Attached is a message William asked my to forward to the net... -----Original Message----- From: william...@aol.com [mailto:william...@aol.com] Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2005 9:07 AM To: kr...@cox.net Subject: Re: FW: CorvAircraft> oil pan
Steve, Please forward this to the list: Friends, I was forwarded from this list Bob Unternaehrer's Comments about oil pans. Let me offer the following facts and spread some light on Bobs possible motivation. Bob's comments about our oil pans are not based in reality. They are welded by myself in a very heavy jig made from an old case. They warp very little when welded. The holes in the pan are sized .290" . By simply running a 5/16" bit through every hole, the pan will drop right on virtually any case. This is about the size hole that GM used on their pans to make up for the manufacturing placement of the holes. Although most of the case machining is very accurate from the factory, the oil pan holes are not. I discovered this when carefully measuring many cases when developing our oil pan. What Bob say at the college was a number of builders installing pans by using a rat tailed file in the .290" holes to custom fit the pan to their cases. Kevin and I very rarely do this. When we build a motor we bore the holes to 5/16" and install the pan. They never leak. The college is about showing this to builders in person. If a builder wants to take a few minutes with a file, good, otherwise, drill. As an additional thought, the way we stud the case to accept the pan makes the reworking the holes slightly more necessary. The stock oil pan is often used as a skid plate or a jack point in the car. of the 19 studs on the case often 1 or 2 will lean a few degrees of vertical, something you would not notice on any pan installed with bolts. Bolts are less desirable, so the minor fiddling with the pan or drilling out of the holes is a small issue. The 100 or so people who have one of our pans on a running motor know this to be a non issue. Bob's contention that the pan could not be reused is complete bull. Anyone who has read my website knows that I have reused the pan many times. At the college, three of the flying planes, My 601, Mark Langford's KR2S, and Steve Makish's KR2 all have one of my pans on them, that have been removed and replaced without leaking. In fact 7 of the 9 planes at the college had one of our pans on them, as did all of the motors which ran on the dyno. Obviously they work. The subject of using a Clarks pan was brought up. The weigh 6 to 9 pounds more than ours depending on the model as our pan, they do not fit in any of the mounts I have designed and they cost about the same. All of these comments are in the manual, because of course I have flown and driven all of the pan styles. Many of these comments are also in the two pages of instructions which come with the pan. All of our products come with instructions which should be considered part of the build record of your engine. After the college I found Bob's instructions with his name on them discarded where he was working. What motivates Bob, who has just come back from the college with a running motor, who bought one of our pans, installed it without leaks, and watched it run on our dyno to make comments about wanted to put on a cast pan, tell people the pan might not be reusable etc? The answer is simple, In the history of 9 colleges, and countless Jr. colleges and night schools, Bob is the only person who has ever stood up and told people at the college coming "was a waste of his time". Yes, this is from a guy who was not charged for anything but parts and left with a running motor which my crew labored late into the night to fix such problems as Bob putting some of the rocker balls in upside down. In the end he left with his engine without even saying thank you to Kevin or I. I had met Bob at numerous airshows before and generously describe him as cantankerous. I figured as a guest in my hangar he might be on better behavior. I was wrong. His abrasive style was apparent to many guests. When Bob complained about us not having an engine stand available the moment he needed it, one of the other guests unbolted their motor from one and gave it to Bob. This guy said to me quietly, "Lets get him done so he can leave". Bob was bad enough that I lost my temper with him on Saturday, and in some hash words told him that I didn't think he was acting like a guest in my hangar. Yes, Bob spent about $800 in parts at the college, but he wanted to argue every dollar and ask for a price break on most of it. This is odd to me because he claimed to have spent more than $600 in Kansas for his valve job, which I thought was poor. We even took the time to weld up the nose on his junkyard starter to save him money rather than buy a new one from us off the shelf. Every word I have written about the colleges stresses education and progress in the company of friends. The joke of this is Bob doesn't even have an airplane for his engine that he was in such a rush to build. Although he was able to go home with a complete running engine, which he may regard as mission accomplished, I feel bad for him because I think he missed all the real benefits of coming to the college. Since Bob spends a lot of time on the net I think that it is important that readers have the full background before lending any credence to Bobs comments about my oil pans or anything else we do or make. You can pioneer the least expensive engine on the market, hold free events, provide the facility and expertise to build and run their motor for free, and 1% of the people like Bob will still go home, get on the net and tell people we don't know how to make or install an oil pan. It is part of business, its just not my favorite part. Thanks, William
