Username Protected wrote:
Just my personal opinion
I wouldn't touch the australian engine. If you have me the plane with it i would throw away the engine and replace it with a rotax or VW-derivative.
Most of these things have a VW based engine because the rotax is $£€
nothing wrong with the VW based engine, I've flown behind one and will do so again. BUT i would strongly suggest a conventional carburetor. There are a lot of goofy fuel systems being run on VW engines and not surprisingly, fuel system problems account for most of the engine issues you hear about on these little planes. The carb you see great plains selling looks just like a farmall tractor carb. I would stick with something along those lines.
My personal opinion:
Sonex has great flying, very stout airframes coupled with not so great engines (VW conversion), and are very economical to get into. Vans has great flying, stout airframes with great engines (traditional aviation engines), but are pretty expensive.
I personally don't like VW conversions, so I consider them to be least desirable on an experimental. It seems the VW guys are constantly tweaking and tinkering and my perception is that VW conversions are not as reliable. I think some of the Corvair conversions are better engines than the VW. Next are Jabiru and Camit (although Camit went belly up), I would prefer one of these to a VW. Next up the hierarchy would be a Rotax. I had a Rotax in a Zenith 701 and it just ran and ran without any problems at all. I also put a Rotax into the Sonex Onex that I built and I am currently at the point of doing taxi tests but I have not yet done the first flight. The Rotax is running smooth and strong right out of the box. A traditional aviation engine would be too heavy for a Sonex, so they are not an option.
So to summarize my biased and prejudiced opinion:
VW, no thanks
Corvair, no thanks
Camit, no thanks
Jabiru, mmm, closer but no thanks
Rotax, yes
Lycoming, yes if it was lighter
One other thing to consider, the Sonex being considered by OP has a new engine installed. This would require the experimental to go back into what is called Phase One testing, where you are limited to a small geographic area for flying for 40 hours.
