| Howdy Ya'll! |
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Do what yer' Momma said...
Go Play!
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Engine cowl options - View Thread
Are there any "aftermarket cowls out there made for different look or speed enhancements?
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Engine cowl options - RE: - View Thread
The website is http://www.jamesaircraft.com.
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Engine cowl options - RE: - View Thread
You can find them through google. They make a cowl and plenum that is supposed to give an added 7-10 mph. They are just starting to make a direct replacement for Van's cowl with the circular openings. Don't know much about it but was talking to Will James the day they popped the first one out of the mold.
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Engine cowl options - RE: - View Thread
Sam James makes a combination cowl and plenum for the 6 which would probably work on the 7 without too much trouble.
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Upper cowl fit - View Thread
I am trying to fit the upper cowl. If I center the cowl in back and front, the gap at the spinner widens from the left to the right (looking aft) (about 1/8 to 3/8+) and from the top to the bottom (about 1/4 to 3/8). I can skew the aft end of the cowl about 1 in. to the right and even up the gap at the spinner. But if I raise the front of the cowl to even the gap top to bottom, the top edge of the cowl appears about 1/2 in high. Is this normal, about as good as I can get, or did I goof somewhere? I am going to measure the thrust line offset and re-set the bolts.
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Upper cowl fit - RE: - View Thread
When I did my cowl fitup, the best I could do was a too tight fit on top with a larger gap on the bottom. The whole cowl was very ill fitting at best. I needed to lay up cloth inside the front of the upper cowl in the area behind the spinner. I then ground away the original cowl down to my new cloth and reshaped the whole center of my cowl. I added resin and filler to the front of the lower cowl and reshaped it to get a good, straight gap between the cowl and the spinner. It was a lot of work. I also had a poor fit on the bottom at the left front corner. This also need a little filler. After a lot of sanding, cursing, filling, and priming I did wind up with a good cowl. The only thing I found bad about Van's kits was the poor fiberglass parts and the poorly designed baffle kits.
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Upper cowl fit - RE: - View Thread
This is a very difficult area to fit. The engine thrust line is offset, so there tends to be more space on one side of the gap than the other. I also had a lot of trouble getting the front area behind the spinner flat. (there was more space at the joint line than at the top and bottom.) I ended up making it look as good as possible, then filled with epoxy, glass and filler behind the front top center of the cowl and sanded off almost the entire original thickness of cowl along the front side, to even the gap and flatten the entire top front area in relation to the rest of the "circle." As difficult as it is to do, make the spinner flush with the top of the cowl, because the engine will sag somewhat with time.
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Upper cowl fit - RE: - View Thread
A little "slope" at the spinner in either dimension seems common...at least I had some. My advice would be to get the cowl aligned properly with the axis of the spinner and worry about making that front face of the cowl parallel with the spinner later. The reason is that it's trivial to build that face up with fiberglass or to sand it down as required at a later point. If you haven't worked with fiberglass yet, trust me, that little task of evening out that surface will be one of the easiest things you'll do later on. Anyway, my 2 cents is to go for symmetry with the spinner/crankshaft and fix the face (gap between spinner & cowl) later. Just one dude's approach.
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| The "cover your butt" section |
This website was built to document my work on my RV-9A in
compliance with the FAA requirements needed to certify my aircraft. My experiences and comments are by
no means to be considered as instructions on how to build an RV-9A or any other aircraft.
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