Carb mounted

After burning out working on cowl and not having enough hinge material, I decided to mount the carb.

Before I mounted it though, I wanted to get a template of the bottom where the inlet box would mount. So I spent a good 45 minutes making a template out of aluminum sheet.

I drilled out the four mounting holes to get rid of the excess powder coating. Gasket, bracket, gasket carb. Sandi helped by holding the carb in place while I put on the washers/nut. Dug out the hardware to attach the control cables. Gathered all the pieces and attached the throttle and mixture cables. It took a little trial to get the adjustment right to where you could get full travel of the arms and have the knobs be correct inside.

Connecting more hoses/pieces

Received another box of fwf stuff from Van's and can't resist not hooking stuff up.

Installed fitting on fuel pump and connected fuel pressure hose. Installed fuel hose from gascolator to fuel pump and a 1/4" plug on gascolator.





Put in the recepticles on the bottom of the cylinders for the CHT probes.

Installed the fuel pump overflow tube. (I think I'll replace zip ties with hose clamp.)



Also received an order from B&C and Dynon (pitot tube), so I wired up the alternator to the contactor.

Spent a few minutes on the cowl.

Technical References

ECI has some good documents on their site about engine break-in and running as well as an engine troubleshooting guide.

http://www.eci2fly.com/pages/tech.aspx#breakin

Firewall forward stuff

Another full day in the shop.. felt good and I had fun.

Installed the manifold pressure fittings and line.



Installed the oil pressure line. TIP: Make sure you install this fitting before you hang engine and also make sure it is pointing down and outward. My fitting was installed by BPE for engine test run and it was pointed down and back about 45'. I didn't adjust it before hanging engine and when I went to connect the hose it was rubbing on the engine mount. This fitting is in a very tight area and the magneto gets in the way of using a wrench. I bought set of crow feet wrenches and used that to turn the fitting just enough to get the hose on.





Tip #2 for today: If you haven't started on the fuselage or are still working on it, order the FWF drawings! (Assuming you are installing a lycoming.) There are so many little things that go on the firewall that would be so much easier to install when building up the firewall. There are 5 nutplates in various places. Brackets and such. Get the drawings and put these on ahead of time.

Started to install the fuel pressure line and fittings. I had to take of the sender mount to install the 90 degree fitting. Tip #3: Install the fittings on the sender mount before you mount to firewall or attach any hoses.



I thought I had been shorted the T-fitting for the fuel pressure but discovered it isn't a true t-fitting.. it's a 90-degree fitting with another hole in it. I put it on the fuel pump then realized I put it on wrong and when I too it off, I had buggered up the flared part of the fitting, so I'll have to order replacement.

I installed the alternator. I ordered one from Niagra Air Parts for $275. This seemed like a good compromise between Van's less expensive alternators and B&C's expensive version. Turns out this one is just a Nipon Denso. I don't know if they do anything with it or if it is just an off the shelf producet. The kit comes with no mounting instructions but has all the hardware. I'm not impressed at all.







Installed the tach sensor that will feed RPM to my EIS.



(I spruced up the shop someone after my neighbor stuck his head in the window. I'm embarassed at how bad the place looks sometimes.)

I'm stalling on finishing off the baffle kit. I want to get the SJ plenum in hand before I go to far and I need to get my c-frame tool back so I can rivet a few angles on the sides.

Time to start on the cowl. Since I'm insalling a Sam James cowl and I think his instructions are a bit sparse, I'm going to document in detail the installation in a seperate area. Cowl Blog

Engine hung! Baffles started

Woke up early and headed out the shop. Put the other nuplate in the engine recess cover.

Hanging the engine!
I turned the fuse around and put the engine on the hoist. Sandi and Louis came out to help as this takes more than one person. Before you hang the engine, install all the fittings, especially the oil pressure fitting on the back right side of the engine. You can't install this fitting once the engine is on. On the Vans Airforce website is an 'Illustrated guide to engine hanging'. I didn't do it their way. We tried to hang the engine starting with the the top bolts but it was futile. I could get one in but couldn't get close with the 2nd. So we started over and put the two bottom bolts in first and they went in real easy. This makes more sense to me anyway since it is easier to let the engine down if you need to versus raising it up. (You can only pull it up so far before the tail starts going down.) So with the two bottom bolts in, I put one of the top bolts in. Just required some grunting and growing and jostling the engine around. The last bolt was certainly the hardest and took a small amount of persuasion but finally went in. Took less than an hour I'd guess. I did have to run to town to get a couple wrenches. I still haven't replaced all my tools from when they were stolen this past summer.











Baffles!

I received the baffle kit earlier in the week and sat down in the living room with all the parts and instructions. I reviewed all the parts, figured out where they went and glanced over the instructions. Everyone says the baffles are baffling but they sure looked easy to me. The instructions say that pictures are better than words and so there isn't a lot of text instructions but quite a few drawings. I sure didn't see what the big deal was.

So now it's Saturday and I started in on baffles. I started with the side pieces. With lots of filing and sanding I got them to fit pretty good. The left side pieces tuck inside each other. This sure looks like a high stress area and a spot for cracks to develop. I did what bending to relieve any tight spots in this area. Why did they do it like this? The other side just overlaps each other.



So with the sides on and feeling pretty confident, I started in on the back pieces. Here is where things started getting weird. The #5 and #6 pieces go together to form the back left wall and the #7 piece is the back right wall. #5 is easy. The #6 piece however, caused me some frustration.

The instructions say that the piece sits in the valley by the engine mount bolt. Ok. They also give you an AN-15A bolt that attaches the piece to the engine just below the engine mount itself. So I jockeyed the piece kinda in place and thought I must be doing something wrong because a -15A bolt was WAY to long. In desperation, I sent an email to Mike since he just recently did his baffling. I also tortured myself looking at pictures using our dial-up connection at home. I went back out to the shop after cooling off a bit and started playing with it some more. I used a shorter bolt than the -15A and created the 1/4" spacer needed. I started filing the piece where it sits down in the valley to get it to fit nicely. I put the #5 piece in and clamped it together. The tops of 5/6 met nicely but there was a gap at the bottom, so I spent a lot more time filing to allow the #6 piece to rotate down some, closing the gap. I spent probably an hour filing it to fit nicely and follow the contour of the engine. The one outstanding issue is that the piece rubs on the rubber engine mount. I'm not sure what to do about that. I'll have to email Van's.









So, now to piece #7. This is a one piece part. You have to take the oil filler tube off to get it in. (I didn't have to disconnect any oil lines as Van's suggests you do.) I got it jockeyed into place without much trouble and it fit very well. I did a little filing on it where it hits the top of the engine.

I put the #6 piece back in place and here is where things got goofy again. The two pieces meet in the middle just above the split in the case but the #7 piece sits on the front side of the engine mount flange and the #6 piece sits in the valley about a 1/2" back from the front, leaving a rather large gap between them. They need to meet in fashion that creates a somewhat straight edge along the back so the plenum can attach to it. So back on the internet I go looking for pictures. I also sent a cry for help to Jerry. He has lots of nice big pictures on his site but the dial-up connection was killing me. I also poked around on Mike's sit but his pictures aren't as big. :-) The only thing I could figure is that the #6 piece has to transition out of the valley to meet up with the #7 piece. There was no way that #7 piece was going back any farther.

Mike called me about the time I got back in the shop and clued me in on a few things. That -15A bolt was too long for him too. Jerry emailed me back with a long list of pictures on his site that might help. His also posted the email he sent me on his site. (The support in the RV community between builders is amazing!) This all confirmed that I needed to transition that piece up to meet #7.

I called it quits for the evening at this point. I really want to have my plenum in hand before I get to far into the baffles.