On Nov 13, 9:53 am, Alan Browne
wrote:
I was speaking with a somewhat smug fellow the other day who claimed
older C-182's (1968 that I'm looking at) had inefficient wings and that
the Continental would not make it to 1500 hours; 1300 if I'm lucky.

I've owned a 1968 L model since 1987. I got 2475 hours on the engine's
first run, 2100 hours on the second run. I'm on the third run on the
same bottom end with new cylinders. Most of the fuel has been auto
gas.

Mine has a Horton stol kit, which added the cuffed wing leading edge
which came standard in the later models. The Horton kit also includes
drooped tips, stall fences, aileron gap seals (you dont want flap gap
seals) and stall initiator blades at the inboard end. If I got one w/o
the stol kit today, I would probably add VGs instead of the cuff. The
unmodified older wing gives more speed (higher efficiency) compared to
the stol kit. The place where the stol kit adds benefit is slow speed
handling and stall speed.

I prefer the mid sixties to mid seventies models. The early ones have
a much smaller cabin. The later ones have wet wings (pain in the ass
to reseal), 28V electrics, and Lycoming engines, none of which I
like...