Lindy
8/8/2009
LOTS of pictures today...I started out this morning by iteratively fitting the plenum to the front two cylinder heads. Each side needed to be sanded back a bit in order to sit down far enough to line up with the inlet rings.
Once I got it positioned where I wanted it, front and back, I installed the front baffles pieces and marked a trim line.
Here's how tall they stood before trimming...and an arrow pointing to the cut line...
...and here they are post-trim.
Time to put the plenum back on...lost count how many times I did this.
Then I put the cowl on the airplane to check the clearance of the plenum. Man...that looks GOOD!!
The plenum inlet lines up nearly perfectly on the right side...
...and it sits just slightly high on the left side, but it will work fine. I saw a few at Oshkosh that were WAY off, and they are flying just fine.
Here are a couple of shots from inside the oil door opening showing the clearance. There's just over an inch in the middle, and two inches or more on either side. Plenty of room for a shaky start or shutdown.
Satisfied with that, it was time to remove the top cowl, and drill the plenum in place. Also shown in the pic below, is the gap between the plenum and the oil cooler mounting plate. Seems to be a common problem, and I'll do what most people do- cut the tab off, and re-'glass it an inch aft to meet up with the back of the baffle.
Shots from the sides show the left to be slightly high, and at a small angle to the ring...
...and the right is dead-nuts on. That'll work!
Other than the gap at the oil cooler, my only other area to work on is the front gap. It just never came close to fitting right up front. So, I have a couple options here...I can tape the engine with packing tape (and probably peel off all the paint in that area) or use some RTV or something to fill the gap. I'm not a big fan of how RTV looks when gooped all over the engine, but I'm also not wanting to ruin the paint in order to attempt laying down some fiberglass here. I'm thinking about this one...
All in all, a pretty good day on the plenum. It was getting REALLY hot in my west facing hangar this afternoon, so I knocked off mid-afternoon to head home, clean up, and relax in the A/C.
5.0 hours