Real World Solutions, Inc

Home of RA Classic Apex Seals and RA Super Seals

Editorial: Where are all those Subarus?

By Tracy Crook. Originally published in Rotary Aviation News , Issue 2, 1996

I’m still recovering from Sun N’ Fun but it was a great week and provided a lot of clues as to the direction that the auto conversion movement is taking. It is generally accepted that the Subaru is the leading contender on the conversion scene. This is mostly due to the coverage in aviation publications and the marketing noise from companies like NSI, Stratus and Formula Power. I should point out that my comments here are mainly addressed to the field of engines in the range of 150 - 200 hp.

I mean no criticism to these companies for advocating the Subaru, it’s a good engine, but they are not really delivering the economy possible with the auto engine. Prices for engine packages in the 160 - 200 hp range from $15 - 20K. A new or overhauled Lycoming can be purchased for this amount so I wouldn’t consider this a valid alternative. After all, it is primarily the high cost of aircraft engines which sent us in search of alternatives to begin with.

In spite of the price, there are a few who would be willing to pay in order to get the benefits of modern auto engines. Things like smoother running, lower fuel consumption, cheaper auto fuel and lower overhaul costs are as important as original price, especially if you intend to put a lot of hours on the engine. The reason these expensive alternatives don’t make sense is the fact that 95% of builders will never put more than a total of 2000 hours on their planes. A properly maintained Lycoming can be a lifetime engine for many. If the price is the same, why take the risks of developing a new engine? And yes, when you buy an auto engine package at this time, you are developing a new engine in my opinion. There has not been enough in-flight testing, at this point, for it to be otherwise.

Where are they?

Since the Subaru Legacy 2.2 L. was my second choice, I am very interested in talking to builders using it in order to compare performance against the 13B Mazda. In two years of looking, I have yet to actually see one. In an effort to find out what the story was on these firewall forward packages, I tagged along on a visit to the NSI booth at Sun N’ Fun with a friend of mine who had decided to buy one.

Bill Hughes is an RV-6 builder who is convinced of the advantages of auto conversions over the Lycoming. He liked my Mazda 13B installation but does not have the time to design and build all the things necessary to put an alternative engine on his plane. Due to the time factor, he looked at all the firewall forward offerings..

After reviewing all the available options, he chose the NSI Propulsion 180 hp package based on the Subaru Legacy as the most promising. At $18K it wasn’t cheap but he was prepared to write a check for the full amount if they could provide a list of satisfied customers. “No problem” they said, and offered the fact that they had 2.1 million dollars in orders for this engine package to prove the confidence their customers had in this engine. They showed a list of customers but on close inspection, all of them turned out to be using the smaller EA81 engine. The 1.8 L EA81 is a good engine but is only suitable for power in the range of 100 - 120 hp at best. After some pointed questioning, Bill finally got an answer as to how many 2.2L Legacy engine packages they had shipped: Zero. Draw your own conclusions.

I’m not sure what to make of it but I’ll pass on the following story for what it’s worth. I was admiring the quality, design and price (I was told it was $1600.00) of the NSI reduction drive at last year’s Sun N’ Fun when one of the people manning the booth asked if I had any questions. I told him I liked the looks of their reduction drive and asked if they had considered building a version for the Mazda rotary engine. I was told that there were too many problems with that engine and they did not want to get involved with that. I didn’t repeat the question this year but another builder did and was assured that although they did not have one on display, they had a drive system developed for the rotary. Perhaps their perception of where the market is heading is changing.

Again, this is not meant to condemn NSI or any of the other companies in this business. I just don’t think there is much of a market out there for $18,000 auto conversions. In their defense, it is very hard to make any money in a market this small.

How Small is It?

To put the market for homebuilt aircraft engines into perspective, lets look closely at the numbers. Lycoming recently threw a big party for their employees to celebrate a major milestone: the manufacture of their 50,000^th engine. That’s 50,000 engines in the entire history of the company! This is about the same as the U.S. auto industry’s weekly engine output. To put it another way, Lycoming’s gross income would not pay for the potato chip industry’s advertising budget. It’s very tough to justify building a production facility, fund marketing and advertising and expose yourself to today’s liability environment for a piece of such a small market.