Rayjay M20E

[tclimb]

I left this question in the "for sale" section by accident. I'll leave this question here where it's more appropriate. Thank you all!

I'm turning base to final on purchasing my first Mooney. Excited and nervous at the same time. I fly out of Idaho to Utah and the pacific NW. Altitudes I typically fly are 10.5 and 11.5 to maintain radar and radio contact due to all the mountains. Recently came across a turbonormalized E for sale that has caught my attention. My question is what are people's opinion of the benefit of turbonormalized if I routinely fly these altitudes?  Thank you for your thoughts.

[Niko182]

8 minutes ago, tclimb said:

I left this question in the "for sale" section by accident. I'll leave this question here where it's more appropriate. Thank you all!

I'm turning base to final on purchasing my first Mooney. Excited and nervous at the same time. I fly out of Idaho to Utah and the pacific NW. Altitudes I typically fly are 10.5 and 11.5 to maintain radar and radio contact due to all the mountains. Recently came across a turbonormalized E for sale that has caught my attention. My question is what are people's opinion of the benefit of turbonormalized if I routinely fly these altitudes?  Thank you for your thoughts.

as someone who bought an airplane to fly below 10k and now lives near mountains, I would go with a turbo. I love the My NA mooney, but I find myself flying it in the mid teens constantly and wish I could have a turbo. If you live near mountains, I'd go with the ray jay.

Edited November 21 by Niko182

[Mark942]

I have a 64 M20E with a RayJay.  I live in the Midwest flat lands and the only mountains I fly over are the Appalachian and Smoky which don't really count as mountains compared to the Rockies.  Having said that, after about 7K feet we all see our max power start falling off and climbing at 500 ft per minute much less a IFR required ft per NM case becomes harder if not impossible.  The RayJay is just like a second throttle.  Start dialing it in and you get your MP back.  I have never flown over 10K but with my setup, I can get 28" MP at 10K if I wanted.  Pretty impressive.  The key is to have a really tight system so you don't loose the extra air out through leaks.  I do have to pay attention to cooling higher up and with the RayJay engaged.  I notice about a 20 deg F oil temp increase and CHT's push 380F.  I also give up LOP above 8K and go ROP to help with cooling.  I will some times run 25/25 at 8K or 9 K if on a long cross country.  Otherwise I usually don't engage the turbo and cruise at 65% power but my AP tells me I am not helping the engine and should run it harder.

-mark

[Slick Nick]

3 minutes ago, Mark942 said:

I have a 64 M20E with a RayJay.  I live in the Midwest flat lands and the only mountains I fly over are the Appalachian and Smoky which don't really count as mountains compared to the Rockies.  Having said that, after about 7K feet we all see our max power start falling off and climbing at 500 ft per minute much less a IFR required ft per NM case becomes harder if not impossible.  The RayJay is just like a second throttle.  Start dialing it in and you get your MP back.  I have never flown over 10K but with my setup, I can get 28" MP at 10K if I wanted.  Pretty impressive.  The key is to have a really tight system so you don't loose the extra air out through leaks.  I do have to pay attention to cooling higher up and with the RayJay engaged.  I notice about a 20 deg F oil temp increase and CHT's push 380F.  I also give up LOP above 8K and go ROP to help with cooling.  I will some times run 25/25 at 8K or 9 K if on a long cross country.  Otherwise I usually don't engage the turbo and cruise at 65% power but my AP tells me I am not helping the engine and should run it harder.

-mark

Have you got an intercooler?

[JoeM]

3 of the 4 Mooneys I have owned, all based in Socal but flown over mtns in the western US, were either turbo normalized or turbocharged. I now am a partner in a NA IO360 J model, and I miss the performance. I just flew from CA to FL in a turbo normalized E model. We topped weather at 16K and were still climbing. I believe a turbo has saved my life at least twice. Turbo normalizing doesn't cost more if you don't run the engine too hard. The Rayjay has a variable wastegate so you don't use the turbo unless you want to, but usually no intercooler. The M20Turbo has a fixed wastegate so it is always running, but it has an intercooler which brings temps down about 20 degrees. Either is a big improvement over NA if you fly over mountains IFR. If I were in the OP's shoes, I would buy the turbo normalized Mooney. 

 

 

[Fly Boomer]

On 11/21/2025 at 4:15 PM, tclimb said:

My question is what are people's opinion of the benefit of turbonormalized

If you search this forum (using Google or your favorite search engine), you will probably find a rather large number of "don't need it" responses AND a rather large number of "I have owned both, and will never go back to NA" responses.

[tclimb]

56 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

If you search this forum (using Google or your favorite search engine), you will probably find a rather large number of "don't need it" responses AND a rather large number of "I have owned both, and will never go back to NA" responses.

I have... and you are correct!!

[Mark942]

No inter cooler.

-mark

[Ragsf15e]

Turbos are pretty awesome.  Not everyone “needs” one.  No matter what you hear, they will add at least some cost of ownership.  They are awesome, wait, did I already say that?

[Utah20Gflyer]

One thing to consider is that in the west where you takeoff at 3500-6500 MSL that in the summer the turbulence starts low and moves up through the air mass as the day progresses, this means your time window of smooth air is narrow.    So if you fly in the early morning you can go up to the normal 9500-11500 MSL and you have smooth air.  Later in the day (10am-Noon) the air in that range is really bumpy but a couple thousand feet higher it is still smooth and also conveniently cooler.  I’ve had some miserable flights at 11500 and 12500 staring at some clouds slightly above my altitude that I know if I climbed above them I’d be in smooth air.   Unfortunately in the summer the climb rate to get another 3000 feet is pretty dismal.   
 

For example,  earlier this summer I was flying from Spokane to Salt lake at 11500 and was getting bumped around which was making my wife and two of my kids very uncomfortable.  I spent a while doing a series of zoom climbs and eventually got up to 13500.  At that altitude it was nice and smooth all the way from WA to UT with the exception of the decent into our destination airport.   
 

Eventually it will get bumpy at 13500 and you might need 15500 for smooth air.  No guarantees of course but this is how things generally work.  Without a turbo you aren’t getting to 15500 in the summer.   If It sounds like I have turbo envy it’s because I do.  
 

One other consideration is that if you want to file IFR there are many MEAs that exceed my naturally aspirated Mooneys capability, especially in the summer.  
 

My Mooney is fine if you respect its limitations, but sometimes I don’t like those limitations.  

[tclimb]

Great insight. Thank you!

[Ragsf15e]

On 11/24/2025 at 3:28 PM, Utah20Gflyer said:

One thing to consider is that in the west where you takeoff at 3500-6500 MSL that in the summer the turbulence starts low and moves up through the air mass as the day progresses, this means your time window of smooth air is narrow.    So if you fly in the early morning you can go up to the normal 9500-11500 MSL and you have smooth air.  Later in the day (10am-Noon) the air in that range is really bumpy but a couple thousand feet higher it is still smooth and also conveniently cooler.  I’ve had some miserable flights at 11500 and 12500 staring at some clouds slightly above my altitude that I know if I climbed above them I’d be in smooth air.   Unfortunately in the summer the climb rate to get another 3000 feet is pretty dismal.   
 

For example,  earlier this summer I was flying from Spokane to Salt lake at 11500 and was getting bumped around which was making my wife and two of my kids very uncomfortable.  I spent a while doing a series of zoom climbs and eventually got up to 13500.  At that altitude it was nice and smooth all the way from WA to UT with the exception of the decent into our destination airport.   
 

Eventually it will get bumpy at 13500 and you might need 15500 for smooth air.  No guarantees of course but this is how things generally work.  Without a turbo you aren’t getting to 15500 in the summer.   If It sounds like I have turbo envy it’s because I do.  
 

One other consideration is that if you want to file IFR there are many MEAs that exceed my naturally aspirated Mooneys capability, especially in the summer.  
 

My Mooney is fine if you respect its limitations, but sometimes I don’t like those limitations.  

I had my F at 14,500 a couple times because of the turbulence and to get over forest fire smoke.  I fly a lot from Spokane down to Reno.  It was never fun up there.  The plane feels very underpowered and we all need some type of oxygen but none is built in and simple.  I was very anal about only flying in the morning because of exactly what you said. Unfortunately that (and high DA takeoff) meant leaving grandmas house early a lot.  Now with the K, we can leave at noon and just climb right up to 16,500’ where it’s cool and smooth and we’ve all got cannulas on from O2D2s and the big built in tank.  Never mind that the airplane ends up much faster and actually (surprisingly) uses the same total fuel for the trip as my F.