Panther Sport Aircraft Forums

Think I just hear crickets Will have to get by with only 160 HP.

Is Ace Performance still in business?

PlaneDan wrote:I am imagining. I wonder what the price range will be?

I worked up a quote this week to convert a wide deck 360 to R360 and it was $24,000. The conversion from a wide deck 320 to ACE-335 would be about the same. For a comparison we presently can overhaul any 320 narrow deck or wide deck to X0-340 for around 16k.

Here is a Xio-340 from titan



New R360 from Titan range from $33,500 for (mag/carb) to $37,000 for full efii duel electric/fuel engine. I expect the ACE-335 will be close to the same.

From their website:

409 Lycoming Upgrade Kit

Upgrade you’re existing wide deck 320 or 360 Lycoming engine into 409 cubic inches of power with our exclusive crank, lightweight rods, and piston kit. Kit cost $21,500

I am imagining. I wonder what the price range will be?

The power of an O-360 and the weight of a Corvair. These will be some tough requirements to meet, will be interesting to see. Imagine flying a Panther with an empty weight in the low 700s with 180 HP?

rick h

If I learned one thing this past year about engines is that "less is more". If you look at the first 10 R Series engines we are shipping they are R409s and a few R360s. The problem is for every customer I have for these performance monsters I have many more that told me when/if we ever apply this tech to the 320 to call them. Well, the phone is going to start ringing!

Andrew and I have gone ahead and pulled the trigger. As I write this post our factory that produces the AX50 cylinder is building up the tooling for the AX40. While this will share all we have learned building the AX50 for 360/409/540s we are planning on taking advantage of a few "tweaks" as we build up another set of tooling for this cylinder.

What we visualize is the ability to convert any wide deck 320 engine into a 335cu in, light weight wonder. If Andrew's projections are as spot on as they were on the R360, we are expecting between 170-180hp, same improved cooling, and unleaded fuel compatibility all for scant 225lbs…

We are not sure if this will be available through Titan as of yet but initially we plan on offering these as part of our ACE overhaul upgrade program. I have been running the numbers and feel as part of an overhaul of a 320 the cost to upgrade to a 335 will be in the low 20k's.

Here are some renderings of the 335 with our new sump and pressure recovery plenum.


This pic shows the integrated fuel injector rail.


Note the AX40 plenum can accept either updraft or forward injector servo. Andrew spent many hours getting the flanges in the same position as a stock engine while still creating the area inside the plenum.


This version should come in around 225lbs!!! That is not much more than the Lycoming 233@115hp


If you want to follow our progress please go to our site ace-performance.com and register to get updates via email.

Kevin Eldredge
I am Relentless!!!
805-996-0800