piper comanche engine upgrade piper comanche engine upgrade
If you want to coax Comanche 260 speeds from a 250 model, try using the 260s power settings. The Comanche 180 was introduced in 1957, and the PA-24-250, the 250 HP version, followed soon after in 1958. Turns out the claim was close enough to crown the skyBeacon a winner for a budget-based solution, the deal sweetened with a two-for LED lighting upgrade. We like that it keeps grime and dirt away from wheel assembly. 3-blade Scimitar (260, 260B) 3-blade Scimitar . Piper kept the Comanches electromechanical manual landing gear relatively simple, although it can be a source of woes when not maintained properly. Products from Knots2U andWebco are respected. Pilots who dont understand the undercarriage and its various procedures, particularly the emergency extension procedure, also are a source of problems. What is the easiest way to swap out the wiring if youre upgrading a Piper panel? Still, the respected International Comanche Society (ICS) reports the best way to learn to land-and fly-this machine is to get some dual from an expert in the type, not the local flight school unless they have a Comanche expert on hand-and some schools even have Comanches. On November 24, 1959, Max Conrad landed a Piper Comanche equipped with a Lycoming four-cylinder 180-horsepower engine in El Paso, Texas. You don't have to go wide open with it, typically in my Travelair I would lose 2-3kts and save 3gph while still running smooth. I cannot remember what I read, and where I read it. Well start by saying that primary monitors (ones that are approved to replace all of the OEM gauges-including fuel quantity) require a sizable installation. I didnt really want to paint the engine all Lycoming gray, Piehl said. We dont sell anything unless it is GUARANTEED to give you increased cruise, climb & fuel economy performance. Its sturdy, which it makes it a good instrument airplane, plus its easy to fly in busy traffic patterns since its comfortably flown slow or fast. horn/torque tube/balance weight tube Some of the engine parts were sent around the country, reconditioned, and sent back to Florida, where Piehl worked on it. The landing gear on the Comanche gets our attention. Below are more photos and advice from Piehl as he went through this process. of our High Performance Propellers, Knots They build and 100% test the harness for installation. The 260's Lycoming IO-540 engine could cruise at 142 to 161 knots, burning 13 to 19 gallons per hour. They gave me a guy to call at Lycoming, and he said, I cant tell you the color of it, its proprietary. Same as FDL-978-XVR but with internal WAAS GPS. The company also offers a stainless steel dual exhaust system. Piper then skipped directly to the 400 HP PA-24-400 in . There is no doubt that your kit was responsible for our taking second place in the race. PA24-180 Comanche. So to help sort it out, in this article well offer an around-the-bases look at the most popular new avionics configurations-from entry-level (for basic aircraft) to higher-budget (for go-places higher-end machines). 180-250-260-400- TWIN COMANCHES For comparison, an American. That's why some 2,155 Twin Comanches were sold during the airplane's 10-year (1963 to 1972) production run. He's very difficult to contact but one CPA member reports successfully purchasing the STC in 2006. 2-blade 2-blade Scimitar. So I sent the crankcase off to DivCo in Oklahoma City (www.divcoinc.com), the crankshaft to Rick Romans Inc. (Tulsa, Oklahoma), and Im fortunate enough that at my home airport, we have one of the finest engine facilities in the country Zephyr Aircraft Engines (Zephyrhills, Florida, www.zephyrengines.com).. Insurance will vary with a pilots experience. Sun n Fun 2023: Superior Custom Instrument Panels. We have 24 PIPER COMANCHE SERIES Aircraft For Sale. These and later Comanches can be spotted by the extra cabin window and rear baggage door on the left side, which doubles as an emergency exit. Both models had carbureted engines mated to constant-speed props. Supports diversity (top and bottom antenna). Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress, Upgrading a Comanche Panel (Comanche Restoration Series Part 4), Reassembling a Restored Piper (Comanche Restoration Series Part 6), Dream Come True: Ray Cooks Super Cub on floats, Arrow Door Restoration Project: Re-aligning the door improves cockpit environment, How to Replace or Repaint Your Piper Hub Caps, uAvionix Receives TSO Authorization from FAA for skyBeacon ADS-B Out, https://www.facebook.com/PiperOwnerSociety?fref=ts. And that creates a problem. The International Comanche Society has been an invaluable resource for me. I see no one else other than Robin Thomas who makes a promise that if youre not satisfied, no questions asked, you get your money back. http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/eppages/lasarignsys.php, From out of the clear blue of the Western sky, (You must log in or sign up to reply here. facilities and look us over. Piper Comanche PA-24 Models. Only engines for which that ends up with all cylinders well LOP are injected, with well-tuned injectors. Speeds are up around 155 to 160 knots at cruise, burning about 12 GPH. The original airplane had a 60-gallon fuel system. 685. A competent tech can generally rig a cabin door in an afternoon. Tail mount version. The Comanche panel has limited space, vertically, Piehl said. All upgrades get a fresh two-year warranty. Garmin G5 Electronic Flight Instrument. I remember seeing something regarding an upgrade STC for various 4 and 6 cylinder engines (172/182, etc). Requires Garmin Pilot, ForeFlight tablet app. There were a number of different models built during that . Subscribe today to read the entire series, which chronicles: What you will learn in this installment, upgrading a Piper panel. There are mixed reviews from owners on maintaining a Comanche. It tends to be nose-heavy on landing so I use a lot of nose-up trim for an easier flare. LoPresti did create some interesting and worthwhile aerodynamic mods for the airplane, however. I believe the payoff was at about 400 hours on a 172 with the reduced fuel burn, and not having to maintain a carb. Most of us have heard horror stories about the person who built a dock or deck next to the lake without calling the Department of Natural Resources. Diversity Mode S transponder with ADS-B Out when connected with an appropriate WAAS GPS. These mods are available for all Comanches except the 400. Greg Piehl, who lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, with his wife Debbie, spent three years restoring and upgrading their 1959 Piper Comanche 250. Comanche PA-24 Models. Lets equip and move on because the real news in the avionics market is the serious surge in competition, combined with a shift from expensive TSO approvals to STCs. But it's a nice theory. For instance, its possible to retrofit (via STC) the Lycoming O-540 engine into a Comanche 180 of 1960 or later vintage; theres at least one published report of this being done on an FAA Form 337, although we dont know of any shops offering the mod without doing the full-up STC. assembly. Requires WAAS GPS input, tablet interface requires Flight Stream wireless Bluetooth module, Garmin Pilot or ForeFlight app. In 1961, Piper offered an optional 90-gallon system, which gave the Comanche 180 seriously long legs: nine hours, provided it was only loaded with the pilot, one passenger and a little baggage. Standalone ADS-B Out and In, wireless Bluetooth connectivity with Flight Stream 110/210. In flight, the Comanche is smooth, stable and tight, with a climb rate that is impressive and difficult to prevent. there is a definite 15-knot increaseThe numbers show that it has paid for itself in one year. Given their size, expect your shop to do substantial panel rework to make the big-screen display fit in a location thats within your scan and reach. Slow it down in the last few hundred feet to land short and turn off at the first taxiway. Click here. We know of one flight school that had a Comanche on its flight line and it required renters to perform gear extensions and retractions with the airplane on jack stands. What differentiates the IFD550 from the IFD540 is the IFD550s ARS, or attitude reference system. Posted by Rocky Landsverk | Sep 13, 2022 | Comanche Restoration Series, Upgrade & Refurbish This "rebuilding a Piper engine" article is from Greg Piehl, who lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, with his wife Debbie, spent three years restoring and upgrading their 1959 Piper Comanche 250. Piper Comanche PA-24 Models. Models: 210G, 210H, 210J, T210G, T210H, T210J. The panel is what one would expect from a circa-1960s airplane, with good space for instruments but early, unrestored models will look dated by modern standards. This is part five of seven parts. ON AND UNDERSTAND The full-featured GFC 500 and GFC 600 autopilots provide thousands of existing general aviation aircraft with a simple, light-weight, cost-effective autopilot upgrade path. For more than five decades, active and dedicated aircraft owners and pilots have turned to AVIATION CONSUMER to answer their most important buying questions. Piper Comanche PA-24 Models. Our current best selling and most popular mods. Turboplus was granted multiple Supplemental Type Certificates to upgrade many Continental TSIO-360 and LTSIO-360 engines to the 220HP operating limits of the Continental TSIO-360KB engine. My hardest transition in flying the Comanche was planning enough time to slow it up to the gear extension speed of 150 MPH and managing four fuel tanks (90 gallons total) and an electric fuel pump (on and off for landing and takeoffs). For sure, the Comanches list of mods, modifiers and parts resources is long and best accessed from involvement with the ICS and its members and publications. I hold commercial, instrument and multi-engine ratings, have 2300 hours total time with 500-plus hours of complex time, plus Ive logged about 200 hours in my Comanche. Piehl said Zephyr did a triple-angle valve job in rebuilding this Comanche engine, blueprinting the pistons and cylinders, and stuffed the pistons in the cylinders, ready for him to assemble onto the rods and the crankcase. Even if youre not qualified to paint your plane yourself, you can still do most of the work. Ive taken the course twice. One on the landing gear (AD 77-13-21) mandates replacement of landing gear bungees every 500 hours or three years to prevent landing gear collapse after manual extension. Piper Lance Restoration Continues With Dual Electronic Ignition Upgrade This is the second of two by Scott Sherer | Sep 15, 2022 | Upgrade & Refurbish | 0. Step one is to evaluate the existing flight instruments and look toward the future. Installation of the Discussion in 'Maintenance Bay' started by bjohnsonmn, Oct 6, 2013. By the time these models were introduced, the Comanches production run was about to end without warning, so this variant is comparatively rare. The old boys that I learned to fly with would say that if you can shut the door on whatever you got into a Comanche, it would fly away without a problem. Once the dust settles, typical dual-screen G5 installations generally run around $7000. Also, as with the fuel injection system, earlier airplanes can have a turbo added. Youll need a reliable unit for the long term. Here that sucking sound? The 180 and 250 Comanche airframes are the same and theres an STC to upgrade the 180 to the larger engine-although the 250 boasted a significantly higher gross weight: 2800 pounds versus 2550 pounds for the 180. Of all the avionics upgrades, planning a primary flight display retrofit is perhaps the most difficult. Walter Sykes, (561) 278-1964. Four of those involved inflight breakups-the clean Comanche airframe will smoke through Vne in short order once the nose is down or in a diving spiral. Phone: (386) 253-8833 This gave Piper a reason to pull the plug on the Comanche, choosing to concentrate on the more-popular, less-expensive and higher-profit PA-28 line, including the PA-28R Arrow being produced at the Vero Beach site. Very clean west cost Comanche. Two-piece system, requires WAAS GPS input, compact. I flight plan for 13.5 GPH, but flying from 9500 to 11,500 feet will reduce the fuel flow to around 12 GPH. A complex light twin, with retractable landing gear, seating 4 (in original models) to 6 (in later models), and cruise speeds ranging from 160-210 mph on twin 150-160 horsepower engines, it competed with the more-powerful Cessna 310 and Beech Baron . [ag All were zinc-chromated during assembly, for corrosion protection. It has a battery backup in case of electrical failure and can be paired with the $2549 G5 heading/electronic HSI instrument for dual ADAHRS redundancy. Models: 421C. However, the empty weight is also higher, by 337 pounds. Most 250s had carbureted Lycoming O-540-AIA5 engines, but a small number were fitted out with fuel-injected versions of the same engine. Subsequent Comanche models both single- and twin-engine were built until 1972. The Comanche is gentle when it comes to stalls and is stable for flying instruments. In 1972, there were two single-engine Comanche models still in production-the 260 and turbo 260. I get approximately 200 feet per minute in climb increase and 15 knots in cruise. Also, the inspector must have experience using this equipment.. There were 17 accidents involving pilots either running completely out of fuel or running a tank dry and not then selecting a tank containing fuel and getting a restart in the time remaining in flight. rebuilds of your existing Piper factory. Fortunately, there are a number of cost effective aerodynamic improvements that we developed that can easily add 3 to up to 15 MPH, while also improving rate of climb, slow speed handling (reduced stall speed, improved aileron control) and save you fuel. The installation requires mounting the GPS antenna on the cabin and wiring the unit. If youve already invested in a modern transponder upgrade and dont fly above 18,000 feet, one top pick is the uAvionix skyBeacon wingtip unit with LED position and strobe lamps. [parts], [*parts EVOLUTION MFD, some garmin and avidyne displays. We kept that in mind as we reviewed the 100 most recent Comanche accidents. I gave them the info on the avionics I chose, and the layout of them in the panel. Piper Cherokee Modifications & SpeedImprovements, :uninterrupted flow in which the direction of flow. TEXAS SKYWAYS HAS THIS STC. The navigator also sends GPS nav and course data into the displays over an ARINC 429 data stream. This rebuilding a Piper engine article is from Greg Piehl, who lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, with his wife Debbie, spent three years restoring and upgrading their 1959 Piper Comanche 250. Discussion in 'Maintenance Bay' started by bjohnsonmn, Oct 6, . While we were pleased to find that the old wives tales regarding Comanche landings were untrue, we were concerned by the number of landing gear-related incidents. Any thoughts or ideas? I subbed out a lot of the work the crankcase, the crankshaft, the rods, all the internal components to a specialist. The 100-pound rise in gross gave the airplane a hefty 1427-pound useful load. Models: 310P, 350P. The engine case is running oil temperature, which is right around 180 degrees. There was a little bit more than that (headset jacks/wiring/soldering), but their work is of the highest quality., One other thing that Piehl stressed about this part of the project you need to coordinate the field approval before you start this process. And an airplane thats been all over the hangar floor for a month or longer-now with unfamiliar avionics-is a poor match for the nonproficient pilot. Connecting the G5 directional instrument to third-party autopilots and earlier GPS navigators requires the $699 GAD29B nav interface module. Get it approved in advance.. Flap / Aileron Gap Seal Kit. But for the lucky 400 owners the cost of admission is worth it-most big-engined Comanche owners say that with speed mods, 200 knots is a way of life. General Tiger with fixed gear goes just as fast and another contemporary retractable, the Mooney M20C or M20E, will outrun the 180. Unless otherwise noted, these reviews carry product pricing from the time of the original review. . After 34 years, the first flight of N6494P took place at Zephyrhills Airport, three days before leaving on a trip to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, just in time for AirVenture in July and August 2021. PA-NAC1P: Option: Nacelle Panels 27-4426, 27-4574 On 64-81: PA-NP2S: Option: Nose Panels Aztec Six Place No Ice PA-NP2P: Option: Nose Panels Aztec Six Place No Ice PA-NP3S: Option: Nose Panels Aztec Six Place Ice Shields PA-NP3P: Option: Nose Panels Aztec Six Place Ice Shields PA-FD1W: Option: Fuel Doors Winged You need to go to somebody whos trained in that model of aircraft but has not seen it before. -Scott Sherer, Fuel is going to be biggest expense. The good news is that lots of shops can work on them (although as the accident reports show, pick one that knows the model well), parts are available and market prices are steady, yet reasonable. But unless you buy one thats been particularly well-restored and cared for, getting an old Comanche up to snuff can be a pricey proposition. The Electronics International MVP-50 is another. Also installed was a new glare- shield and a metal panel. . Its a small panel; its wide but not tall. The 550 is a follow-on product to the IFD540 (and smaller IFD440) and these are drop-in replacements for Garmin GNS530W navigators. Most of my flight time is in single-engine Cessnas. Garmin's G500 retrofit avionics system ranks as one of the best values in aviation, offering a host of advanced capabilities for under $20,000. So that was #1 on my list: The avionics I chose had to communicate with the other avionics., His next requirement was the ability to self-install the instruments, with the help of his A&P. SE 57 WE Installation of two Roto-Master Turbochargers P/N 600572-00 on Continental TSIO-520-D engine. Aftermarket gear warning systems are also a good investment to supplement the system originally installed. That number is high, and we dont have a hypothesis to explain it, although we saw that three were at night and one of those hit power lines more than two miles short of the runway. Piper Comanche PA-24 Models. ADS-B is old news. 1958 PIPER COMANCHE 180 $75,000 FOR SALE 1958 PA 24-180, Airframe 1220 TT, Engine 747 TT, Prop 75 SOHT, Annual completed in April 2022, Two NARCO MK-12D Navcoms one with GS one without, Always Hangered, New Carpet, Leather Seats, original paint.