Posted for Walter Atkinson <walter@advancedpilot.com>:

Fred:
 
 My compliments.  Well done.  What you say is correct for each of the  four
(or six) engines under your cowl which are sharing the same  crankshaft.  As
you so eloquently pointed out, as the F:A ratios  spread, the efficiency of
the entire set of engines goes down.
 
 Walter

"""
 They motivated me to dig back into my files where I found a chart of  the
brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) for the liquid-cooled  Continental
Voyager engine used in the Voyager around the world  flight.  This engine is a
little fellow compared to what most of us  fly, about 50 cubic inches per
cylinder as opposed to 80-90 inches  per cylinder in our fire breathing
Lancairs so breathing  characteristics and heat losses will be different.  But
the numbers  and trends are interesting.  Note that with the cooler
liquid-cooled  heads, the compression ratio was raised to 11.4.
"""