On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 08:59:21 -0400, "Gene Kearns"
wrote:

On Mon, 26 Jul 2004 11:28:39 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:


Gee it seems if "ANY" of the others had a failure rate or 1 in 5 we
would have heard about it, the only others to come close were Opti &
surprise surprise they had the same 2 stroke lean mixture crap, as with
ficht the same hawked around for years & all the big engine makers just
laughed; as they should.

You mentioned that the last time and I've been looking around - I
can't seem to find this 1 in 5 failure rate documented anywhere. Can
you provide me a reference to this that I can look at? I know that
the failure rate for the midrange (100-150) engines was high, but 1 in
5? I'm not sure of that.


There was a high failure rate in some HP models. It was nearly a
bankrupting issue for the company and their customer service suffered
commensurately.

K's irrational passion in this matter is a mystery and probably
pathological. It is fueled by an antiquated understanding of
operating engines lean-of-peak. Although well documented as workable
for decades, she deems operating an engine in this manner idiotic.
Amusingly, the champion she uses for citations in this matter, Textron
Lycoming, has pretty much recanted their immediately previous position
on this matter in Special Service Publication #700..... returning to
their original position that lean-of-peak operation is desirable The
make-or-break point in this matter is engine management. Where there
exists adequate engine management "FICHT Technology" (as if it were
really unique) is a workable process. Where there was an effective
lapse in engine management, there were engine failures.

Net result is that if you have a person or computer making sure that
fuel-air mixtures are appropriate and that no detonation occurs, it is
a viable technology.

I restate my opinion - FICHT has been a good technology for me and
while I've had my whoopsies, it's been no more so than other brands
I've owned over the years and in fact, one major incident could very
easily been my fault - I can't be sure. If it not a good technology
for others, fine.

Hey, Karen has her opiinion - let her have it.

Doesn't bother me one way or the other.

On another subject, the world of Usenet has become more and more
polarized and irrational. It started in the late 90's after the Net
became widely available and just has accellerated in the past few
years.

Unfortuate really. It used to be a lot more fun.

Later,

Tom