Finally got the plane to the dock a few weeks ago. I had a new paint job this winter as well as an Airplains IO550 upgrade from Seaplanes west with ported and polished cylinders. It included the Hartzell 8468 three blade prop, and i also got the 400 lb upgross kit so I'm good now for about 1200 lbs useful on floats. The performance improvement is pretty impressive over my 0-520. I'd say my take off roll is 25-30% reduced. I also had the wing X and Sportsman before the mods so not sure what effect those mods have.

I think the break in is complete - i haven't burned any oil in a number of hours although i'm still running at a higher power setting. Running LOP is pretty neat with my JPI 930 - was running about 75F LOP the other day, cylinders were nice and cool - approx 325 and was burning about 12 gph. I have been running at higher MP's for the break-in so this is the first time i really pulley the mixture way back. High MP was yielding about 18 GPH so not wanting to do that forever

Beautiful.

I've been running up the hit count on the Seaplanes West website lately, I've probably watched their promo video 8 times.

With the porting and polishing are you over 300hp or is that the 300hp engine they advertise?

Damn that's a sweet looking plane Gear. Bet she performs awesome with those mods!
What lake are you based at?
David

albravo wrote:Beautiful.

I've been running up the hit count on the Seaplanes West website lately, I've probably watched their promo video 8 times.

With the porting and polishing are you over 300hp or is that the 300hp engine they advertise?

I am glad that I am not the only one that has watched that video at least a dozen times. It is pretty good at making me scour over Tradeaplane and Barnstormers for a solid 182.

The missus calls it "airplane porn."

Between the airplane, dock and fire pit...that sure is a nice set-up you have there!

JB

Thx guys. I'm based at Falcon Lake in the south east corner of Manitoba. It is a 300 HP rated engine before porting and polishing. They claim with the porting 330HP. 30 Hp seems a little high for porting so I'm not sure however I can tell you that my old Texas skyways was apparently 280 HP and there is no comparison between these engines. Apparently the IO550's are rated +5% / -0% so they are all 300 HP plus. My understanding is at they did dyno a few of the ported engines they did and they were reportedly at around 330HP.

Not sure how much the prop has to do with it - I went from a 8068 to a 8468. The length is the same, or possibly shorter?? But the pitch is more aggressive and I clearly have significantly more thrust.

Beautiful bird. Love that paint job!

gear wrote:
Not sure how much the prop has to do with it - I went from a 8068 to a 8468. The length is the same, or possibly shorter?? But the pitch is more aggressive and I clearly have significantly more thrust.

The first 2 numbers are the length (diameter of the prop disc), and the last two are the pitch. This means your new prop has the same pitch of 68 but each blade is 2 inches longer (4 inch larger diameter).

Nice airplane by the way!

robw56 wrote:

gear wrote:
Not sure how much the prop has to do with it - I went from a 8068 to a 8468. The length is the same, or possibly shorter?? But the pitch is more aggressive and I clearly have significantly more thrust.

The first 2 numbers are the length (diameter of the prop disc), and the last two are the pitch. This means your new prop has the same pitch of 68 but each blade is 2 inches longer (4 inch larger diameter).

Nice airplane by the way!

Hmm - I've always wondered about that. I could swear the the pitch specs were different but I guess not.