A couple of days ago I was talking cars with a co-worker. He started talking about the big-block Chevy engine. He claims his old POS Suberban has 495 horsepower and it’s STOCK! He then told me about a buddy who owns a real P-51 Mustang. The guy needed a new engine so he contacted Rolls-Royce. They gave him a quote of $30,000. WAY TOO EXPESIVE! So, of course, the guy uses a supercharged Chevy 502ci V-8.
Now, I’m no P-51 guru, BUT, I know that an overhaul of a Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12 is a lot more than $30,000.
The Merlin is long out of production.
A car engine is not an aircraft engine. The loads imposed by that heavy prop could break an automotive crankshaft. Not to mention that a hot rod 502ci V-8 could not reliably make the same HP as a stock Merlin.
Blah! I’m surrounded by armchair experts. They always have crazy stories. You should hear one guy’s “hovertank” theories.:rolleyes:
You’re pretty perspicacious. I’ve put two engines in Mooneys – a TSIO-360 (turbocharged, not supercharged) from Continental is $32K and that’s a lowly 6-cylinder engine. Before installation.
Co-worker’s a bullshirter. Compare the weight. Not to mention what the FAA would have to say about his field replacement.
Aircraft engines are built with dual magnetos. Just like Chevys – ha!
What other differences? Does a Chevy V-8 come with a prop governor? What about the accessories (like say the supercharger and alternator drive)? On a Chevy V-8, what happens if the oil scavenge pump fails – oh, say it doesn’t have one? (On an aircraft engine it’s a fail-safe that opens the prop governor full.)
Of course Chevy’s come with the engine baffling necessary to keep it cool.
Of course the mounting brackets were a cinch too. . .
Somebody who REALLY knows aircraft engines can add to the list.
Is he trying to claim that the supercharger makes up for the Chevy being one-third the displacement of the Rolls Royce engine? That would be hard to do, since the Merlin was also supercharged.
Here’s an article about the history of Suburbans. The current model seems to be the most powerful engine ever offered at 340 hp (the Vortec 8100 V8, an option on the Suburban 2500).
I’ll chime in with the opinion that your friend is a BS artist, and not even a good one.
**Our twin Cessna here at work has a couple of GTSIO-520s on it. They are roughly $50,000 apiece. I would suspect that someone wealthy enough to own a flyable P-51 would not even flinch at a $30,000 repair bill.
**I have seen some P-51 replica experimentals that use big block Chevys. I would have a hard time imagining someone with a real P-51 bolting a Chevy to it. Thats a tiny, tiny, engine for an airplane that size. Not to mention all the problems with cooling, the need for a reduction gearbox, etc.
**I am not a P-51 guru either, but judging just from what GA stuff costs, I doubt you could get any one major component of that engine for less than $30k
This page says that an overhauled Merlin is going to cost you $50,000. A brand new one is almost certainly more, but I can’t seem to find it.
I am betting that if the story isn’t complete BS, the wrong detail was that it was a real P-51. More than likely it was one of the aforementioned scale experimental replicas.
[li] You cannot operate an automotive engine at any major angle, and upside down is impossible. It uses gravity to drain oil back into the oil pan. No oil, no motor. Not for long.[/li]
[li] I have heard about a new, special edition Suburban pushing 500 HP with a supercharger. A reviewer drove one in a car show not long ago…[/li]
[li]Cores are EXTREMELY hard to come by for the Merlin V12 wartime engines. You don’t just find them lying around neighborhood junkyards! I have seen one of them NOT in a museum or fly-in, and that was only due to the fact that my Grandfather’s job in WW2 was rebuilding the damned things once they got shot up, and getting the planes back in the air. He worked on one of them in the late Sixties for someone restoring a P-51D.[/li]
[li]Since the P-51 Mustangs, especially the “D” models are VERY rare, and sell for [Dr Evil] 1 to 3 Million Dollars [/Dr. Evil], this guy has to be QUITE rich to own one. You average millionaire with a measly 10 Mil doesn’t own them…[/li]
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Actually, I think there are more P-51Ds than the other (earlier) models; so you’re more likely to find one of those than a A (Allison-powered), B or C.
The question of buying a P-51 came up in General Questions about a month ago. I checked barnstomers.com, and they had a fully-restored P-51D for $1.5 million.
I’ve come across of few BS artists like this once in a while, usually in the motorcycle circles. I horde/own/ride Yamaha RZ 350’s and there is always someone who claims to have had/knows someone who has one that puts out XX horsepower and goes XXX miles an hour!!
Only once or twice have the X’s been anything reasonable, and both times the guy was sitting on the bike and the claim could be disputed or proven.
True, you can get incredible power out of a two-stroke twin, but lets confine our claims to the real world.
The more I drink, the deeper the Bullshit gets!
As for the P-51: There was a rich rancher-guy in my area that had a D model. He augered it into the side of a mountain a while back. What a waste of a beautiful aircraft.
Fagjunk Theology: Not just for sodomite propagandists anymore.
Most recip GA aircraft engines have this limitation too. It’s not that bad unless you want to do some zero or negative G stuff. You can roll a 172 into a 60 degree bank and the oil stays nice and level with respect to the pan. Just keep the ball centered.
