Greetings. I have been trying to follow the gear reduction / Tork / vs hourse power thread. Horse power should basically be constant, that is just foot pounds of energy per second... just the friction costs of the reduction drive. Like my cordless dewalt drill can still drive a screw in on low, after it stalled out on high, (because the battery is weak). More tork on low speed.
After trying to follow the Horse power/ Tork / Gear reduction ... I am leaning more and more towards buying that... For a couple of reasons. A slower turning prop, even if it has a more agressive pitch so it takes a bigger bite of the air should be enough more efficient to compensate for lost friction in the reduction drive. 2nd.. reason is that the VW crank failures, and the corvair crank failures that I have read about in FAA accident reports, IMHO make the prop vibration stability gear reduction worthwhile. This Spring, I bought a set of KR2S Plans.. then I bought a partially completed KR2 (original plans) back in April that I intend to get flying. It came with a Great Planes VW motor mount. but the prior owner had a corvair engine lined up that I bought also. Fly in the ointment was when my local A & P / EAA guy that I spoke with told me not to screw around ... just get a "real airplane engine" ... 100 horse or better Continental and go from there. 32 years ago in college, I had an original "first run" set of KR1 plans that Ken said he got flying for $500, including engine, gages, everything. Dann Johnson Thompson, Iowa P.S. After finding this list... for about 5 months I have been mostly lurking.
