Register
Uncategorized

ECI Titan Cylinders: Buy Them Or Not?

Given the number of product recalls, airworthiness directives and service bulletins floating like confetti on New Years, the phrase "quality control" has a certain hollow ring in general aviation. Owners have become understandably cynical that few companies in the industry are capable of-or at least committed to-building quality parts, none more so than some recent buyers of Engine Component Inc.s Titan cylinder line. As much as any single component line, Titan cylinders from ECI have allowed field shops to remain competitive against Lycoming and Continental, who would otherwise own the market and could set prices accordingly. (They may be about to do that-see the sidebar on opposite page.) But the Titan product line ran into a snag last year and both the FAAs and ECIs response has left some owners steamed. The FAA contends that a serial-number-defined range of Titan jugs is sufficiently at risk for barrel-to-head separation to require an AD calling for 50-hour compression test inspections. But ECI demurs on this, claiming there's nothing wrong with the Titan line, while conceding there have been at least 45 head-to-barrel separations in a population of about 16,000 cylinders. If the cylinders were defective-as the FAA seems to claim-ECI would presumably be on the hook for making customers whole in some way. But ECI disagrees with the AD and says there's nothing wrong with the Titan line. Customers are caught in the middle-most get no help from ECI, but have to pay for compression checks at 50-hour intervals. Thats not a trivial cost, by the way. Forty AD checks are required over the 2000-hour life of a typical engine and at $150 per, that adds $6000 to the TBO run. Its essentially the equivalent of paying twice as much for the cylinders. One owner recently contacted us to point out aircraft equipped with the affected Titans have reduced market appeal-if not value-compared to those equipped with other cylinders.

Paul Bertorelli
Verified

Given the number of product recalls, airworthiness directives and service bulletins floating like confetti on New Years, the phrase “quality control” has a certain hollow ring in general aviation. Owners have become understandably cynical that few companies in the industry are capable of-or at least committed to-building quality parts, none more so than some recent buyers of Engine Component Inc.s Titan cylinder line.

As much as any single component line, Titan cylinders from ECI have allowed field

shops to remain competitive against Lycoming and Continental, who would otherwise own the market and could set prices accordingly. (They may be about to do that-see the sidebar on opposite page.) But the Titan product line ran into a snag last year and both the FAAs and ECIs response has left some owners steamed.

The FAA contends that a serial-number-defined range of Titan jugs is sufficiently at risk for barrel-to-head separation to require an AD calling for 50-hour compression test inspections. But ECI demurs on this, claiming there’s nothing wrong with the Titan line, while conceding there have been at least 45 head-to-barrel separations in a population of about 16,000 cylinders. If the cylinders were defective-as the FAA seems to claim-ECI would presumably be on the hook for making customers whole in some way.

But ECI disagrees with the AD and says there’s nothing wrong with the Titan line. Customers are caught in the middle-most get no help from ECI, but have to pay for compression checks at 50-hour intervals. Thats not a trivial cost, by the way. Forty AD checks are required over the 2000-hour life of a typical engine and at $150 per, that adds $6000 to the TBO run. Its essentially the equivalent of paying twice as much for the cylinders. One owner recently contacted us to point out aircraft equipped with the affected Titans have reduced market appeal-if not value-compared to those equipped with other cylinders.

How It Started

The Titan line has suffered a spate of cracking issues. The first were noticed in 2002 when ECI said Titan suffered about 18 head-to-barrel failures. Several of these resulted in catastrophic engine failures that put airplanes immediately on the ground. The problem was initially traced to improper heat treating of the heads and was corrected via AD. According to ECI, later failures in the product line surfaced in 2005 and were traced to a change in the way the head was threaded onto the barrel, causing an impingement in the aluminum head that led to stress risers, cracks and eventual failure. This was corrected in early 2006.

There’s some dispute about how many cylinders actually failed. ECIs Glen Golden told us the number is about 45 in a total population of more than 17,000. But two engine shops we spoke to told us they think the number is higher. “I cant give you an exact number,” said Allen Weiss at Certified Engines in Opa Locka, Florida, “but Id say its a couple of handfuls.” Penn Yan Aeros Bill Middlebrook agrees and says the cracking issue compelled Penn Yan to stop using ECI cylinders about four years ago.

The FAAs investigation of the Titan cracking problem yielded airworthiness directive 2008-19-05, which became effective in October 2008. It divides the cylinder population into Group A and Group B. The Group A cylinders (about 16,000) require a visual inspection and a compression check if the cylinder has 350 or more operating hours by the date of the AD, but fewer than 2000 hours. This inspection is required every 50 hours. Further, if the cylinder is removed for any reason, it cant be reinstalled but must be replaced.

Group B cylinders-a total of about 1200, says ECI-must be replaced if they have

Paul Bertorelli

Paul Bertorelli is Aviation Consumer’s Editor at Large. In addition to his valued contributions to Aviation Consumer, his in-depth video productions on sister publication AVweb cover a wide variety of topics that greatly contribute to safety, operation and aircraft ownership. When Paul isn’t writing or filming, he’s out flying his J3 Cub.