A few weeks ago we had people with no Subaru experience disparaging these engines in aircraft. I'll present a counterpoint here. Russell Sherwood has been flying his Subaru EG33 powered Glasair for over 15 years- not just flying it, but racing it in SARL cross country races with high continuous power. Not just racing it, but winning many races in class and sometimes even overall. 2016 Mark Hardin Memorial Air Race | Sport Air Racing League
The Lyconental guys scoffed at auto engine entries initially but soon became rather quiet as Russell blew them away- repeatedly. In racing we have an old saying- when the flag drops, the BS stops. Never more apt here.
Russell is a very smart ME who has refined his installation over the years. Initially, he had many issues with Ross and GAP planetary gearboxes failing despite oiling improvements made to them. A few years back, he switched to the internal helical gear Marcotte M300 box and has had no more issues. I use the same box and also have never touched it internally.
Russell has had a few setbacks along the way. The aircraft was damaged by a falling hangar door several years ago during a storm and suffered a brake line failure a few years ago, again seriously damaging the aircraft when it departed the runway. Both of these incidents were turned into mod sessions to improve things while the rebuilds were happening. He's back racing in SARL again now and still winning as you can see from the stats above.
Russell was instrumental in showing people how to cool their liquid cooled engines properly with low drag with his ventral rad setup. I got many ideas from him for my RV6.
Anyway, Russell's EG33 works just fine. I believe he has over 550 hours on the latest setup and more than that on the Subaru installation as a whole.
The Lyconental guys scoffed at auto engine entries initially but soon became rather quiet as Russell blew them away- repeatedly. In racing we have an old saying- when the flag drops, the BS stops. Never more apt here.
Russell is a very smart ME who has refined his installation over the years. Initially, he had many issues with Ross and GAP planetary gearboxes failing despite oiling improvements made to them. A few years back, he switched to the internal helical gear Marcotte M300 box and has had no more issues. I use the same box and also have never touched it internally.
Russell has had a few setbacks along the way. The aircraft was damaged by a falling hangar door several years ago during a storm and suffered a brake line failure a few years ago, again seriously damaging the aircraft when it departed the runway. Both of these incidents were turned into mod sessions to improve things while the rebuilds were happening. He's back racing in SARL again now and still winning as you can see from the stats above.
Russell was instrumental in showing people how to cool their liquid cooled engines properly with low drag with his ventral rad setup. I got many ideas from him for my RV6.
Anyway, Russell's EG33 works just fine. I believe he has over 550 hours on the latest setup and more than that on the Subaru installation as a whole.
