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My research agrees with your logic. I fly for entertainment and rarely have anywhere to go. My plane is not turbocharged but I have always set 65% or less in cruise and lean to my heart’s content. I’ve owned my plane since 2002 and flew my last set of factory engines about 400 hours past TBO. I overhauled at Poplar Grove in 2020 and 2021 on the front then rear respectively.
The front engine did develop a cylinder problem on #5 that ultimately inspired my choice to overhaul. I could have repaired however my engines were 30 years old so I decided that was long enough without looking at everything.
I overhauled the front at that time and other than #5, all was well. I retired the rear engine a year later and all was well with that engine also. Both engines are now recently overhauled with factory new cylinders on both.
I now intend to go another 30 years if I live that long. 😉😂 My airplane does live in a fully insulated heated and air conditioned hangar which I’m guessing doesn’t hurt. In my experience, set 65% or less and run those red levers wherever you want to. It’s the equivalent of “babying” your engines. Assuming the engines are mechanically sound and rigged correctly, they’re simply not making enough power to hurt themselves at that low power setting. At higher power settings, the story is different especially in your turbocharged engines.
The only other thing I can think to add is my buddy’s experience in his T210 which he’s owned about 11 years now. He fly’s all around the country in his plane frequently in the high teens. His experience has been vastly different. His plane is fully equipped with one of the fancy engine analyzers/recorders. He’s extremely attentive to engine management yet in 11 years he’s had cylinder work on 5 of 6 cylinders. His engine was about mid time when he purchased and it’s about at TBO now (1400 or 1500 ish). The only thing we can attribute the cylinder issues to is either the first half of the engine’s run by the previous owner was NOT done attentively or turbocharged engines simply are harder on cylinders. I can say his head temperatures are always warmer than mine. Mine settle on 300-320 on front and 340-360 on rear. He’s always managing to not exceed 380 and does see 400 in the long slow climb to the high teens. Maybe that’s the difference. 🤷*♂️ His plane lives in an identical hangar as mine except without the A/C.
He’s approaching overhaul time with his engine so it will be interesting to start with a fresh engine but it’ll be years before we actually have the data to make the comparison.
Good luck and your mileage may vary. 😊
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