Continental or Lycoming

[C-150Pilot]

Which do you prefer? For what reasons?

[C-150Pilot]

Here are problems I found on the internet common to each manufacturer

Continentals: Cylinders crack, barrels crack, sparkplug holes crack, exhaust port at valve guides crack. Cranks crack and counterweights come apart. Light cases crack. Starters can be a nightmare.

Lycomings: Eat up exhaust valves, piston pin plugs come apart, valve lifters are horrid, camshafts are the luck of the draw, rocker arm support bosses crack thru fall off, cases leak like a British car. Pushrods bend. Oh and then there are the light flange cranks and light cylinders. Klinkers can turn off all the fire in the cylinders quick.

[ZLIN 142C]

Both are essentially overgrown Briggs & Stratton lawnmower engines with vastly superior metallurgy and price tags. Okay, that's an oversimplification, and will probably offend a lot of people, but the state-of-the art in aero engine design has essentially remained the same for sixty years. I think the future of GA aircraft engines is the liquid-cooled, ultra-efficient, Jet-A burning turbodiesel. Thankfully, several of these types are on the horizon. 100 LL won't be around forever.

[xsbank]

"They all go best just before they blow."
Famous Aviatior/Hero of the North

[Airtids]

In my experience, and I've had a few failures, when a Lycoming goes, it goes whole hog: Cranks, rods, etc. When a Conti goes, it's a jug, or a valve or something on the top-end. As an owner, the engines get replaced before we're at the point where we're going to lose something from the bottom end- catastrophic. The Conti's have cost me way more, because the top end doesn't make it to TBO, and work needs to be done. From O200 to IO360's, it doesn't seem to make a difference, the Conti's are just not as bulletproof over the TBO period.

[Hedley]

Let's see ... we have, uh, 5 Lycomings (4 AEIO-540's and 1 O-320) and 3 Continentals (2 GTSIO-520's and 1 IO-360).

Both engines do some things very well, and other things very badly.

For example, shock cooling. I do things with a Lycoming I would never, ever do with a Continental, like rapidly pull the throttle back and stuff the nose down.

Lycoming cylinder head design, with respect to shock cooling, is head and shoulders above that of Continental.

But I should also mention that Lycoming engines can be very delicate in other ways. For example, cam lobes and internal corrosion. After 2 weeks, I get really unhappy if a Lycoming engine hasn't run, but 2 weeks is nothing for a Continental. You can park a Continental for a year, without pickling and start it up and fly away. Don't try that with a Lycoming, the cam lobes and cylinder walls simply won't tolerate it.

Also, the 6-cyl Continentals run really smooth. Every time I fly behind a Lycoming 6-cyl after flying a 6-cyl Continental, I wonder if all the cylinders are firing.

On the subject .... the bottom plugs on Lycomings just love to fill up with lead. Sure, run the hotter 40 plugs, and lean the mixture on the ground, but the goddamned bottom plugs are still gonna fill up with lead, which you have to pick out with a piece of sharpened lock wire.

Not so the continentals. You don't even have to bother leaning the mixture on the ground, and the bottom plugs (colder 38's) stay clean. Beats me as to why.

So, I'm not sure one is really better than the other. If you have a choice, choose the one that does best what you want to do.

[mikegtzg]

Small 4 Cyl. Continentals...because of there interchangeability of parts and parts cost.