Can anyone tell me if using soft mounts for gas engines will increase the life of hardware onboard? Some giant scalers tell me they use hardmounts and don't worry about increased vibration.

The jury is still out on this one, and you'll get a bunch of opinions. I do not use soft mounts for two reasons, 1) Bisson will not warranty their mufflers if used with a soft mount, so I figure they must know something I don't, 2) If your gas engine weighs 5 pounds, at 10 G's the mount will need to be stiff enough to support 50 pounds without too much distortion, I figure with rubber that stiff it won't help too much with small vibrations. Now watch how bad I get flamed on this one!

I don't know about getting flamed on this, but everyone I have talked state that rubber mounts actually increase vibration because the engine is soft mounted, thus allowing magnification of the vibration. I also hear that power is lost via rubber mounts for the same reason. Having said that, I am assembling a 1/3 scale Pitts with a Fuji 50 gas. First gas project so I am learning about this too. One guy who posted about using rubber mounts said that each time he flies this same combo he finds that something else breaks. Doesn't seem to be any benefit with the rubber mounts from this one example and from what I have heard. That is unless the vibration is even worse without them??

Common sense would lead you to believe that if the vibration isn't absorbed by rubber mounts then it has to go into the airplane. I just don't know. Would love to hear something positive about them that would dispel what I am hearing and from what I read from one person with bad experiences using them.....