I secured the crossover fuel line to the engine case:
Crossover fuel line secured to the oil sump
We then started working on the Showplanes intake installation. Because of the small "lip" on the tip of the throttle body, the servo plenum didn't fit immediately. I tried opening some slots on it and that made it go in a bit, but ultimately we just had to lay fiber around it and sand the inside - which also allowed us to set a better angle for it (turning slightly up):
Servo plenum with slots, barely fitting over throttle body
Servo plenum clearing the starter and alternator
Adjusting the position and angle of the servo plenum to add fiberglass to it
Cowling clearance below the servo plenum connected to intake plenum
Servo plenum after adding fiberglass, with a slight angle to it
With that in place, we match-drilled the intake plenum gussets, trimmed them to fit the intake plenums in place, and glassed them together:
Intake plenum gussets attached to baffle ramps
Intake plenum held in place, in alignment
Left intake plenum with gusset trimmed to bring it into the right position
Right intake plenum gusset trimmed to bring intake plenum into the right position
Intake plenums epoxied to their gussets
Last but not least, I added a couple layers of fiberglass to each side of the gussets, fully securing them in place:
Intake plenums with fiberglass securing the gussets
Intake plenum gussets reinforced with fiberglass layers
Next is glassing in the intake plenum caps to the servo plenum, and finishing the top side of the intake plenums by making a smooth ramp with homogeneous gaps to the cowl.
Showplanes now offers a custom baffle kit that fits much more easily with their cowl and intake system, so I got that:
Showplanes baffle kit parts
The main part of the modification is to cut off the ramp part of the stock forward baffle parts, and replace them with the Showplanes-provided ramps (as a separate part that will be riveted together):
Forward baffle assemblies with the ramp replaced by Showplanes'
Left baffle ramp in place
Left baffle ramp and cylinder 2 baffle
Right baffle ramp and forward baffles in place
I had to again remove the governor bracket to get the left forward baffle in, but it fits quite nicely:
Forward baffle in place around governor
All baffles in place
For the EFII tach wire, I opened a slot to get it in, to be held in place with a grommet:
Right forward baffle with tach wire going through it
At this point, after some minor trimming, the forward baffles fit in place and I attached the forward center bracket to the engine case - which required some trimming due to the odd shape of the engine case opening - and match-drilled it into the baffles:
Forward center bracket attached to engine and (temporarily) attached to baffles
Forward center bracket sitting in place, trimmed to fit the engine case opening
We also fabricated the cylinder baffle clips and match-drilled them in place:
Baffle clips
Baffle clips clecoed in place
Finally, I started test fitting the plenum, which will clearly need some work - both to connect it to the cowl air intake openings, and to align (and seal) the oil door opening:
Plenum sitting in place
Plenum oil door opening
One thing we didn't do yet was to bend the forward portion of the cylinder 1/2 baffles, to support the air ramps. We were waiting for the intake system to be sufficiently positioned that we were comfortable taking away the play that the ramps have there - so that'll come next.
Our previous attempt at making the oil door resulted in one that was not flush - I guess it just cured at a slightly wrong shape - so we started over and did it again:
Cowl with slightly raised oil door
New oil door, trimmed and clecoed down
We made a small ramp for the hinge to sit straight without bending:
Fiberglass strips to make oil door hinge ramp
Oil door hinge ramp cured in place
Removing the oil door after hinge ramp cured
Oil door hinge ramp after sanding
Oil door attached to hinge, with ramp
I attached the stainless steel reinforcements to the flange, so the latches wouldn't eat away the fiberglass over time:
Oil door flange reinforcements riveted in place
We then installed the core and applied a couple layers of fiber to the whole door, and this time we let it cure in place, clecoed down to retain the shape (and even retain the right shape around the reinforcements) - which worked:
Oil door core layup curing in place
Oil door after core layup curing
Oil door sitting in place after layup cured
For the latches, I drilled and clecoed the latches in just the right position to catch it but to still release when pressed:
Oil door latches clecoed in place
Because of the additional thickness of the reinforcements, they had to be raised inwards slightly, so I made some spacers from 0.032" aluminum:
Oil door latch spacers in place
Oil door latches raised by spacers (before trimming the spacers down)
The button holes required some care - the lever moves at an angle (the button rotates around the latch attachment point), so the final hole location is not exactly underneath where it sits before drilling the hole:
Oil door with button holes finalized
We then started working on the nose gear fairings that come with the Showplanes cowl, and drilled holes to secure them to the cowl, bottom skin, and each other:
It's a duck! Or a nose gear forward fairing
Nose gear fairings attached together for drilling screw holes
Drilling holes to attach the nose gear fairings to the cowl
We still need to finish the attachment of those fairings, permanently attached the oil door, and install nutplates on the foward side of the cowl.
