Wonder why Continental have shelved their GAP diesel... was probably too reliable and would've put a dent into all the refurb' business driven by the "long reliable aviation engines of the '50es" *snicker*... interestingly enough my 250HP "notoriously unreliable auto engine" is now pushing 200k km with nothing but oil changes every 10k km.

Some AVWeb commentary on the DA42 V1...

Diamond's New Twin

Thought this comment was quite interesting...

I saw something at Austro that truly astonished me. On the floor of the factory were about 25 fully dressed OM-640 Mercedes engines, used in the A and B class. They were fresh from the factory. Daimler makes about 1500 of these engines * a day.* So I was looking at 20 minutes worth of production.

Austro uses the core of this engine for the AE300, stripping off the automotive components and building it back up with its own approved components. Those brand new fuel pumps, turbos and airboxes were off to the scrap heap. (Sigh.)

If you know anything about series production, you know the more of anything you build with less variability, the higher the potential QC level. So those cores are at automotive standards, not lesser aviation standards. That bodes well for long-term durability. The first Austros are just now coming in for overhaul, so they're beginning to see if the claims will potentiate.

posted by Paul Bertorelli on March 15, 2012

More from AVWeb:

"Diamond Aircraft says it's very close to flying a fly-by-wire version of its Austro-diesel-powered DA42 twin. ... This technology, says Dries, will be incorporated into the autopilot and he believes it will eventually evolve to include both flight envelope protection and full autoland capability for the DA42."

So, a V1 that can fly without a pilot. Didn't they make something like that in Wiener Neustadt in the 1940's?

TYhe Austr Engine derives from the 3.0l MONOBLOCK Steyr engine (used in marine and other specailist )applications. It seems to be a superior design to THielert , stroger block/head, better thermal efficiency and has the "Pumpe-Duese" INjection system which is more tolerant to abuse and contaminated fuels as well that it has a mechanical "get home setting (in case of electronics failure) of 50-60%..at least the marine versions do....I would bet my $ on thire design to be the less costly to operate..pending gearbox times/

Sorry got that wrong...I heard that block was meant for the larger engine...250-300hp