Primary objective!  More power, of course!

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It had dual Rajay turbos installed on it several years ago.  Now that it is run-out, what to do now?  The 'more power' theory still applies.  The customer purchased an engine that started out life as an IO-470, but had been 'punched out' to an IO-520; that was installed.

 

Once the engine instruments were up to speed, the engine was pre-oiled and initial runs were made.

 

Then tragedy struck:  After several ground runs were made, we noticed the oil pressure dropping off at temperature.  A call to the engine builder for where we should look first yielded two comments:  "No warranty" and "I'll look at it for $10,000.00".  Determining that to be an unsatisfactory answer, a canted IO-550 seemed like the next logical step...

   

As another minor(!) change, ElectroAir Electronic Ignition was added into the mix.

 

Final pre-run assembly and pre-oiling was concluded, followed by initial run.

       

After everything checked out (and we kept oil pressure with temperature), off into the blue.  Post flight customer comments?  "Wow!"