Recommendations for Engine Overhaul Shops?

[M20TN_Driver]

Hi Folks.  I'm about 2100hrs on my engine.  Seems fine, burns maybe a qt every 4-5 hours but good compressions, not making metal.  Essentially no issues.  

That being said, I think it is time to start looking for overhaul shops.  I don't think my pocket could afford the factory new options as the TSIO 550G is hovering around $115k--crazy numbers...

So I think I am heading the overhaul route and was looking for whatever wisdom/recommendations the group might share.

[carusoam]

When I had my IO550 OH’d… (a decade plus ago)

I compared shops against the factory reman route…

Went reman, and bumped from 280 to 310hp at the same time…

Also selected the (N) cylinders for weight reduction off the nose….

Read up on (N) cylinders… there have been some known to crack….

Best regards,

-a-

[ArtVandelay]

Probably should say where you are to limit responses.

[M20TN_Driver]

Thanks. I’m in Reno NV but I’m not necessarily limiting to this geography for the overhaul although it would be nice to have something close. 

[Niko182]

When the time comes, im going to gann. I think @GeeBee has had his engines done there. He can probably give you a pirep.

[GeeBee]

I had an O-320B2 done at Gann. Purred like a kitten, on the dyno turned 173hp even though rated at 160. I sold the airplane and the new owners report it is strong.

I also had a friend with a Baron that had both engines done at Gann. They are running really good.

[daytonabch04]

My TIO-540 is currently at Mena Aircraft Engines.  Found their OH prices to be competitive and that's where Maxwell suggested it to go...so far, so good, but still waiting it to return...

[carusoam]

Things are getting super challenging….

1) Price

2) Time value of money (aka inflation)

3) Delivery (aka how long it actually takes, some parts are hard to come by)

4) Scheduling (good shops have a long line)

 

And… there is still discussions on if/when a recession is here or not… 

Mooney Economy 101….

Best regards,

-a-

[Will.iam]

On 11/29/2022 at 7:01 AM, GeeBee said:

I had an O-320B2 done at Gann. Purred like a kitten, on the dyno turned 173hp even though rated at 160. I sold the airplane and the new owners report it is strong.

I also had a friend with a Baron that had both engines done at Gann. They are running really good.

I heard gann is only focusing on lycoming engines for now with their backlog. 

[GeeBee]

According to Carlus, with Continental parts prices and the pricing they offer on factory remans, it is difficult to compete with a Continental reman except for the 4 cylinder models and the old O-300. He will do Continentals but it will not be cheaper than a factory unit, but I guarantee you it will run better, because he balances them tighter and they breathe better. 

[kris_adams]

Very happy with my Gann "performance" engine as well. -K

[keithmiller]

Have you checked with continental motors in Alabama ? Was down there in October at there FBO engine shop for some tuning on my acclaim . Impressive shop 

[KSMooniac]

Powermasters in Tulsa has a great reputation with the big Continentals.

My local-ish engine shop, Midwest Aircraft, in Newton, KS has been very good for me and at least one other member here that I know of.  Smaller shop, been around forever, and might be a quicker turn than others, assuming adequate parts are available.

[M20TN_Driver]

The shops I have checked with are:  Pinnacle (Alabama) quoted $86k for basic overhaul.  I don't believe this included balancing.

I talked to both Western Skyways and Victor but I need to go back to both of them and get a requote as the prices seem to have almost doubled.  Factory new is ~$115-$120K not including removal and re-install and all the other goodies you would want to do like new engine mounts, hoses, etc.

At this rate, I am just going to continue to fly the plane and manage the oil analysis and engine data aggressively with Savvy.  I keep hearing stories of folks flying these things 2800+hrs without issue.  As I had said--there is no issues with the engine currently. I have good compressions and maybe slightly higher than average oil consumption, but I haven't verified that either.  Seems like many of the TSIO550 burn a qt every 4-5 hrs.  Love to get some opinions on that.

This past year I circumnavigated the US in 3 weeks and 30 hours of flight time.  Flew to Mexico twice.  Numerous other local flights over mountainous terrain (I live in the Sierras).  100+ hours of flying and not a single mechanical problem from the engine.  Not even a squawk.  Not ONE.  Gives me confidence, but also makes me keep thinking about when and if the other shoe is going to fall.

If money was free, I'd have Victor do his worst to my pocketbook and call it a day!

[KSMooniac]

Why Victor?  I haven't heard of them in years on the forums.

Having said that, I think you're on a good path...keep flying!  4 hours/quart is perfectly fine IMO for an engine with that time.  You might need to overhaul/replace accessories on condition, but that doesn't mean you need to blow the engine apart.  Regular use is the best medicine.

[exM20K]

I believe the CMI Factory overhaul includes all accessories, drives, turbos, and exhausts.  Quotes for field overhauls may not.

in this environment, I’d be more concerned with down time than 10AMU, and I doubt the delta, apples to apples, is that much.  Now, if you o/h the turbos and put a new exhaust on 100 hours ago, that’s a different calculation.

I wouldn’t murder a working engine because of the time on the tach.

-dan (1450 TT and fingers crossed)

Edited December 10, 2022 by exM20K

[Schllc]

On 12/9/2022 at 5:42 PM, M20TN_Driver said:

Seems like many of the TSIO550 burn a qt every 4-5 hrs.

Well, I’ve owned several, and I don’t believe any of them actually burned that much,  but I only owned one that got close to 1500 hours.  
What I did discover, and Continental in foley confirmed, is there is a check valve on the acclaims somewhere between the turbos/oil cooler that is prone to sticking at shutdown which prevents all the oil from draining to the sump area. This can give erroneous readings of actual oil level. 
One of my acclaims was particularly bad, I suspected something but since a lot of my flights were several hours I didn’t really want to risk running out of oil so I kept adding.  I was also cleaning a lot of oil off the belly. 
Then one day I changed the oil, cleaned the belly, and added 8 qts, ran up and took a 20 min flight.  Didn’t bother checking the oil until a few days later. Dipstick said 4 qts.  
As you can imagine I was very skeptical so I took another flight, just a loop around the pattern.  Landed, waited an hour and checked the oil, 7+ qts….  Ran it up, taxied around till it got over 250deg, shut down and came back the next day, 5qts.
It was at this point I called Continental and they explained to me it was a Mooney application problem with the check valve. 
It was the worst on this particular acclaim, of the 6 I’ve owned they have all periodically exhibited the problem to differing degrees. 
I would say you do a control experiment to see if you are actually burning the oil, or pumping it out in flight. 

[jetdriven]

Bill Cunningham at power masters in Tulsa would be my first call.  Second would be western skyways. 

[MooneyMitch]

18 hours ago, jetdriven said:

Bill Cunningham at power masters in Tulsa would be my first call.  Second would be western skyways. 

Ditto on Cunningham.  OH’d my IO-550G 2013.  Excellent! 

[Will.iam]

On 12/26/2022 at 9:19 PM, Schllc said:

Well, I’ve owned several, and I don’t believe any of them actually burned that much,  but I only owned one that got close to 1500 hours.  
What I did discover, and Continental in foley confirmed, is there is a check valve on the acclaims somewhere between the turbos/oil cooler that is prone to sticking at shutdown which prevents all the oil from draining to the sump area. This can give erroneous readings of actual oil level. 
One of my acclaims was particularly bad, I suspected something but since a lot of my flights were several hours I didn’t really want to risk running out of oil so I kept adding.  I was also cleaning a lot of oil off the belly. 
Then one day I changed the oil, cleaned the belly, and added 8 qts, ran up and took a 20 min flight.  Didn’t bother checking the oil until a few days later. Dipstick said 4 qts.  
As you can imagine I was very skeptical so I took another flight, just a loop around the pattern.  Landed, waited an hour and checked the oil, 7+ qts….  Ran it up, taxied around till it got over 250deg, shut down and came back the next day, 5qts.
It was at this point I called Continental and they explained to me it was a Mooney application problem with the check valve. 
It was the worst on this particular acclaim, of the 6 I’ve owned they have all periodically exhibited the problem to differing degrees. 
I would say you do a control experiment to see if you are actually burning the oil, or pumping it out in flight. 

Were those 6 moonies all acclaims? And if so why 6 different ones? I. E. Why wasn’t the 1st acclaim enough? Or what was wrong with the first 5?

[Schllc]

There is no such thing as “enough Mooney”.  I have also owned two ovations. 
Nothing wrong with any of them. I just saw something I wanted more. 
Two of them were ultra’s. I liked the NXI, and the panel layout is awesome, but the two door feature is grossly over rated.  The larger door is very nice, but two is just more places for air to leak. The best, and most missed feature of the NXI was the flight stream for flight plan input. The AC is nice, but after all my experience, not worth the hassle, weight and speed penalty, or loss of the hat rack. The fiki ones have been my favorite. High useful, even higher if you don’t have a need for tks fluid.  Little speed penalty but worth the trade off.  
I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to get in and out of them without losing any money, a few of them I made a little money.  
My understanding of my mission grew, then the mission changed.  I landed on one with fiki.  I don’t really want to be without this feature again.  The Aerostar is almost ready though so the current one is for sale.  But I do not seem to be happy without a Mooney so there will probably be another one if I don’t keep this one….

[jlunseth]

On 12/9/2022 at 8:00 PM, exM20K said:

I believe the CMI Factory overhaul includes all accessories, drives, turbos, and exhausts.  Quotes for field overhauls may not.

in this environment, I’d be more concerned with down time than 10AMU, and I doubt the delta, apples to apples, is that much.  Now, if you o/h the turbos and put a new exhaust on 100 hours ago, that’s a different calculation.

I wouldn’t murder a working engine because of the time on the tach.

-dan (1450 TT and fingers crossed)

I agree with this. If you do a field OH you need to find out what gets OHd or replaced, such as fuel system, turbo, and exhaust. Also, I went through this analysis for my TSIO360 and it turned out that the price difference between reman and new from Continental is small. It was about 7,000 as I recall. And for the 7,000 you get all new accessories, so that is the way I went. The problem, though, is that Conti’s delivery timeline was 8 months, and it is turning out to be quite a bit longer than that given what they are having to do on the 550 AD, which does not directly affect my engine but does affect their workflow. I agree that generally, if you find a really good OH shop, their engine will be smoother than what you get from Conti. I had my current engine IRANd at Bolduc a few years ago, it came back very smooth and that has been the case for the last 1200 hrs.

[M20TN_Driver]

Interesting point on the sticking check valve.  I definitely seem to have a different reading after every flight.  I service it with 7qts at an oil change and one of those is a Qt of MMO and a small bottle of camguard.  During an oil change I will let it sit for days to drain and it seems to never stop ;-). I usually keep it at 6 qts.  If it reads lower than that I'll add.  

DId continental give you a fix for the check valve or is it something you just lived with?

I'm contemplating a ring flush at the next annual as I've heard that gunked-up rings can cause higher burn.  Given my high time, I was thinking it was the rings.

[LANCECASPER]

2 hours ago, M20TN_Driver said:

Interesting point on the sticking check valve.  I definitely seem to have a different reading after every flight.  I service it with 7qts at an oil change and one of those is a Qt of MMO and a small bottle of camguard.  During an oil change I will let it sit for days to drain and it seems to never stop ;-). I usually keep it at 6 qts.  If it reads lower than that I'll add.  

DId continental give you a fix for the check valve or is it something you just lived with?

I'm contemplating a ring flush at the next annual as I've heard that gunked-up rings can cause higher burn.  Given my high time, I was thinking it was the rings.

With the starter adapter slip-issues on Continentals I wouldn't run anything but engine oil in your engine. 

And under no circumstances would I replace a quart of approved oil for MMO. I've heard of people running up the engine with a little MMO as a flush just before an oil change, but in no way does that have the viscosity to protect for wear if you run it continually at high power settings.

[Schllc]

3 hours ago, M20TN_Driver said:

Interesting point on the sticking check valve.  I definitely seem to have a different reading after every flight.  I service it with 7qts at an oil change and one of those is a Qt of MMO and a small bottle of camguard.  During an oil change I will let it sit for days to drain and it seems to never stop ;-). I usually keep it at 6 qts.  If it reads lower than that I'll add.  

DId continental give you a fix for the check valve or is it something you just lived with?

I'm contemplating a ring flush at the next annual as I've heard that gunked-up rings can cause higher burn.  Given my high time, I was thinking it was the rings.

There is no “fix” as I understand, it’s just an idiosyncrasy of the configuration. 
The oil is in there and there is no danger in it getting trapped where the engine is starved for oil.