On paper sounds good to me.
More power
More TBO
Only 5 pounds heavier
About the same price as a reman Continental

Any downsides? (apart from more fuel usage)
Runs too hot? gets ice easier? finiky? reliability?

My only experience is with one on a 182. It us more susceptible to carb ice then my 180 was. And at 300 hrs since build, we found a broken intake spring. Fluke that we found it when we did, but we are debating if we need to find pull the rocker covers off every so often to check them...
Pulls hard though! The plane also has Canards and it gets off fast!

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My 180 has an O-470R with an 88 in 2-blade seaplane prop. The 182 that I fly has a Pponk and a three blade McCauley prop. The Pponk is noticeably stronger and a lot smoother, much of which is likely attributed to the 3-blade. I run the 182 around for work at 5000-9000 feet at 2000 rpm and 18 in MP and it burns 10.5-11 gph at 120 knots. Though I am not a current owner, I am an operator of both, and will definitely be upgrading to Pponk when the 470 on my 180 is up for overhaul.

I have heard that the O-470-50 is more susceptible to carb ice. I wonder if the stock carb heat installation is adequate for the Pponk? With full carb heat, the carb temp on my 470R is barely above freezing on cold days.

A mechanic that I know says that he has had significant troubles dialing carburetors after making this upgrade.

Visited Steve and actually asked him about the carb ice deal.
He said they solved that by replacing the balance tube with a different one from another model engine maybe? Dont remember exactly which one.

@A1Skinner, who did your PPonk?

motoadve wrote:Visited Steve and actually asked him about the carb ice deal.
He said they solved that by replacing the balance tube with a different one from another model engine maybe? Dont remember exactly which one.

@A1Skinner, who did your PPonk?

I'll check the log book, but I'm pretty sure Steve did it.
Not sure how the balance tube fixes carb ice?? You have the same carb on one engine as the other, and one is breathing more air. Crossover tube doesn't make it breathe less...
Not trying to bad mouth them. I would put one in my plane any day if it was certified to run moGas. They are smooth and they pull hard!

David

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A1Skinner wrote:

motoadve wrote:Visited Steve and actually asked him about the carb ice deal.
He said they solved that by replacing the balance tube with a different one from another model engine maybe? Dont remember exactly which one.

@A1Skinner, who did your PPonk?

I'll check the log book, but I'm pretty sure Steve did it.
Not sure how the balance tube fixes carb ice?? You have the same carb on one engine as the other, and one is breathing more air. Crossover tube doesn't make it breathe less...
Not trying to bad mouth them. I would put one in my plane any day if it was certified to run moGas. They are smooth and they pull hard!

David

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What Im trying to do get is users first hand experiences so when I go talk to Steve , I can ask all the questions.
How did you find about the broken spring? Made any noises, symptoms in flight?

No symptoms at all, but they used cork gaskets rocker cover gaskets when they built it so they were hardened and leaking. So I was replacing them with silicon gaskets and found the outer spring broken on the #6 intake valve. The springs used in the build are dimensionally smaller then the one the engine shop gave us to replace it with. Not sure if that's the issue, but a broken spring at 300 hrs seems weird, hence why we are debating pulling the covers off every couple hundred hrs to check them out...

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I'm on my second one. 1st one was a 470-50, 2nd used a 520 case. 2 different builders. I think they are great. And as far as the fuel burn goes, I think at the same speed, they burn a little less???. Push the black knob in, and of course it will burn more, but you are making significantly more power, and that doesn't just happen, gotta burn more gas.
I can run around 160 mph @7500', probably burnin around 12-13gph. w/26" goodyears. I'm happy with that. Take off and climb are very good.1st one had 1000 hrs. when I wrecked it. Compressions all mid 70's or better. Only issue I ever had was adjusting the float in the carb once.
My 2nd one, which i am running now has around 170 hrs. and is running great. Oil burn is minimal.
Both very smooth with a 2 bladed prop.
Gary

A couple of guys at CYNJ had trouble with the front balance tube freezing up under certain conditions and making things run rough. Tried changing the tube size which improved things a bit but not much difference. Put some of that black pipe insulation over the crossover tube and good as gold.

Best decision I made when I rebuilt my 470. Smooth, pulls hard and the fuel to performance advantage makes the little extra burn negligible. I put 400 plus hours flying the Idaho Backcountry out of Hamilton Montana on my old 470 and am happy as ever with my upgrade in HP. I loved the 470 before ugrading, it took me to some cool places. I hope to do the Big Four with my new 470-50...I have only done one of them with the new engine...Moose Creek. I want to complete the circuit and do Big Creek, Johnson Creek and I can't remember the other one.

Very Happy! No carb ice issues at all, Runs hard and strong. My average fuel burn is 11.5 - 12.5 GPH.

Am I missing something here? Crossover tube, the cooling effect happens on the inside doesn't it? Insulating would keep coolness trapped inside wouldn't it.

flyinghawkes wrote:Best decision I made when I rebuilt my 470. Smooth, pulls hard and the fuel to performance advantage makes the little extra burn negligible. I put 400 plus hours flying the Idaho Backcountry out of Hamilton Montana on my old 470 and am happy as ever with my upgrade in HP. I loved the 470 before ugrading, it took me to some cool places. I hope to do the Big Four with my new 470-50...I have only done one of them with the new engine...Moose Creek. I want to complete the circuit and do Big Creek, Johnson Creek and I can't remember the other one.

You must be thinking of Smiley Creek? You don't want to be up Smiley Creek without some power!

The insulation covered the front 3/4 of the tube and the back side was exposed to the motor. I believe the problem was caused by the cold incoming air dropping the fuel out of the vapor state and puddling in the tube more than actually icing.

motoadve wrote:On paper sounds good to me. Me too
More power Noticeably
More TBO Yep
Only 5 pounds heavier This varies wildly, but IMHO is a worthy sacrifice
About the same price as a reman Continental Mine was actually cheaper

Any downsides? (apart from more fuel usage) not in my experience, more fuel? no my experience is less
Runs too hot? gets ice easier? finiky? reliability? Heat would be an individual problem, ice as well, most Pponk builders are far meticulous than run of the mill shops or the factory. Operated by the same person this should translate to more reliability.

I ran a Pponk in a birddog. It was by far the best thing that ever happened to that airplane. I later had one built for my 180, and again, best mod on the airplane.

Steve built these, both had the balance tubes he recommended, and both could be called fridgidaires. My 180 makes ice almost on command. I know it, I own it, and I plumb don't care. Operate it accordingly and it shouldn't matter a lick to you. If you are not in the habit of being proactive with the carb heat, I would suggest a carb temp indicator, but I would consider that a small price to pay for the returns. If your normal base of operations is at or near sea level, your carb will likely be set up too lean. This is extremely common, just go in knowing and ready to mod it richer.

Off topic (sorta) but on the carb heat note ; last spring doing a cross country / BFR from Yuma to Las Vegas with a very experienced aerobatic CFI. He was perplexed by my frequent carb heat checks. I mean we were over severe desert... He didn't ding me on it, but noted it.
Later that night he sent me a link to a social media account of an aerobatic colleague of his that made a forced landing in the desert that very day in an aerobat. Cause; complacency driven flame out due to carb ice.

Do the Pponk, you'll be happy you did.

Take care, Rob

800 hours in on mine and love it. Knock on wood, but I have had zero problems. Have not had any carb ice issues either. Go Pponk no question

Akt

Motodave:

I have owned a 55 180 with a 470 and 59 180 with a PPonk 520. No comparison. It is like a different plane.

You won't regret upgrading.

Will agree with the other posts that talked about carb ice. Had almost no problems with the 470, but it is a pretty common occurrence with the 520.

Would also point out that if you do the upgrade, you will have the choice of lower and higher compression pistons. I believe the STC comes with the lower compression pistons (not sure about that, maybe some of the motorheads here can verify), but you can get paperwork from PPonk that will make it pretty easy for the higher compression pistons. I think they advertise about 15 hp difference (i.e. 265 vs. 280). I did a top overhaul and used the higher compression pistons. I honestly couldn't detect a difference in performance, but did see a significant increase in fuel consumption.

If I could go back in time, I would have left the lower compression pistons in it. Food for thought!!

Good luck with the change. I don't think you will regret it.

L

88H wrote:....I did a top overhaul and used the higher compression pistons. I honestly couldn't detect a difference in performance, but did see a significant increase in fuel consumption. If I could go back in time, I would have left the lower compression pistons in it. Food for thought!! ...

Another plus for the lower compression pistons is that thjey might make the engine more suitable for 87 octane mogas use.
Unsure if anyone's gotten any flavor of Ponk approved for it though.

Although it may not be at all applicable in this instance, the pessimist in me wants to point out that very few people will admit (even to themselves) that they are unhappy with the results after spending several thousand bucks on an upgrade.

hotrod180 wrote:Although it may not be at all applicable in this instance, the pessimist in me wants to point out that very few people will admit (even to themselves) that they are unhappy with the results after spending several thousand bucks on an upgrade.

As impractical as this addiction is, I have had no regrets about any cash that I have ever put in to flying, upgrading and feeding these wonderful machines. Horsepower in an airplane will always make me happier than large quantities of digital federal reserve notes sitting in the bank. I can't recall a single stack of cash that I have ever missed once it was gone, but a good strong engine up front is priceless!

Love mine, but it is the only engine I've ever known other than the o-360 in the 172 I trained in.

My plane is very similar to Motoadve's ('63 182F w/ MT 2 blade, Sportsman cuff, Wing-X and oversize tires .

I traded a 470-R for one of Steve's rebuilds. I had to pay for the crank upgrade like most R and S models but there was no way around that.

Smooth power but it doesn't feel uppity, like a race engine. Just steady and smooth.

I've been wary, watching for carb ice, but have never once had a problem. My home airport is 172' on the coast, so you'd think there would be plenty of opportunity for carb ice but I've never noticed any.

My carb wasn't overhauled by Steve, it was done by a company in Kamloops, BC. It came set up pretty rich, without a little leaning the carb heat makes the engine run very rough.

There is no STC for Mogas approval but according to Steve lots of guys run Mogas in theirs and he did a lot of testing using cheap 87 octane while he was applying for his STC but FAA offered him the STC the same day if he dropped the Mogas aspect so he did. I wouldn't hesitate to run Mogas in mine.