xnavyguy69 Posted April 3, 2016 Share Posted April 3, 2016 To begin with, I live in a remote Alaskan fishing village. Only 600 people here. No modern convience such as parts stores and machine shops. So all parts are ordered online and delivered by airmail. No connection to the interstate system. 250 miles to nearest city. In the wilderness !! I have a home built 20' hovercraft, powered by ea82. Not enough hp. Need to upgrade to something bigger. EJ25 seems like the answer. Do not know what to do to get fuel injection to work properly. What do I need to do for a plug and run engine. I do have friends with the skills to get it right. Is there a way to get fuel injection to work. Will I need a pressurized fuel cell ? What will it take or am I on an impossible mission ?? Any and all help greatly appreciated. Thanks Ron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subarubrat Posted April 3, 2016 Share Posted April 3, 2016 Very achievable, just do a google search for EJ25 aircraft conversion and you will see all sorts of examples of them being used with aftermarket carbs, fuel injection and how to pull it off. I would say get the ECU and wiring harness and trim it down to the essentials, we don't use factory ECUs in aircraft for a number of reasons such as altitude compensation but you don't have those complications. You don't need a pressurized fuel tank, just a fuel pump like a Walbro 255 Lph and a way to mount it in the tank. If you chose not to use the stock ECU, a kit such as http://www.haltech.com/platinum-sprint-500/ there will be wiring needed but it is not hard to do. Have you sourced an engine yet? If you going to have to pay to get something shipped you might want to consider the JDM 2.0 turbos, they are cheap and plentiful and are going to offer you even more power as is and can be easily upgraded for even more if you need that. The same methods above would apply to the turbo engine. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xnavyguy69 Posted April 6, 2016 Author Share Posted April 6, 2016 Thanks for the heads up. I found installations using ej25 in small helicopters. The install is pretty much exactly what I need. It is definitely out of the auto engine compartment. Now I just need to hunt the right parts. Thanks again for the help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott in Bellingham Posted April 6, 2016 Share Posted April 6, 2016 Your best bang for the buck would to find a complete doner car with good running engine, then you will have all the wiring and ecu, The intake exhaust and cooling , what type of drive trans system will you run? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xnavyguy69 Posted April 8, 2016 Author Share Posted April 8, 2016 Good question. I have a fabricated 1/2 " plate with an 8 shiv pulley bolted to the flywheel. There are 2 lift fans powered by belt drive and the propellor is also powered by the pulley. Each lift fan has a Gates belt that is wide enough to take 2 shives each and the propellor belt is wide enough to take up 4 shives on the pulley. So I split the power at the pulley. I had great success flying the hovercraft , but when I built I made it AlaskaTough, I had to add some extra weight with a few extra layers of fiberglass in a few crucial places, like the bottom and sides. The extra weight slowed things down a bit. So I got a larger prop, and now I need more power. The idea of a donor car is great except that I live in remote Alaska in a small fishing village and all old Subarus are still running. I want a brand new overhauled, guaranteed engine. I want reliability, when you break down here you are in the wilderness ALONE !!! Only big bad bears that want to eat you are there to give you a helping hand !! Haha !! I found a site that builds helicopters using ej25 efi engines. They use MAP and have ecu and efi, and only have an air filter on the intake,no air mix box. It looks very simple and should work fine for my needs. AERO HELICOPTER and it is the AK1 model. Check it out. Very cool concept. They use the copters for crop dusting in South Aferica.p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subarubrat Posted April 8, 2016 Share Posted April 8, 2016 (edited) You are taking an aviation approach of safety and reliability, I think you will have success in your project. Automotive engine conversions are somewhat common in homebuilt aircraft but they must be done right to have reliability approaching aeronautical engines which have redundant ignition systems, excellent carbs with adjustable mixture or mechanical fuel injection systems. On both of my planes I elected to use aeronautical engines because of the reliability and suitability to the task, it is very rare that a general aviation aircraft has an in flight engine failure that causes an incident, you can have a catastrophic failure on a cylinder such as a sucked in valve and land just fine on the other 3. We do magneto checks to ensure both ignition systems are functioning every time we start he plane and if one has failed we don't fly until we fix it. Personally I chose to stay away from automotive conversions but I would fly an aircraft powered by a properly implemented Subaru EA81, EJ25, or EG33 as these have a very good record in aircraft use, the EA81 in specific is a great engine for this application. But again, taking an aviation view of things is going to give you that reliability your looking for. Oh, and post some pics! Edited April 8, 2016 by subarubrat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jono Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 gone ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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