$25k Defiant project:

https://www.barnstormers.com/classified-1330181-Defiant-project-.html?catid=18671
 

$15k Long-EZ project:  https://www.barnstormers.com/classified-1654589-Long-EZ.html?catid=18671

Curious for details about the engine and gizmos.

Wow, lots of stuff there.   Wheel pants are needed.   Any prop strike is a disaster but in the canards it is more a problem of FOD into the prop.   Yes, a new lycoming is expensive but a salvage engine may be reasonable and an owner rebuild of a runout engine is quite doable.   The major prop builders generally know what prop will work with your HP

There  are lots of builder sites for the canards.    For a start try Ary Glantz.   http://www.aryjglantz.com/p/blog-page.html?m=0

       Or do a google image search for “long-ez” plus any other term and it will show lots of builder photos.    

It looks like Lycoming engines are by far and away the most popular for the LongEZ.  It's really hard to find example of anything else except Lycoming.  Mogas might have ethanol and I've read that the acholol will eat away at the original plans fuel tanks.  I think the engine accessory systems are also harder to custom install on other engines.  The original plans, I believe, warned against the Continental O-200 because of great difficulties getting it all hooked up.  (I wonder if that ever changed)  Still, I haven't heard of a single person with a LongEZ O-200 (probably the low HP output too).  I wonder matching prop to engines is a big difficulty to get it right for the LongEZ. I've read that the prop needs to be long because of turbulence hitting the center of the prop, causing it to "swat" at the air.  But farther out from the prop (with a long prop) then the airflow is smooth, and the problem is gone.  With Rotax engines, they have a gear-box drive system because the RPM is so high, to otherwise slow the prop down.  It has a clutch in the gear-box that "protects the prop" from prop strikes.  That sounds like a good thing with the LongEZ, but maybe the prop "swatting" at the air in the center burns the gearbox clutch up?  (Do the wheel pants help?  I've read they slow the plane down.  Are there alternatives to protect the prop without all the glory of wheel pants?) I'm not a mechanic, so i might be using poor terminology there.  One other thing, of course I've been googling Horsepower and engine prices and fuel economy and figuring out which engine does what, but I've noticed HUGE differences in engine prices, even for the same model.  I know some are rebuilt, and others are brand new, but still I see enormous price differences googling aircraft engines between 100 and 200 horsepower, even for the same model.  I wonder if some of the prices are "installed by a mechanic" and others are "here you go, put it in yourself" varieties?  Those are just a few more thoughts I had on engines on LongEZ.  If anyone has any thoughts about this for the LongEZ or the VarieEZ, please comment.  Thanks.  

Fuel Valve:  I used the Weatherhead fuel valve (pic 1) in the Cozy plans because it is cheap ($16.50 from West Marine).  However, after a while the Deldrin spool gets sticky and harder to turn and you are courting trouble to ignore it.  I lubed it for the second time in 750 hours today.  I use "EZ Turn" lubricant which used to be called "Fuel Lube".     https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cspages/ezturnlube.php     Just use a thin smear on the spool because excess will migrate to your gascolator screen where it will not dissolve.  The valve is nice and smooth now.  Folks that ignore the sticking sometimes find they can't switch tanks when they need to!

The way I do it is to burn down the fuel until it just disappears from the sight gauges.  Then chock the wheels in front of the wheel and put a sawhorse or something under the prop  or prop-extension and raise the nose so the valve is above the fuel level.  The inside of the spool cavity is about 7/8" so have a cork  in case the nose isn't high enough.  I did not quite have the tanks empty and spilled a bit of fuel but it was not much.   A 3/4" wrench was bunging-up the flats on the cap but a 3/4" crows-foot wrench worked better (pic 2).  There are two o-rings in it that would be good to change.  If not you may get a faint fuel odor as the o-rings age.  I could not find a spec but they measure-out as an AN568-011 which is 5/16" ID X 7/16" OD x 1/16" CS and an AN 568-115 which is 11/16" ID x 7/8" OD x 3/32" CS.  I get them from the O-ring Store but a hardware might them.