As of right now it is just a few tenths away from 60 hours total time.
I have not had issues other than the original problem with my fuel pumps not delivering enough fuel for extended wide open throttle settings. This was discovered in the first hour or so of flight testing and was fixed by adding a electric fuel pump in addition to the two vacum operated pulse pumps. If I did it over again, I would just use a pair of electric pumps and not even have the pulse pumps.
Elsewise it has been great trouble free flying.
Cost to put this engine on my gyro.... Well I honestly don't remember. I wheeled and dealed and got the gearbox for nothing. The engine and the mods that Racer did were specially priced as I was to be a test pilot for this package and I would be sure to give the engine plenty of exposure through attendance at the fly-ins etc....
I do not know what a person would spend on getting one of these engines on a gyro. I have spoke to Racer about it many times and it seems like if you had nothing and had to get a gearbox, prop, and all the other stuff, plus pay a average price for the donor sled, you could end up with 9-10 grand into it. Of course getting a good deal on a sled, gearbox, prop, etc.... all could knock the price down significantly. But overall this is not a junkard Subuaru engine swap, but who knows what it would really cost to buy a low milage Soob car to yank the engine, and then buy the redrive, prop and all the other stuff to make it airworthy, you might end up with quite a bit more in the soob than the Yamaha.
One thing I can say is the Yamaha seems to be quite good on gas, fuel burn can be as low as 2 gph at low throttle settings, and it has awesome power, and it runs extremely smooth. I am a very happy customer
