Has anyone put an aerovee on their sonerai? Would you recommend it? What difficulties did you find during installation?
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Aerovee and a Sonerai 2L
- Thread starter Tyzawe
- Start date
Chopndrag
Well-Known Member
I know a guy that is installing one on a new build. He has no issues it's just like any other vw based motor.
That's what I assumed but you don't know what you don't know. It's a big enough purchase that getting input from the hive mind seemed prudent.
An AeroVee 2180 was installed on a Sonerai II by a Sonex employee several years ago. I believe the only installation problem involved moving one of the firewall bay diagonals to clear the starter. Also, the engine mount locations had to be altered to suit the AeroVee locations. I have that mount relocation info if it’s needed.
The AeroVee 2.1 is a little bit heavier than the "EconoVee" hand prop only conversions the II's were designed around, but it's LIGHTER than any comparable electric start conversion from any other source. If you're starting from scratch, you might want to consider a "Stretch" fuselage, and adjust the fwd stretch a bit to get the W&B to come out right.
Plus, with Great Plains out of the game (Art, the most recent owner, was Called Away last year), Scott Casler (Hummel Engines) essentially a one man band, and the two principals at Revmaster never seeing 80 again (http://www.dragzine.com/features/ca...egendary-vw-icon-team-for-unique-comp-effort/ Joe Horvath was somewhere in his 70's in 2012!), Sonex/AeroVee is perhaps the best available alternative.
Scott Casler is still building Hummel engines and in my opinion his big bore VW options would be cheaper and lighter and better-suited to a non-electric, hand-prop installation than the Aerovee. He does have a lead time of several months, though.
I have an Aerovee on my Sonerai IILT project, (not yet flying). Aside from the rather poor firewall job the previous owner did (not the original builder) it looks like it should work OK. At least my predecessor was able to taxi it. This particular engine has the top mounted oil cooler. I am not worried about weight and balance at this time-there is plenty of equipment that needs to be added.
