Jgibson wrote:The 'block' issue I understand, however exactly what is new, refurbished, re-used, inspected from the original salvage yard engine? I like the engine and concept, BUT: nowhere in their glitzy sales brochures (that I can find at least and from information I tried to glean at Oshkosh) are any other parts mentioned. Correct, in that a 'fender bender' engine would probably be a great candidate for a build up.
But an engine involved in a rollover or other occurance that starves the cranks and bearings before the fuel pump rollover cutout happens would not. So the question again is: are they being rebuilt? Which parts are re-used or replaced? And one more important question: who and which machine shop is actually doing the work?
We're all aware of Honda quality in everything they build. And we're all aware of Suburu's same quality of original build. AND I think we're all aware of how that build quality translated to aircraft use when promoted and sold by the same vendor.
I've spoken with a builder who has used two of these: one in a Zenith 750 and the other in his Zenith 650 and he absolutely loves them both. But even he couldn't trace the parts used in the build or the actual hands-on builder.
As I said before: I have absolutely no stake in either the success or failure of the engine and love the concept of a quality, cheaper, robust automotive engine that can be successfully converted for aircraft use. But I certainly want to be able to evaluate the experience of the actual builder (rather than the salesman) and know exactly what new parts are being used in those rebuilds.
You will find that all of these questions have been asked before, there was a very active thread on this forum about the Viking engine a few years ago that questioned all of these issues (
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=63&hilit=viking) and the same has happened on various other forums, however you will find little answers to your questions.
I was a big skeptic of the Viking engine myself, mainly because of Jan's history, however, Viking has been around for quite some time now and some of the engines out there have significant time on them, very little issues have presented themselves so far. I believe Jan has proven a lot of us wrong, including myself, and I think he has a competitive reliable product now.
The main issue with Viking early on it seemed was similar to what was happening with his previous Subaru project, engines were not delivered on time, sometimes up to a year late, parts were missing to be delivered later etc. All of this was a repeat of what was happening before with the Subaru conversions,
That seems to have been resolved now unless he has gotten better at silencing customers but I don't believe that's the case, there are too many Viking success stories coming out now.
From what I can see on the forums etc., I still don't like the way Jan deals with (potential) customers sometimes and certainly not with critics. I don't think he's a very good business man from that respect and in my opinion he would do good getting a professional to do the PR stuff for him so he can run the company from the background and do the technical stuff which is what he seems to be good at.
Anyway, it is good to see he's being more and more successful. Even if you'd never buy a Viking yourself, just having it out there at the price it's at will eventually drive the others to re-think their pricing as they will have to come to terms with the fact that they just can't beat him purely on technical/reliability/historical arguments anymore.
Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2016 11:11 am