. Ran with a
funny sound with the short stacks and three cylinders. Not a smooth
engine.

Did pull the stick out of the fitting as I flared for landing one
time. Of course in those days the birds kind of landed themselves and
it just flopped down and dribbled along and made a touch down about as
good as I was making with the stick in the fitting )

Big John

----clip----

Hey, cool. But forget those period motorcycle engines. Use a nice
reliable aircraft engine, like a Szekley. :-)

(For those who don't get it: The Szekley 3-cylinder radial has an AD
note
calling for a cable running around the outside of the cylinders. To
prevent the parts from flying too far away when they break....)

----clip----

Ron Wanttaja

Corky

Remember the messenger always gets shot )

Big John

You are asking the wrong person your questions, I just posted the link
so that people who are interested in auto conversion can have a look
at this one. If you really feel you need answers to your questions I
suggest you contact the guys who are flying the Seabee conversion.

Corky Scott

Earlier, "Bart D. Hull" wrote:

snip

Thought I'd do a "truth in advertising" re-write of Bob's prose.

You might think it's funny, and in a way maybe it is funny.

However, I for one consider it a fairly grave breach of Usenet
etiquette to alter the substantiative content of a Usenet post and
format it so that it appears to be a direct quote - including what
appears to be a legitimate Bob Urban sig line. The way I see it,
you're not just parodying Mr. Urban, you're impersonating him.

If someone were to quote you misquoting Bob Urban, and pass it off as
something that Bob actually wrote, it could get you in a little bit of
trouble. At very least, Bob has a good case for a complaint to your
ISP.

I believe that name calling, cheap shots, hopeless dreaming, immature
put-downs, imperious denials, and sweeping generalizations, all that
stuff is the inevitable and inescapable by-product of a free and open
marketplace for ideas. I also believe it might be the reason that so
many of my friends will read this NG but won't post their thoughts
here. But it's basically OK as long as it's done honestly and fairly.

Thanks, and best regards to all

Bob K.
http://www.hpaircraft.com

Hi Rob. Thanks for forwarding the E-mail. I was unable to find the website
you mentioned. Would you please post my response.

I appologize for not keeping my site totally current. As of 21 Oct 2003, we
have logged 874 trouble free hour on our LS-1 powered Seabee. A second LS-1
powered Bee has loged over 70 hours, and an LS-6 powered Bee has over 180
hours on it. They are using my conversion. The first LS-6 conversion has
been delivered to a Murphy Super Rebel customer.

If you check my website, you will see the LS-1 is rated a@ 345 H.P. by G.M.
We derate it to 320 H.P. for our use. The LS-6 is rated by G.M. at 405 H.P.
We derate it to 350 H.P. for our use. If you do a literature search, you
will discover G.M. ran two LS-1's at 100% power for 520 hours. The engines
were torn down & and all parts were within new parts tolerences. We do not
recommend running any engine at 100% continuous power. We run at full power
untill it is safe to throttle back. We cruse climb at 25" & 3500 rpm untill
we are at desired altitude. I have only climed to 11.000' for test purposes.
The engine ran great.I enjoy the scenery & normally cruse in the 2500 to
7000' range.

In terms of fuel efficiency, I normally burn 8.5 Imperial Gallons Per hour
at 22' & 3200 RPM. This increases to 10 IGPH at 25 " & 3500RPM. This is the
maximum popwer setting I have used for extended periods of time. Both of the
other Seabee owners claim they burn less fuel per hour than I do! I time my
flights with my GPS unit & dip the tanks every flight. I normally use the
lower power setting - I pay for all my gas myself & the extra speed is not
worth it.

If these gentlemen check the website, they will discover I do not use Oxygen
sensors on my aircraft. G.M. provides three calibration codes for the
computer, including the one which uses no Oxygen sensors. We did use oxygen
sensors on the LS-6 installation initially (the first 100 hours). They do
last fine if you use leaded fuel occasionally, but provided no operating
advantage. All my current installations do not use Oxygen sensors.

In terms of fuel, I run 100LL when I am at an airport, & premimum unleaded
when I am at home. The unleaded is better for the engine & the environment &
is cheaper.

In terms of the rebuild costs, I have quoted the average cost paid by
several Franklin owners recently. For the LS-1 overhaul costs I have
included the cost of replacing the engine with a factory new short block, &
dismantling the reduction unit & replacing key components.

In terms of reliability, I never passed the 100 hour mark on my Franklin
without incuring some major work. The Lycoming on my Supercub was better,
but not great. They recently replaced the Factory new lycoming on a
commercially operated, well maintained local aircraft at the 800 hour mark
because it plugged the oil cooler with metal. They also replaced 2 cylinders
in the first 800 hours. I believe the V-8 will prove to be a reliable
powerplant, & is certainly more cost effective. The modern heating & air
conditioning systems are a bonus. I remove my reduction unit & dismantle it
for inspection regularly (roughly every 200 hours), & so far it is like new
inside. Last winter I removed the oil pan from the engine & visually
inspected the engine. It too looked like new.

I had also considered the Northstar engin when I was in the design phase. I
rejected it as unnecessarily complicated. I believe the LS series is a much
better choice for aircraft use. I strongly believe in the KISS principle
(Keep It Simple Stupid)

Thanks for the opportunity to comment on these items. If anyone wishes to
discuss the mater further, please contact me.

Regards

Brian Robinson

705-374-4347

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 21:26:48 -0500, "John Stricker"
wrote:

Corky,

Liars? Well, I'll reserve judgment. A little weak in the details and
presentation? Absolutely.

You have to see and hear the plane to believe it, guys. I have. Up
close. It is BEAUTIFULL and it sounds like no 'Bee you have ever heard
before - with "street mufflers"

I have pretty intimate knowledge of the LS1 and LS6. So let's just start
looking at their information, shall we?

Can you show me what their rated, maximum hp for their CONVERSION is? How
about the CONTINUOUS rated hp for their CONVERSION? I can't find it. They
list a maximum hp rating of 350 for the LS1, which isn't their rating it's
GM's rating. And that's not a continuous rating. But we'll just let that
slide for a moment, let's get to fuel consumption.

They show a BSFC of .454 or .507 at 3200 rpm. Interesting, not, that they
don't show a MAP they got that at, since that with RPM would tell us what HP
the engine was making? Never mind that, let's go back to GM. At 3200 rpm
GM showed the LS1 making 200 hp. That means that at 200 hp, the engine is
burning between 10 and 11 gph. WoW!! All those electronic bells and
whistles sure did improve efficiency over the old dinosaurs, didn't it?

Speaking of which..............

They really don't say much about those bells and whistles, do they?? All
they say is that the engine uses "multi-port injection" and "computerized
electronic 8 coils" ignition. Curious, that's what GM uses on them. Except
to make them really run right, in cruise, they have to operate in closed
loop mode.
GM has an "export" calibration that shuts off the O2 sensors - and
under load the engine runs open loop just fine even without the
recalibration.


To do that, they need a lead free fuel. 100LL will make the O2
sensors last about, oh, 3-4 hours, if you're lucky. What happens if the O2
sensor fails? The ECM goes into open loop mode and you get BSFC of around
.500 or so.


I've seen the bird. It is 100% stock GM with an export calibration on
the box to eliminate the need for the O2 sensor. That is IT.


But speaking of fuel.................

Yep, it's getting less rare to have auto fuel on the airport, but I still
wouldn't say that's a common thing to have, would you? And even if it was,
91 octane? Some places, premium IS 91 octane. KS, it's not. 99% of the
premium grade is 89 octane and that's with 10% ethanol. So, you land, have
to hunt down auto gas, and then have to hunt down 91 octane auto gas, get it
back to the airport to fuel up. Yep, that's going to be cost and time
effective. NOT. Oh, the LS1/LS6 will run on 89 octane, by having the ECM
pull the timing back which gives you less power and a higher BSFC.......

Don't NEED Mogas - no O2 Sensors to worry about as stated above.
Somewhere it was said they have 600 hours on this conversion and yet from
their site "I have approximately 56 hours on the finished product, including
a very enjoyable trip to Airventure 2000." Not a long term study.

The good doctor has several hundred hours on his. It has flown all
over Ontario with the new engine, and uses significantly less fuel
than the Franklin, which is all that really counts. He and his Dad
have owned and flown the bird for many years with the Franklin, so
they have all the fuel consumption info, and cruise speeds etc, before
and after conversion.
And they have AIR CONDITIONING too!!!
As far as price goes, the best price I've found on an LS6 is about $8,500,
with shipping. They're really not a very good engine to rebuild due to
their method of construction, but if you want to you probably can, for
around $7,500. Of course there's that gear reduction and the normal
aircraft accessories that need to be overhauled as well. He lists the
overhaul cost of the LS6 at $13,000 CDN, that's about $9,875 on today's
market US$. He is NOT going to overhaul the conversion package of an LS6
for $10K. Not going to happen.

In a few years you will be able to BUY an LS6 for a lot less than
today's price. Not sure, but I think the Doc'd is an LS1
I found this web site to be interesting. The guy looks like he did a good
job on the conversion for his purposes. I also can't see one item on it
that makes any better than the Franklin. He has the overhaul cost at
$40,000. For a Franklin? Lot's of guys were working on the Franklin's in
Cozy's because they were 3-4 thousand CHEAPER than a 360 Lycoming.


I'm elbow deep into a Northstar right now for a completely (ground-based)
different purpose. The electronics and systems on this are daunting with
untold failure modes. If these folks want to be pioneers, good on them.
I'll pioneer my system on the ground, thanks anyway.

The Northstar system is VERY daunting.

John Stricker

PS: How many hours of vibration analysis on that prop/PSRU system do you
suppose they had before they took the old girl for a spin?

It has been EXTREMELY well engineered and executed. These guys are
perfectionists to the enth degree. And they have contacts. Not much,
if anything, was left to chance.

"Corky Scott" wrote in message
...

That's the correct definition of anectdotal BOb, it would appear to be
a mistaken application though. These guys aren't casually observing
their conversion, they created it, developed it, trouble shot it and
flew it with their own bodies inside the airplane on which they
installed it. And they flew it for 600 hours so far. It looks like
they were as scientific about it as they could be, with direct
comparisons, in all modes, to the Franklin powered model.

I don't understand why you consider them liars. Do you have evidence
that the photos and text is faked?

It obviously really irks you when someone actually successfully flies
behind an auto conversion, almost as much as when someone just talks
naively about it.

Corky Scott

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 04:38:17 GMT, Jerry Springer
wrote:

I had a VW powered aircraft one time that I had over 500 hours on.
In that 500 hours I had two complete failures. One I was close
enough to land on an airport, the other one did not turn out so well.
Point is that saying how many hours an engine has on it does not tell
the whole story, we need to know the maintenance history along with
the the hours flown.

Jerry

NOTHING but normal scheduled maintenance - not a single failure in
flight. Much better than the franklin that dropped a cyl up around
Baffin Island or Moose Factory.

Robert Schieck wrote:
John Stricker wrote:

Corky,


Somewhere it was said they have 600 hours on this conversion and yet from
their site "I have approximately 56 hours on the finished product,
including
a very enjoyable trip to Airventure 2000." Not a long term study.


He has more than 600 hours on the first SeaBee that was converted and
56 hours on the second one ......

I leave the rest of the error to be corrected by the reader...

Rob

.ps I have seen this aircraft 3 times as he comes to the RAA events to
talk about the plane.

Why are you disappointed, because someone asks questions?? You disappoint
easily then.

Having no O2 sensors requires the computer to go into open loop mode.
That's not as efficient in cruise. Simple fact. It's now a simple, MAP
system. Later he says that he's getting 8.5 IMP/hour at 3200 rpm. We have
no way of knowing what HP that's making there, but if it's max at that rpm
according to dyno charts that's a BSFC of .318. Guess what? That aint
happening. That's better than a very efficient diesel can do.

The conversions use of no O2 sensors simply backs up my point that they
won't work with 100LL for very long. The published HP figures are GM's own,
the developers don't make any claims for any other HP and don't really know
what HP the conversion makes. Best guess is they're using a 400 hp auto
engine to do slightly better than a 200 hp aviation engine.

That being the case, are the Ford and Chevy V6 conversions that came from
the factory at about 200 hp really only 100 hp aircraft engines?

The fact that these guys made a system that appears to work well for them is
commendable. It takes a lot of patience to do that. He's also not putting
it in an experimental airframe either, also commendable.

You guys fly what you want. Matters not to me. I regret ever having come
out of lurk mode and ever bothering to check in on the group.

John Stricker

"Robert Schieck" wrote in message
...
John Stricker wrote:

Rob,

I found on a different page where he says he had 650+ hours on the LS6
now.
His two pages contradict each other, but that's understandable, things
happen.

My point on this is that if HE wants to experiment and play with it,
that's
great. It might even be something I might want to try some time. But in
the long haul, figuring time, $$, and all factors, an auto conversion
should
be looked at as just that, something to experiment and play with and not
something that's going to save you a ton of money.


As to "rest of the error.." your point is???




as you said:

Speaking of which..............

They really don't say much about those bells and whistles, do they?? All
they say is that the engine uses "multi-port injection" and "computerized
electronic 8 coils" ignition. Curious, that's what GM uses on them.
Except
to make them really run right, in cruise, they have to operate in closed
loop mode. To do that, they need a lead free fuel. 100LL will make the
O2
sensors last about, oh, 3-4 hours, if you're lucky. What happens if the
O2
sensor fails? The ECM goes into open loop mode and you get BSFC of around
.500 or so.


from the web site:



Engine Control System

The system I chose is a standard G.M. system. The unit is programmed
with the export code for leaded fuel and uses no oxygen sensors. This
was to enable me to run 100 octane Low Lead fuel as well as premium
unleaded fuel. It also meets the KISS criteria. The emission and VAT
codes are suppressed. The computer is stock G.M. After much research and
correspondence, the wiring harness was purchased from an after market
supplier. This portion of the project was as time consuming as designing
the reduction drive. Before undertaking a project like this, it is
imperative to purchase the factory (not after market) manuals for the
engine and read them thoroughly. You have to decide what is acceptable
practice, how you want you're engine management system to work, and have
the harness manufactured accordingly.

I am not sure how much more detail you want or expected and the issue of
the O2 sensor was addressed.


disappointed, time to go to private lists where signal to noise ratio is
better.

Rob

Ron Wanttaja wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 14:47:32 GMT, David Hill
wrote:

The project I'm working on (1924 Epps Light Monoplane replica) motivated
me to learn about modern motorcycle engines. The original engine in the
original plane was an Indian Chief motorcycle engine.
snip
At some point before the plane was sold, it was converted to a Lawrance
A-3 engine. I've heard two stories about why he changed the engine.
One is that he wanted more power (28 hp for the Lawrance vs. 17 hp for
the Indian). The other story is that he got tired of the chain breaking.

Hey, cool. But forget those period motorcycle engines. Use a nice
reliable aircraft engine, like a Szekely. :-)

(For those who don't get it: The Szekely 3-cylinder radial has an AD note
calling for a cable running around the outside of the cylinders. To
prevent the parts from flying too far away when they break....)

The Lawrance engine wasn't much better than the Szekely; it actually was
not that much of an improvement over the bike engine. For those not
familiar with it, I think of it as a 2 cylinder radial. It had two
opposing pistons connecting to one crankshaft throw. And as far as I
have been able to determine, no counterweights. That's a lot of mass
being thrown back and forth in synchronization.

The fellow who bought the plane with the Lawrance engine installed
recalled (in 1985 or so) that the engine vibrated terribly. And in fact
the plane was demolished when the engine quit one day with Paul Rizzo
flying it.

The biggest surprise I got regarding the Lawrance engine, once I saw one
up close and in person, is no engine mounts! Just a groove around the
base of each cylinder to facilitate strapping it to the airplane!

--
David Hill
david at hillREMOVETHISfamily.org
Sautee-Nacoochee, GA, USA

filters, they're not just for coffee anymore
The following needn't bother to reply, you are filtered:
Juan E Jimenez, Barnyard BOb, Larry Smith, John Nada

Ron Wanttaja wrote:
snip
I suspect it probably would have been easier to replace
the old 215 Franklin with the new 220 HP model with far less work than it
took to convert the Chevy....

Yes, but it would not have been nearly as irritating to Barnyard BOb.
He is still around, isn't he? Not that I can tell.

--
David Hill
david at hillREMOVETHISfamily.org
Sautee-Nacoochee, GA, USA

filters, they're not just for coffee anymore
The following needn't bother to reply, you are filtered:
Juan E Jimenez, Barnyard BOb, Larry Smith, John Nada