tmyers
En-Route
Anyone had experience with G&N in Indiana?
I just bought an E and have looked at a lot of Mooneys in the last few months. I'm wondering if your F is the one at Santa Fe?
Anyway, I know of an immaculate F in Wisconsin that is going to be coming on the market soon. I flew it last summer and would have bought it if it was in my price range. It's expensive but after looking at 8 birds I'd say its worth every penny. PM me if you want more info
Was this F N6995V out of Ladysmith, WI?
I actually bought it in August. After transition training in California, it took about 11 hours to get it back to Wisconsin. I met the previous Wisconsin owner last week to obtain some of the winter gear that he had held onto. I've got about 50 hours on it now and enjoying it very much.What's kind of funny though is that 4 years later, it looks like N6995V was put on the market in May 2018 and just sold 10 days ago.
The "bottom feeders" sell overhauls for less than the real cost of the parts and vendor services. How do they do that??
whats the concensus these days on conti jugs. go aftermarket or cmi?
ETA: oops nvm, no aftermarket jugs for a io470k. moot point.
I'll answer anyway. It's been a moving target as there have been a lot of changes. Chinese investment has caused Continental to significantly update their cylinder manufacturing practices. Meanwhile ECi had their issues, went out of business, Superior got bought up and is now a competitor...
When I had to put cylinders on the 414 I went with Superiors, and had done ECi on the 310. To my knowledge the ECi cylinders on the 310 (now about halfway to TBO) have been doing fine. The 414 cylinders probably don't even have 100 hours on them so hard to say. For a while Continental was the worst manufacturer of cylinders for their engines (note this refers to the standard "D" rocker cylinders, not the GTSIO cylinders), but I've heard good things these days.
In other words, flip a coin.
Wow. I'm just amazed what a captive audience is willing to put up with. Any other venture, and people would be storming the corporate offices if you sold them 6 by 2-3amu installed automotive contraptions with a 50 pct rolling life expectancy from advertised, and RnR is on you to add insult to injury. Amazing indeed.
I just can't imagine where the money is going for these really high engine overhaul estimates. Short of a catastrophic failure or having to replace a crank or case I just cant see where the money adds up to. Granted I haven't had to overhaul a big 6 banger but the most I have ever invested in an overhaul is 10k in parts. If the rest is labor I'm sure glad I am mechanical inclined.
One thing to remember is that you're talking about designs that date back to the 60s when these things were certified in the first place. Getting 100,000 miles out of a car was a big deal in those days, I remember my uncle telling me that 75,000 miles was when a car was "used up." Meanwhile my Mercedes has 227k. Add in the fact that the FAA makes changes difficult to certify, and you've got the same status quo that dates back to when our planes were built in the first place. Ultimately cylinder reliability isn't a whole ton different than it was 50 years ago.
When you compare to the reliability of our cars today, yes, that's abysmal. When you compare it to the reliability of cars 50 years ago, it's pretty comparable.
The market has also shown that many care about price more than longevity. Just take a look at Lycomings. Factory new Lycoming cylinders almost universally last to TBO. But they cost a bit more, so a lot of people will go aftermarket.
I arrive at the same place you do, but from a different direction. For me, the value added to spending a new auto purchase's worth on these engines, considering the "flip a coin" variance in outcomes already highlighted by @Ted DuPuis , is simply just not there for me. This is more so when you account for my lack of resale consideration when I make maintenance decisions and on behalf of my family.
This is one place where I disagree with the moniker of you get what you pay for. In general I don't see people getting their moneys worth on 2018 price indexed engine reman/OH, especially in the continental side. I just don't. I've flown aggressively post tbo and I've heard enough nightmare stories from the infant mortality crowd to undergo that level of expense for such little upside (resale). I'm not swayed by the safety argument; I think many on this hobby are scaredy cats and incur placebo costs in order participate. Nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't make the premium universally valuable.
Furthermore, given the low utilization rate I incur, its more of a disincentive, given the highly time perishable nature to these contraptions in low use environment. Revenue operation? Yeah I'd do it then and pass the cost to the airline dreamers.
I think I'd be more likely to swap the betraying engine for another used engine and bolt on, than go for 2018 PRICED retail engine work. A 30+ horsepower conversion would probably be another exception I'd make to my argument.
Cylinders are a joke. They're pretty much considered consumables at this point in my tenure in this hobby. As such I'd never buy those new, which drive me further away from bottom end overhauls by proxy.
I hear ya, but conti engines and cylinders are generally as or more expensive than Lycos of the same power rating (with some exceptions on the lyco angle valve side) and look at the longevity delta. So I fail to see the correlation of paying a premium for what you aptly pointed out, is in the end a 1950s tractor engine with corresponding frozen reliability.
Anyone had experience with G&N in Indiana?