All is well so far! stil not a drip of anything and the engine hasn't missed a beat.
Very happy with the Yamaha, and below I'll paste my feelings about the engine that I wrote up over in the Yamaha Aircraft Conversions Facebook Group:
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IMPRESSIONS OF THE YAMAHA AFTER FLYING IT:
I'll start off by telling you that (being a 100% Yamaha enthusiast) I am gonna set aside that admitted bias and be as entirely impartial as possible here.
So with that in mind I'll start off with the cons:
"Re-sellability": The Yamaha is an unknown to the majority of people and I would assume it might take some time and education for a buyer to be comfortable with buying a plane with an owner built Yamaha (different story entirely for one done from a name reputable builder such as Wild West or Edge Performance). To that end I have no plans to ever sell this plane.
Insurance: I was able to find insurance through www.nwinsurance.net , but generally with other insurers if you SPECIFY that you have a Yamaha you may find it very difficult to find a policy, as is true for many other auto conversions and lesser known power plants.
Noise level: It really is NOT louder than any other engines in it's class, but it has a different tone that seems to travel farther. My two inline mufflers bring it down much more and I'd call it quieter than the average plane with a gearbox.
RPMs: You gotta do your research on how well these motors do in snowmobiles and sportbikes, or have owned one, and also have to fly it for a couple hours to get used to it in a plane. At first it admittedly is strange. Once you get used to that you will find it (as anyone who has owned one will attest) to be an unbelievably smooth and sweet running engine that just loves to hum along at 7.5-8.5k cruise and loves even more to scream a little when you call for it! Simply put: It was built to do it and it has proven to do it well.
Now the Pros: (In no particular order)
Cold start: (in my case with a centrifugal clutch) Two days here my start was at about -10F after sitting out on the ice with no preheat or cowl blanket. Fired right up and purred along. Again, It is a snowmo engine and was built for that.
Extra power: I am flying a plane built around the 80 HP 912 and on floats it would fly well with a 100 HP engine. Flying the RX-1 I have chosen to fly prop pitch derated to about 120 HP static and I'll typically take off with that, level off quickly and pull flaps and throttle back to approx 100 HP (SWAG) and climb out at about 800fpm (@1150lbs and 20F). When I "punch it" in the climb I am getting more like 130 HP due to ram rise RPM and at Vy it climbs steeper than I need it to. It is just SO nice to be able to pull power and climb VERY well at approx 70% of what the motor is desinged to do!
Very strong even running on 2 or 3 cylinders:
Since the Yamaha only utilizes one spark plug per cyl, I did extensive run testing with the loss of one and with two cylinders. The results were very impressive and are detailed in this link:
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Cost per HP: I'm at a little under $9k for everything (less my time) and including a new prop and have capability of 140+ HP with a simple prop pitch change (2019 price numbers)
Run Quality: Absolutely the smoothest running and most throttle responsive recip I've flown. Even down at idle when you tap the throttle it is right there.. push it all the way and it'll snap you back in your seat. 40 to 90 mph happens quick!
Not a drip of anything: Besides the initial start "burp off" of my coolant overfill this thing has not dripped one drop of anything. That is obviously great on many levels but to me mostly in that if I ever see even one drip I know that I need to for sure track it down and figure it out.
C gearbox with clutch: for me doing cold starts + warmups, and even more importantly while manuvering on the water the RK400 centrifugal clutch is just fabulous!
Ok that is off the top of my head here now and I'm forgetting some things but overall I think you can see that I have most definitely NOT been disappointed!!
