I did pick up an additional motor a few weeks back. It was advertised on Govdeals as “airplane engine“. They provided absolutely no details, but I could tell in the blurry pictures that it was a big bore continental. Included a very nice rolling stand.
I figured it was a AP school practice engine and would likely be junk but decided to roll a dice on something serviceable possibly be in there. I did note that there were no A&P schools in the county that was selling this. I paid $1000 for it.
Engine turned out to an IO-470H. The engine still has it Data plate. It had three of the cylinder removed with plexiglass covers, allowing view with the internals. It appears simply used as a display. Surprisingly it seemed to come with all of the removed parts as well.
I did not consider that it would be a fuel injected engine. There’s more different internally than I would’ve suspected. But I did find an STC that allows installation of this engine on my air frame. Which essentially create a high compression version of the O-470 for a 30 hp upgrade!
The engine also included a pallet of floodlights and some Slick four-cylinder magnetos. I sold all of that and now have about $500 and three hours of driving invested in the engine. I am quite pleased with the purchase. I understand the core charge on one of these from Continental about $15K.
Obviously, it will need a lot more work and money put into it determine serviceability before it can ever be used on an airplane.
