Simonini engines?

twistair

Living in the Skies
Joined
Nov 24, 2003
Messages
1,161
Location
Kronshtadt, Russia
Aircraft
none own :( currently flying Calidus mostly
Total Flight Time
Don't know exactly, ca. 3000 hours
Got the new Simonini Victor II Plus engine today. It's light! And seems to be well done at a glance. I plan to install it to our new two-seater and looking for others' experience with these engines. I've surfed Web prior to purchasing and got some good responses from fixed-wing owners and only one bad - from French rotorheads. Any more inputs on them?

Cheers,
 
I'm not 100% certain, Alex, but I think the Mosquito helicopter of John Uptigrove from Canada is equipped with the reed valve version of the Simonini engine. He was at Bensen Days and had just completed assembling the machine as Bensen Days closed.

He brought his machine to Sun-N-Fun at Lakeland and Kosaka said he saw the Mosquito flying over my orange grove this morning but again, I'm not 100% certain this is correct.. Kosaka's English is quite limited and my Japanese is zero.

I live about 10 km from Lakeland as the crow flies but this is not a good place for shakedown testing of a new helicopter; solid orange groves, heavily wooded areas and swamps in-between.

A helicopter is a tough environment for any engine but doubly so for a 2-stroke. Helicopter engines must run at constant speed with power controlled by throttle, creating difficult lubrication problems. If the Simonini engine can survive in a helicopter, any thing else is a piece of cake.
 
:) Welcome Chuck!

Hope to hear more of your wisdom.

Just wish we also had all the archives of Norm's forum handy!

Jim
 
Alex keep us up to date on this motor. I think it will bolt right on any 582 type motor mount that would be a big HP jump for my gyro without changing a thing. I had a rotax 670 on it before and this would be right at the same 100HP. I can't get a reply from the company that sells then. A dealer here in the US is only working with the smaller air cooled motor.
Brent
 
Brent, can you elaborate an opinion on the 670 snowmobile Rotax?
 
Sure, Brent, I'll keep forum informed about our progress. I hope to install this engine to the craft in one month if everything goes well. The gyro itself is 90% ready.
Strange that you didn't get factory response: I got mine next day and there was no delay with purchasing the engine. They take 2-3 weeks for delivery. It's strange that there is very few words on this engine in the Net: I've found only one message about it - installed at Zodiac CH701.
Somebody told me last year that Ernie B. tried to use them in Dominators but wasn't satisfied - don't know details nor reasons.
Mine came complete with all gear less radiators (I simply forget to order them but this may be lucky miss - they are heavy enough). User's guide is in English and seems to be short, simple but quite enough.
Let's see...
 
If Ernie B did try this motor can someone tell us what happened? I hard someone say the cranks are the week link. But not sure if this is just BS.

Alex what did you give for the motor? euros?
 
Hope, Ernie or Mike could clear the story - if only the story took place. My source could miss something.
I paid 5500 euro including shipping to Moscow and customs fee for 102 hp Victor II Plus and 3250 euro for 48 hp Victor I Plus which I will install to the Gyrobee. Hope it will be first Gyrobee completed here though some are under construction as well by other builders.
Engines came complete with gearboxes, exhausts, carbs (Bing34), Mikuni fuel pumps, DCDI, electric start etc - all but radiators.
 
That would be about 6500 USD about the same as a 582 complete. I will got word back from the US dealer he will tell me a price as soon as he has one.
 
Brent,
I have about 130hrs on the engine and it has performed well. But I was 100 miles from home with it at my sons wrestling tournament two months ago and when I went to return home it would not start. After exhausting every thing I and two other area mechanics there could think of, I decided to remove the engine and send it back to Speedwing Canada for service. It had spark, fuel and compression but would not fire on either cylinder even with starting fluid. We suspected a weak spark or poor compression. The compression checked out better than when new, as then it was 78 on cylinder number one and 80 on two. Now after 130hrs I have 110 on one and 115 on two. A local aircraft mechanic suggested that with higher compression that it takes a strong spark or it can blow out under the increased pressure. The ignition specialist representing Ducati ignitions says that can't be. He said that electronic ignitions either work or they don't. To which I replied, that is the problem exactly. It worked and then it didn't.
So I just sent the whole engine to be serviced. Hopefully this week I will have some answers. Guy De France is the owner of the dealership where I bought it and he has been a week at Sun n Fun in Florida with his mechanics representing his products. He returned for two days and has now left for Moscow, Russia to return with a Russian built trike he wants to sell. The mechanics stayed behind and are working on my engine now. Except for this unexplained failure to start I have had nothing but good to say about the engine. I have one of the first 20 Victor 2 engines sold in North America. It is V2 # 44 serial number. It is the earlier 688cc model, the new ones are 40 cc larger. But the same rated hp. Guy told me last fall that he had sold 182 engines total and of those, has had two engine failures. One was replaced by the factory for a defect and one lost its coolant due to a bad hose connection. No fault of the engine there. At that time they were giving flying lessons in an Xair with a Victor 2 and had reached 500 hrs on it with no repairs. He told me I was in second place for the most hrs as many get flown only 50hrs a year. I did receive an email from England from a man who had an engine seizure with his and wanted to know what I was doing different as all 15 engines sold at a dealership there had failed at less than 10 hrs. I could only say that it must have been a factory defect in those. He emailed me later and said that the factory was standing behind the repairs on his and he would keep me posted how he turned out. I have not heard from him since February.
I have had probably 20 inquiries on this engine since I posted mine on the Zenair website.
The biggest difficulty was delays in shipping across the border from Canada and the fact that Quebec english is more like french.

So

I guess I will be looking at some thing I can get here.
 
That sounds encouraging, Brent, thanks for the info. I wonder if I can contact Guy in Moscow to speak to him on his experience...
 
encouraging? I don't see it that way. this one motor works and it looks like most do not last over 20 hours. Like I said I can't get a reply back from anyone that sells this motor so if I can't reach them now do you think I will be able to after they have my money if the motor is bad? No. If they don't have a dealer in the USA it is not going to be used here that is how I see it.
Brent
 
I agree, Brent, it's risky to spent that money without having a dealer in the country. We have no official dealer here too, but somebody should do the first step. Let's see how it goes. I hope that we have our own experience soon.
I meant under 'encouraging' that these engines are not single units sold but they are operated in dozens. Let's see how they run. As for seizing and some other problems - it's well known that any 2-stroke should be operated with some knowledge. 5 years ago I had a crash in a flying boat which was caused by a cold seizure on Rotax-582. The seizure occured after steep continiuos descent from 2000' to almost zero - we simply forget that we need to care about mixture on this engine at low rpm. Pilot/owner with a little experience (I was a passenger only in this flight) contrived to stall the craft at 150' above water level right after engine quit and 2 seconds later we found ourselves in cold Ladoga lake waters amid aircraft's rests. That was quite educational but didn't turn me against 2-strokes. I simply believe now that they are really sensible to man's habits :)
 
I think any 2 stroke will run fine if you know haw to jet it and use the right prop. Alex why don't you use one of the Suzuki motors? If I could get that gear box that is what I would like to do. Do you have the guy who makes the gearbox email I would like to see if I can push him your way? So we can get started.
Brent
 
No I do not. Here is more about the motors.
Hi Brent

I'm fairly confident about the long term reliability of this engine. Our highest time motor is 167 Hrs to date. The factory seems to be making small improvements all the time and they have offered very reasonable after sales support. It's very, strong and fuel consumption is good once flying altitude is reached because one is able to come off the power without losing height. Vibration, fairly typical on all two strokes at low RPM, means that this engine needs to be very well dampened. We use a 72 x 44 inch propeller on ours with the 2.76 reduction gearbox.
RICHARD A STUBBS
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