Hi Peter,
there is absolutely no point in talking about any bigger repairs of your cylinders. The new cylinders are so cheap that it is simply not worth it. New cylinder for your IO-540 is 1K EUR from Adams Aviation. If you find something wrong with your cylinder, order new and it arrives to your door on the next day, no complicated logistics and sending something to Germany or flying there. I was investigating this before and found that in case of my cylinders it really does not make sense. There are other cylinders for other version of 540, which are around 2K EUR and it is completely different math, it is worth to try to repair them by changing valve seats, valve guides, re-honing, changing piston rings etc. for TB-20 you just order new ones :-)
Are you sure about 1000€ for factory new Lycoming C-type 540 straight valve cylinders? That would be exremely cheap!
If your oil consumption went down again from the 0.33 qts/hour or so you mentioned, i would not even think about spending one penny on it before i flew another 25 hours.
600-800 lifespan hours for a big bore Conti? Then why do so many SR22s reach TBO without any engine work? A turbo version flown hard will many times require engine work after 1000 hours but most normally aspirated 520s/550s don’t in my experience.
And finally: Roeder, Rieger or Dachsel in Munich will deliver at least the quality you can get in the US. And i have no idea who you spoke to, Peter, but all these guys do so much international work – they all speak English all the time.
My Warrior’s engine was overhauled my MTU aero engines in Munich in. 1987 (!), my father did that back then. The first cylinder was pulled in 2005. Unfortunately MTU don’t do piston engines anymore. (And of course the 320/360 series is pretty much bulletproof if you treat it well).
The ex CEO of MTU is my hangar neighbor. He put a big MTU sticker on his Cirrus SR20 
And he just got that hangar space because a few weeks ago my previous neighbor ditched his P210 near the coast of Calvi and decided it’s time to give up flying…
Flyer59 wrote:
600-800 lifespan hours for a big bore Conti?
I should have said “turbo charged”. The 300hp+ Contis are mostly found in TC environments like PA46, P210, etc.
I bought two recently and am quite sure about the price, at least for IO-540C4D5D, which is used in TB-20. It is ex. VAT price to be absolutely correct.
The problem with messing with cylinders is that the engine will be at 2000hrs in a year or two from now, which makes it a bit daft to be doing too much. The saving on the engine fund in running past 2k hrs is of the order of a few quid per hour i.e. just silly. Also airport politics make it impossible to do any of this work conveniently. The only reputable engine firm in the UK (N. McLaren) told me they can’t do anything. I guess they just want to process whole engines sent to them. And if I am going to take the engine out and pack it up, it may as well go somewhere really good – Barrett Precision.
Anyway, I should have more data soon, one more thing to check (damaged or misplaced breather pipe – they are capable of sucking your sump dry in an hour) and I will decide this weekend. We are having the perfect wx right now for this type of decision
Peter wrote:
The only reputable engine firm in the UK (N. McLaren) told me they can’t do anything. I guess they just want to process whole engines sent to them.
Nicholson McLaren is an engine / component overhaul shop. What you need is a Part 145 with a cylinder workshop. There should be a fair number of them.
Peter wrote:
And if I am going to take the engine out and pack it up, it may as well go somewhere really good – Barrett Precision.
Really good as in engine produces oily plugs from the beginning and has serious problems after 800h? I wouldn’t ship an aero engine over the pond even if it was 20% cheaper.
Some risk factors…
The plug condition depends strongly on how the engine was run immediately before shutdown. It is not a good indicator of anything unless you rig the situation by starting with cleaned plugs, running at high power and lean just before shutdown and then oily plugs could indicate excessive oil being burnt. My exhaust is totally spotless so your oily plug theory isn’t right. I could get you photos of my plugs in any condition you like.
Peter,
I can very much recommend Cermec near Lausanne for any kind of work. I did my overhaul there, they kept the price, timing as well as were extremely helpful when it was found that we had to exchange the crankcase due to some cracks found.
The school which my plane came from do all their overhauls there, so do many others here. They work together with one maintenance company in Lausanne who would take care of installing/uninstalling as well as transporting the engine to Cermec, who are 10 minutes drive away from Lausanne. And you can quite easily catch a flight from/to London from nearby Geneva.
I somehow recall that you were not that happy with the goings on around your big repair in the US, so why repeat the same?
