An FAA AD proposes to replace thousands of ECI connecting ro ds. Yet engine shops say Lycoming rods show identical benign in-use wear patterns.

The FAA says scalloping or waviness in the big end of ECI connecting rods caused a failure due to oil starvation. But the same pattern appears in Lycoming factory rods, above.

Is it really worth the time and expense to open up a perfectly functioning engine at 1500 hours on the off-chance that it might have a defective connecting rod? That’s a question the FAA is trying to answer in a recently proposed airworthiness directive that would require the replacement of some 1100 to 1200 Engine Components, Inc. connecting rods on O-360 and O-540 series Lycoming engines. But ECI disputes the FAA’s claim and especially the technical work supporting the NPRM and it complains that the agency has refused to make its tests on the connecting rods available to the public and to ECI. (The company has filed a Freedom of…