Im looking for a new 182 to buy and Id love a pponk but cant find a good one right now. I have an opportunity to pickup different low time o470 engine 182. How expensive would it be to pponk a 200 hour o470? Probably not worth it
?
What other mods would you recommend to get that bird off the ground quicker? Sportsman STOL? MT Prop? There is no replacement for displacement, as they say... But I cant justify the cost of a fully overhaul to just get the extra 40hp.. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Make it light. Shed as much weight as yoy can to still he practical. Thats probably the best and cheapest mod you can do. Then fly the pants off it and learn the right technique. A stock 182 will perform very well.

Yep, good thought. Remove the back seat, maybe that MT prop to take some weight off the nose,

ington6 wrote:Yep, good thought. Remove the back seat, maybe that MT prop to take some weight off the nose,

I'm probably one of a few, but I'm personally not a fan of the MT. But yes it takes some weight off the nose. But interior, old panel stuff, old wires, all that adds up. Just working on a C182 and took 45lbs worth of old junk and wiring out of it. We could add to that number if we went at the interior, but not going there for now. This is all just out of the panel.

Power will make the nose lighter. On takeoff full power will allow the nose gear to come just off nicely for increased acceleration. That big engine will get that big wing to bring the mains off quickly. Now the nose wants to go up too quickly and we have to push, not pull, the yoke to stay down in low ground effect to accelerate quickly. Free, no modification necessary, energy there level at six inches AGL.

Now landing: If the nose is too heavy for round out and hold off, we are going too fast with too little power. That extra airspeed at zero thrust is what makes the round out and hold off necessary to begin with. So with the throttle closed it now requires quite a pull on the elevator without prop blast as in the soft field approach. So make the soft field approach with deceleration on short final to touchdown slowly and softly on the numbers with quite a bit of power. To be able to get quite a bit of power without increasing airspeed we have to slow down, which is what short field landing is all about anyway. We don't have to slow down way back there and drag it in, we just need to slow down on short final coming into ground effect (that free no modification needed energy again.)

Concentrate on the desired touchdown point the same as you do coming into a stop sign on the highway. When you get close it will appear to close with you more rapidly unless you slow down same as with your automobile. No we are not going to stop, just keep the apparent rate of closure the same as when farther back. This deceleration below 1.3 Vso on short final will cause sink requiring power to stay on glide angle. Add the necessary power to stay on glide while using the prop blasted and thus lighter elevator to slow down requiring more power, ect. ect. Touchdown will be so soft that you may not remember to close the throttle, but we need to close the throttle on touchdown.

The stock 182 will land as short as it will take off and it will get off STOL quality short using the free energy of low ground effect.

MT prop would be of great help, light and very quick acceleration, Sportsman and VGs will allow your 182 to be flying at 40 mph when light, add some weight in the cargo area, so CG is moves a bit aft.
You can do very short take offs even with the stock motor.

Ington6, watch some of motodve's videos on this site and his u-tube site and you will see that the airplane is very capable in various configurations and that his technique drives success.

A1Skinner wrote:

ington6 wrote:Yep, good thought. Remove the back seat, maybe that MT prop to take some weight off the nose,

I'm probably one of a few, but I'm personally not a fan of the MT. But yes it takes some weight off the nose. But interior, old panel stuff, old wires, all that adds up. Just working on a C182 and took 45lbs worth of old junk and wiring out of it. We could add to that number if we went at the interior, but not going there for now. This is all just out of the panel.

I'll echo what A1Skinner has said, start with the low hanging fruit and put the airframe on a diet. I'd even go so far as to reconfigure the interior to suit your intended mission i.e.: make it a combi with lighter rear bush seats. My ride isn't an big balls 182 only a simple 170 however to date I've removed close to 80 lbs of "unnecessary" and it shows. Thereafter; address low speed performance and handling, STOL cuff, Aileron fences, remove flap gap seals, add VG's (not all swear by these but they work for me). Then go spend some Loonie's (I'm Canadian) on fossil fuel and become one with the airplane; especially in the slow flight regime, get to know the "signs" of impending doom.

With that said; full disclosure, I to will eventually get under the hood. As you noted displacement is hard to argue with but most of these other "add on's" will serve to make the addition HP only that more effective. They are for the most part easily done without long periods of interruption to learn the nuances for your airplane and enjoying it along the way.

Thanks Moto 'Dave'.. Just joking... This is Worthy. You probably dont recognize because I havent changed any of my backcountry profile information in 10 years.

I'll explain my journey a bit, which has been guided by some very experienced pilots here in Idaho and on this forum.

First and foremost, and this goes without saying, but mods are no substitute for technique. Poor technique costs you more feet of runway than anything else.

Second, weight savings is often inexpensive but gets progressively more expensive the more weight you lose. Weight off the pilot is free, and pulling old cables and junk from behind the panel is relatively cheap. I lost 45lbs of of cabling and junk with little cost. I'm still working on the 20 or so on the pilot.

Next step for me is airfoil work, which based on my experience and from what I've read/been told this gives great bang for the buck on getting the airplane off the ground and into ground effect much more quickly. I'm going to go with the sportsman and VGs. Yes, VGs are controversial, but they're cheap enough and enough people claim their benefits that I'll give them a shot. My 63 has a slightly smaller elevator than the newer 182s, so if the VGs keep it working just a bit longer into the flair I'll consider it money well spent.

The last stop for me will be prop and engine, which I recognize as a boost to getting off the ground faster but mostly as an aid to climb performance at high DAs. The MT prop is reported to provide excellent performance and weight savings from the best possible location. The engine will probably be done at the same time. My engine is still very healthy at 1100 hours so I've got plenty of time to work on the other stuff first.

Like has been said already, start with losing weight and some of the less costly wing mods. A hard pulling prop is great. The 182 is a very capable plane for wheel ops, the 0-470 gives a great balance of performance and economy. After you've done all the less costly mods if you still want more, you could add Wing extensions for additional STOL capabilities, I would do that before I went looking at the big engine.