Fifi flies again!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roger, Roger
  • Start date Start date
mshunter said:
Thats why you buy a run out one, and take it to a reputiable machine shop that doesn't necessarily specalize in airplane engines. I'm not knocking airplane machine shops, but they usually won't touch am emgine that has been modified. But, take it to a good auto machine shop, and have everything balanced. Then get some good cyls., and call up crane with some flow numbers, and rpm expectations and have them grind you a cam. Make sure you use roller lifters, and then do some roller lifters, etc. I bet you could get 1000 reliable turbo'ed horsepower out of one.

Or you could just go to TRACE and meet Waco's needs. It may not be a v-12, but it's still a v motor. Put a turbo on that thing, or maybey a few, and see what you get.

http://www.traceengines.com/
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Falconer V-12 ;)
 
mshunter said:
Thats why you buy a run out one, and take it to a reputiable machine shop that doesn't necessarily specalize in airplane engines. I'm not knocking airplane machine shops, but they usually won't touch am emgine that has been modified. But, take it to a good auto machine shop, and have everything balanced. Then get some good cyls., and call up crane with some flow numbers, and rpm expectations and have them grind you a cam. Make sure you use roller lifters, and then do some roller lifters, etc. I bet you could get 1000 reliable turbo'ed horsepower out of one.

Or you could just go to TRACE and meet Waco's needs. It may not be a v-12, but it's still a v motor. Put a turbo on that thing, or maybey a few, and see what you get.

http://www.traceengines.com/
Click to expand...

That is awesome - but in looking at it the dry-weight was listed at 750 lbs. The IO-720 weighs right around 600 lbs. Obviously HHP to weight is awesome (TRACE at 600, IO-720 at 400) but I wonder how much lead they had to put in the tail of that Air Tractor to make it balance? If they could get this thing lighter it'd be awesome. Or, you could put some turbos on it, get it to around 1200HP+ and then we'd have a racer. What about the Falconer engine in the Thunder Mustang - what do you think about that?

EDIT: I've heard the Falconer engine was a POS, but it was second hand - interested in your thoughts.
EDIT 2: Never mind on the Air Tractor - if it was a 401 AT on the website, then they pulled the 800 lb R-1340 off and saved weight, or maybe needed a longer engine mount. If it were a 402 they pulled a PT-6 out (350lbs) so that would have been a real change.
 
Back to the original topic, it appears that FiFi is having some difficulty with one of the engines after the test flights and is back to being earth-bound for the time being.
 
WacoFan said:
EDIT: I've heard the Falconer engine was a POS, but it was second hand - interested in your thoughts.
Click to expand...


I have heard that the Falconer is a POS too. Relentless is supposed to debut the Trace engine at Reno this year IIRC. We'll see how it does.
 
mshunter said:
Bumer. Any word on what's wrong? Making metal again?
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Not certain -- a friend of mine who is working on her said something to the effect of, "she's a 65 year old lady who just had her knees, hips, and heart replaced...she'll need some time to recover and work out the problems."
 
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