Superior builds souped-up O-390's for sale to the Experimental market. They are brand new engines with non-certified improvements added, like roller lifters and a slightly different cam, if I remember correctly. You can also order them with aftermarket electronic ignition and fuel injection installed. Superior used to sell direct to the public, and you could attend their "build school" in Texas and help or watch your engine being assembled.

I don't think they do this anymore because of sales tax issues. Now their engines are sold through only a few dealers around the country.

My question is... does anyone know of any other companies that offer this improved O-390 package? Looking for 200 hp options and I like the 4-cylinder Lycoming design. XP claims 230hp for their Xp408, and 218hp for the low compression model that can burn mogas. I'm fine with an even 200hp if it can be found. I've read stories on the vansairforce site about guys getting 200+ out of their O-360s. I know some O-360s are design for 200hp output. What exactly is different between the A1A and B2B, etc?

Also am aware of AeroSport Power in BC, Canada: http://www.aerosportpower.com/375.html

This is for a 4-seat bushplane that I am designing that I would like to bring in under 1200lbs empty. I am trying to maximize power-to-weight without moving up into the 6-cylinder models, as well as add some features to modernize the engine that can't be done on certified models. Thanks.

This doesnt cover the O-390, but is a well written description of the O320/O360 lycs.
Not sure how to post a live link.

http://www.seqair.com/skunkworks/Notes/61003Engines.pdf

While you're there, check out the home page of Sequoia Aircraft.

That is a great link, Pete. Thank you very much. There's all sorts of stuff in that PDF that I wasn't aware of.

The last time I spoke with a Superior rep. was by phone while he was at Oshkosh 2011. They had focused the first year of their come back on the parts business that built the company. The second priority was to again begin building complete engines for sale to the experimental market. That was also underway. They were not yet allocating resources to restart the customer engine build program but said they would restart that also as the market improved and also had plans to start the R&D for the next generation of Superior engines.
Their 408 is very expensive and for special applications. (Helicopters and those with deep pockets.)

This is from my owner manual for the XP-O-360 Plus
First digit of designation indicates:
A=Fixed Pitch, Thin wall front main
B=Constant Speed, Thin wall front main
C=Fixed Pitch Heavy wall front main
D=Constant Speed, Heavy wall front main
E=Fixed Pitch, Solid front main

Second Digit: Engine mount type
1=#1Dynofocal Mount
2=#2Dynafocal Mount
#3=Conical Mount

Third Digit: Accessory Package
A=Slick Magneto with Precision Carb. or Precision Fuel Injection
B=Unison LASAR with Precision Carb. or Injection
C=Lightspeed EIS with Precision Carb or Injection
D=Slick Mags Ellison Throttle Body or Airflow Performance Injected
E=Unison LASAR Ellison Throttle Body or Airflow P.I.
F=Lightspeed EIS Ellison Throttle Body or Airflow P.I.

Fourth Digit: Induction System
None= Updraft
A=Lightweight Cold-Air Front mount Induction (Fuel Injected only)
B=Lightweight Cold-Air Rear mount Induction (Fuel Injected only)

Fifth Digit: Power Rating
1= 7:1 Compression 150Hp if 320 or 7.2:1 170Hp if 360
2= 8.5:1 Compression 160hp if 320 or 8.5:1 180Hp if 360
3= 9:1 Compression 165 if 320 or 185Hp if 360

A1A is then Fixed pitch, Thin wall front main #1Dynafocal mount Slick Mags
B2B is Constant Speed, Thin wall front main, Unison LASAR with Precision Carbureted or Precision Fuel Injection if an IO-360

Some RV's here use the 0-360 with polished ports and flow matching to get an additional 4-5hp/cylinder creating 200hp and then go to 10:1 pistons for another 30hp. Not just any shop should do the port and polish. Results vary from shop to shop. The 10:1 gets the most consistent bump from 180 up to 210hp. A good shop will accomodate that extra with improved breathing though. I used a reputable shop by the name of Ly-Con at Visallia Calif. They built 13 of 15 Red Bull Racers engines and are port and polishing new Scouts and Huskies right from the factory with good results.

A lot of good info here.
http://www.supercub.org/forum/showthrea ... ng+engines

A guy at my airport put an Aerosport Power (aka "Bart") 360 in his GlasStar when he first built it. A couple years later, when Bart's 375 came out he upgraded to it. He's had a couple ignition issues, both with the mag & the elecronic, but he loves the engine. Only 15 more ci than the 360 but he said it's a lot more power than before.
Personally if you're not gonna go with the familiar old 320 or 360, seems like the 390 would be the way to go. Like they say, "There's no substitute for cubic inches".

Titan makes several high performance engines including a 400 ci. http://www.eci.aero/ Also keep an eye on the salvage companies for an easy over haul. You could also go with a diesel 200 hp engine. http://www.deltahawkengines.com/

Just a few I know.

kneel wrote: You could also go with a diesel 200 hp engine. http://www.deltahawkengines.com/

Just a few I know.

Hmm... 69,500 smackers for an engine that has not been shipped to ANYONE yet... No proven factory support in case it blows up and at least another dozen reasons to not be the first idiot to R&D the product in any airframe...

http://www.deltahawkengines.com/Firewall%20prices.shtml

Lycon do CNC porting for the 360 parallel valve engines giving you around 195hp from a 180. Mogas is difficult above 8.5:1.

SDS (www.sdsefi.com) and Fly EFII (www.efii.com) both do electronic fuel injection for Lycomings. I believe the EFII setup uses an SDS computer but don't quote me on that.

Anyway, you'll pick up a few hp with EFI and get rid of all the cylinder wall wash of uneven carbed mixtures etc. Longer TBO and despite the nay-sayers, I'd rather put my family behind a well sorted EFI engine than a carb & mag.

If you're sticking with experimental, you may as well do it well.

Sorry, forgot to mention, both SDS and Deltahawk have pretty extensive experience in the UAV market. Non certified but proves the concept and reliability.

I talked to Hatches when I was going to try and get more HP out of my O-360c1a. Here is what I came away with, they have a dyno and would take brand new factory Lycoming engines and run them on the dyno to get a base line before they did any tuning. Brand new out of the box they would see178-182 hp, they then did port and polishing and flow match which would yield around 20% better flow on their test equipment, this only equals around 1.5 hp per cylinder or 6 hp when they put the engine back on the dyno. Then they started upping the compression and with 9.5 to 1 they would see around 8 hp gain 10.5 to 1 around 15 hp gain. Then they would do exhaust, fuel etc., I can't remember the order they did all this but the biggest bang for the buck was compression. The port and polish and flow match was minimal, these engines just don't turn the RPM's to take advantage of it. He told me he was not trying to talk me out of it but said that there is no way to get 20hp from port and polish on a 4 cylinder Lycoming that he has numbers for many engines that it does not support that 20hp number.

I did the 10.5-1, exhaust and a different propeller. I went from a static pull of 650 pounds to 805 pounds with those changes.
I did a pull before I changed the pistons and it only got me around 55 pounds of extra thrust. The biggest game changer was the propeller, I personally think the propeller is more important then the HP.

Mauleguy wrote:I did a pull before I changed the pistons and it only got me around 55 pounds of extra thrust. The biggest game changer was the propeller, I personally think the propeller is more important then the HP.

Nothing beats first hand experience.
May I ask which prop you're using, Mr. Mauleguy?

To the OP - you can get detuned -540 Lyc's which take the cheaper Mogas, at about 210hp, if you can deal with the extra weight. But I'm guessing you're not after a thirstier & heavier 6 cylinder.

If you don't have the prop to take advantage of the extra (gain) then there is no point. On exhaust systems, you don't actually increase the net over the original engine rating. The best you hope for is to regain lost efficiency and flow from a badly designed original system that has taken the 180 down to lower hp. This is what I am told by Larry Vetterman here in SD. He is very experienced and respected. For the port and polish buffs there are as many different outcomes as there are shops trying it. It is an art in itself to it do well manually. It can also be done robotically with a little higher net gain. Ly-Con, Visallia Calif. told me 4-5/cylinder manually and 6/cylinder robotically. This is with flow matching, and the shop comes highly recommended.

I run a Penn Yen aero IO-390 with 88'' MT prop on my tundra... It is a spectacular combo, 250 hrs on it.

Cheers, J-M

I originally had the 1P23584/42, my best pulls are from a 1A200DFA90/32. The 90" is a propeller just for take off performance.

I guess I am skeptical of the 4-5 hp per cylinder because the guys at Hatches showed me the test equipment they used along with reasons it just does not pencil out to some of the shops out there claiming 5hp per cylinder. This company could have just told me what I wanted to hear because that is the number I took to them (5hp per cylinder) but instead they told me what I would actually see if they dyno'ed the engine when they were finished. The 5 hp per cylinder would have to equal like 100% better flow is what they said and that is impossible.

If I was paying to have an engine shop do everything they could to squeeze more power out of the engine I would have them port and polish with flow matching even if it was only 6 more hp. At the time I was doing my top overhaul I was on a budget and I think they wanted 2000.00 dollars for 6 hp so I decided it was not worth the dollars. I did the new Titan steel barrel cylinder with forged 10.5-1 pistons that had ceramic domes and teflon skirts, that cost around 6000.00 for me to do it myself. I bought my 90 propeller off Barnstormers for 600.00 and figure I got around a 100 pounds of extra thrust for that 600.00, by far the cheapest performance gain I have ever realized with an airplane.

I had been told the same thing about exhaust but then you have other companies claiming 10-20hp, I did not do a pull test after I did just the exhaust so I have no data. What I did see is my exhaust gas temperature go down by almost 75 degrees. I went from factory Maule exhaust to a system made from cnc mandrel bent 316SS with a good flow, I think it is 1.750 instead of the stock size of 1.500 off the cylinders so there is a lot less reduction off the exhaust outlet. Plus I don't have to repair it every 100 hours.

The value of a port job (not polish, except exhaust) and flow balance is not just about power. Balancing EGTs allows more accurate leaning for better economy. This also reduces cylinder wall wash thereby reducing wear and extending TBO.

Economy can be turned into power or simply used to replicate performance at lower running cost.

Another source of performance is a decent balance. Lycoming's specs call for a 14 gram balance across pistons (or something equally bad) which is the equivalent of cutting a small chunk of the end of one prop. Same for the crank.

Inbalance in an engine causes bearing loads to fluctuate wildly and this increases friction and oil heating. A good balance/blueprint (<1 gram for pistons/rods and crank) combined with flow matched heads results in a much smoother running. Result: more power or better economy, your choice.

It's not a Lycoming but just modifying and balancing the intake on my Honda VFR750 bought me 7 hp at the rear wheel. Ported heads and an internal blueprint/balance is worth 20hp on the same engine (haven't done it yet but its on the 'to do' list).

Careful engine work by someone who understands the art (I'm an amateur compared to Tony Scott (Honda V4s) or Lycon (Lycosaurus aero engs)), is worth its weight in gold.

But the point about the prop is very much solid. A beautiful engine will pull like a lame dog with the wrong prop. A tired old wheezing banger with the right prop will pull like a champ (no pun intended).

Thanks to all who replied to this thread. I am still on the hunt for an engine and have not decided between some sort of overbored or stroked 4-cylinder, and just a good old O-540 platform. I really want to save weight but still come in at that 220hp mark, but the O-540 definitely takes the weight up to the 400 lb mark.

This looks cool http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unMh_dkqaHg but that price!

Do you think it depends on how a pilot would use the aircraft? For instance how heavy you would operate? That seems obvious, but i think if you want Mauleguy type performance, you plan to be alone in the aircraft as light as possible with a big prop (O-360), or you carry the whole family with extra ponies and just live with the heavier empty weight (O-540). I do plan to use a CS prop, likely a composite from the lilkes of Whirlwind.

When I had my O-360 engine built for my P172D, I asked about improving its nominal 180 hp. My engine guy said, "Well, it's a certificated engine, so there's only so much we can do, but yeah." He ported, polished, all within limits, but the big thing he did was balancing. Hard to say how it compares to a stock O-360, but it certainly has plenty of power, even in our somewhat rarified air in Colorado. I think it compares very favorably with a 172XP of 195 hp.

I have had over-heating problems, but those seem to be cured now, since we changed the timing to 20 BTDC from 25 BTDC, and I don't notice any less power. That was a couple of months ago. The first time I needed all the power it would put out after changing the timing was to Marble a couple of weeks ago, and there is no doubt that changing the timing did not adversely affect power. Take off from Marble with a calculated DA of 10,200' was normal and returning from Marble Sunday afternoon at 14,000', I calculated the DA at 16,000'. While it took awhile to get there, it was a positive rate of climb all the way, and no difficulty maintaining that altitude. My load wasn't gross, but close enough--me, Molly dog, and my "glamping" equipment (I don't travel lightly or camp spartanly), and something more than half tanks at that point. I had taken off from GXY with full tanks, so I'd burned off roughly 20 gallons by the time I was climbing over Eagle on the return.

I don't think much more could be tweaked out of my engine, and it wouldn't quite meet your needs, but I'm satisfied with it.

Cary

Backcountry Tundra wrote:I run a Penn Yen aero IO-390 with 88'' MT prop on my tundra... It is a spectacular combo, 250 hrs on it.

Cheers, J-M

This is a relevant thread for me. For the 4-place Bearhawk I've come to the conclusion that nothing beats the simplicity of a carburetor and a low compression setup for running auto gas. Is running the 390 with fuel injection and 100LL requirement worth the weight savings? A 540 weighs in around 390 lbs at the lightest, but even with the carbureted sloppy version you can eek out 250 hp with prop setup.

Zane, I wonder if you set up an IO-390 good if youd need to run avgas. In talking with the guys at dream aircraft, they have heard of their planes flying lots with the same engine using electric ignition on Mogas.