TCM, Honda Reveal More

So, you say you want a direct-drive, flat four engine that makes 225hp? That's pretty easy. Now, you also want water cooling, a 310-pound all-up installed weight (including radiators, water, etc.), and electronic engine management? That's not so easy. And you want it now? Well, that's impossible... but it won't be, forever.

The Honda-engineered Continental engine was officially revealed at Oshkosh on Wednesday, to a usually jaded group of reporters. The release was distant from the actual engine mockup, so ANN went to see the metal parts.

The engine is well-packaged; it's compact-looking and well-finished. The traditional layout looks vaguely familiar, of course; but the valve covers give this new machine a '4-cam' look. No: it has just one cam, and 16 pushrods (there are 4 valves per cylinder).

Four valves may seem like technological overkill on a 2700-rpm engine, but John Barton, TCM's Chief Technology Officer, assured us that, "there's still some useful gain" traded for that increased complexity. It also makes the combustion chamber a bit easier to package, in some ways.

The demonstrator engine has a single alternator mounted, something that wouldn't support certification of an all-electronic ignition. Mr. Barton told ANN, "We're looking at possibly putting the second alternator near the rear of the engine, so that, in the event of a belt failure, the pieces of the failed belt wouldn't get in the way of the good one." While such mechanical redundancy isn't required, it's sure nice to have...

It's not 'redundancy,' but robustness, that insures the mechanical integrity of such a powerplant; and the Honda engineers, knowing full well how much push each piston was going to produce, designed a monstrously-strong five-main-bearing case and crank setup.

The Powerlink FADEC will allow the 9.5:1 (compression ratio) engine to sip aviation gas or 92-octane mogas, or presumably a blend of the two.

Two motorcycle-style NGK spark plugs light each of cylinders in this 370-inch mill, which has completed a number of shakeout flights in the newly-painted test-sled Cesna 337. With the Honda in the nose and the reliable workhorse Continental in the back, all kinds of tests are still planned.

Certification date? Uncertain. Price? Not mentioned. Applications? Interested OEMs and select STC applications; possibly high-line Experimentals. Delivery? You guess.

Is it cool? You betcha.

FMI: www.teledyne.com