"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com...

Do what thou wilt.

Apparently the current US distributors are not the problem, but rather
a previous one. I remember very well a post on Usenet about a guy who
bought an engine overseas, before a US dealer existed. When one was
appointed, he refused to sell the guy any parts to punish him for
buying it "around him", even though he wasn't the dealer then, and the
works refused to ship him parts because there was a dealer in the US!
However I am unable to find that post.


That story is about as old as those Lyco's your referred to. Not surprised
you can't find it, it predates even Google..

So you decide to judge an engine and/or distributor based on a single
occurrance of a bad business transaction of over 5 years ago, where someone
decided to save a few pennies by grey importing an engine and then didn't
get the service he desired from the locally assigned distributor.
This guys has in effect become his own distributor and having to buy his
spare parts directly from the factory serves him right. The local
distributor didn't punish him, he probably didn't want the responsibility
for delivering parts to an engine of unknown origin/history and having to
deal with a widow on his doorstep if things went wrong.

Still, the Jabiru is an expensive noncertificated engine, with only
one parts line, and it turns a small prop fast. In that it combines the
lesserly-desirable aspects of aircraft engines and non-aircraft engines.

The average 3300 runs at ~2700 rpm cruise speed with a 68" prop. Direct
drive, so no redrive in between that can fail. Redline at 3300 rpm. How much
different is that from a Lyco? And how did you manage to put a Rotax as well
as Subaru/Corvair/whatever car conversion at 5000+ rpm and a heavy,
error-prone redrive in the "more desirable aspects" category of engines??

Rob