With the help of Eric, an awesome AV technician and A&P, I started routing the FWF wires - we put as much as we could of the other FWF tubing in place for reference, then routed the wires around it:
FWF area with all tubes in place to figure out wire routing
Spark plug wire routing from the coil packs
Sensor wire routing along the side of the engine
Sensor, EFII and spark plug wire routing near the firewall
This gave them the general shape/route, and we still need to finish attaching them later.
For the overhead console, I updated my insert design to avoid interference between connectors and screws by moving the O₂ distributors slightly outboard, and laser-cut mock versions out of acrylic to start (before making the real ones from CFRP):
Laser-cutting the mock inserts
Mock inserts, laser-cut from acrylic
Mock inserts made from acrylic, with all equipment attached
To make them fit, we had to trim parts of the overhead console flange, which was a bit painful (literally, we're getting old 🤣) but doable:
Trimming the overhead console insert flange to fit the O₂ distributors
They fit quite well except for the aft lights which were about 1/8" too far aft - since it was a small difference, and their face is offset from the hole anyway, I'll just move those holes about 5/32" forward on the final version of the panel:
Mock inserts attached in place with all equipment except rear lights
With the borescope, we checked that the nutplate rivets, although close, did not hit the O₂ distributor connector:
O₂ distributor connector distance to the insert attachment nutplate
O₂ distributor connector distance to the insert attachment nutplate
Next I'll have the final versions of the inserts waterjet-cut in carbon fiber, route the O₂ tubes, and install it all for good.
I had originally planned to attach the heat tube using brackets that another builder designed:
3D printed SCAT tube bracket for the tunnel
3D printed bracket attached in the tunnel
Forward 3D-printed SCAT tube bracket
This was getting complicated to attach (and not very temperature-resistant), so I instead decided to just use brackets attached to the tunnel covers - this makes it slightly more annoying to attach/remove the covers (4 more screws), but is way simpler and lighter, and by positioning them right at the end of the ruddel pedal arm travel, I can ensure that it'll clear those:
Metal SCAT tube bracket match-drilled to the forward tunnel cover
Metal SCAT tube bracket match-drilled to the aft tunnel cover
Metal SCAT tube brackets, primed and with nutplates attached
To attach the forward vents, just like in the tailcone, I didn't want to trust just the sealant to hold it in place, so I made doublers to rivet the vents to the skin, with equally-spaced holes through them:
Forward vent doublers cut out from sheet metal
Forward vent doublers in position around the NACA vents
Using graphing paper to mark equally-spaced holes on vent doublers
NACA vent with doubler clecoed in place, from the outside
NACA vent with doubler clecoed in place, from the inside
With those in place, I realized that I needed some way to connect the NACA vent to the actual panel vent, in what is a somewhat tight space - the plenum that SteinAir sells actually worked well for that, by giving me a flange that I can attach a very short SCAT tube to:
Distance from the panel vent to the NACA vent
Vent plenum installed in place behind the panel
I then installed the Aerosport air control to the top of the tailcone (which due to my unfortunate positioning of holes required completely removing the servo from it, attaching the rest, then reinstalling the servo in place:
Overhead air control servo installed in place in the tailcone
Next I need to recalibrate the position of that servo, rivet the NACA vents in place with sealant, and run all the SCAT tubing.
I routed the pitot and AoA tubing to the wing root, with right-angle adapters there:
Pitot and AoA tubes, routed down the side pocket to the connectors
Wing root pitot/AoA connectors on the fuselage side
On the wing side, I also attached the tube connectors (using the shortest right-angle connectors I could find so it doesn't interfere with the spar later):
Wing root pitot tube connector on the wing side
With that, I installed the pitot tube and connected the tubing on both ends:
Pitot tube installed in place, with the tubes connected to it
I had to use the borescope to see what I was doing when connecting the pitot heat wires, but it worked out, and I secured them away from the rib:
Connecting pitot heat wires, as seen through the borescope
Pitot heat wires, routed and secured away from the rib
With this, the only thing left in section 20 is installing the access covers in place, which I'll do after final assembly and end-to-end rigging of the ailerons.
I finished attaching the starter and throttle body (cleaning up gasket maker that squeezes out to the inside of the throttle, being careful not to bring any of it into the tiny pressure ports, is not fun):
Alternator, starter and throttle body installed in place
Throttle body installed in place
Back when we attached the governor, we realized too late that the studs' threading didn't go down to the surface of the governor, and had temporarily used 5 washers - I confirmed with Barrett (again, great support!) that this was just a matter of driving the studs further in, which I managed to do with the two-nut trick, and then I secured it with the proper hardware:
Governor studs, sticking out far too much
Using the double-nut trick to drive the governor studs further in
Governor installed in place
Later, the time came to redo the engine preservation - along with the required materials, I decided to get a borescope and check out how the cylinders are doing. Sure enough, there was a bit of rust developing in one of the cylinders (and much smaller patches in the others):
Rust inside the cylinder, already :(
I posted the pictures to the RV-10 group, and Barrett themselves jumped on it :) they decided to have us send the cylinders back for nickel coating, which supposedly makes them more corrosion resistant - so I'll do that just before I'm ready to fly.
For the preservation ("pickling"), the procedure that Barrett gave us was pretty straightforward - spray LPS3 into each cylinder while the piston is at the bottom, twice, so we did that. And because that was too easy, the LPS3 straw had to fall in one of the cylinders 😟 which required some very careful picking to not scratch anything in there in the process:
LPS3 straw that fell inside the cylinder - oops
To prevent the rust from getting worse, I installed dehydrator plugs and a Drybot:
Engine with dehydrator (silica gel) plugs and a Drybot
Later, I attached the coil packs on the engine mount:
Coil pack attached to the top forward engine mount bar with adel clamps
The aft holes did not align as I had hoped with the adel clamp:
Attempt at attaching coil packs with simple bolts
so I'll have to make some kind of support to hold it up firmly at a good angle.
I also ran the aft heat control cable from the pax console insert to the firewall (which required a slightly longer cable than the one Vans provides):
Aft heat control cable in place
I still need to connect both heat control cables to the heat valves on the firewall, once the center console is fully done.
I got started on this section by attaching the control cables on the firewall forward side:
Showplanes prop governor cable bracket attached in place
Prop governor cable attached to the governor through the bracket
Throttle cable reaching the throttle body underneath the engine
Throttle cable attached to the throttle body (incorrectly)
After attaching it with this hardware, I realized that not only was it in the wrong hole (the outer hole requires longer cable travel), but it was also hitting the arm itself when it moved, so I had to switch to the Vans-recommended hardare:
Throttle cable attached to the throttle arm with the Vans-recommended hardware
I then started routing and attaching the control cables inside the cabin, at first using the Aerosport-provided bracket:
Possible control cable routing over the tunnel to the quadrant
Original control cable bracket, as far down as it'd go
It turned out that that bracket didn't really fit - it was too short and couldn't easily be kept down against the top of the tunnel without significant preloading from the cable bend, so we had to make our own bracket.
Figuring out the exact angle, hole position, height, etc. took a lot of work - there's a lot of variables to consider, like the cable's bend against the tunnel top, clearance to the inside of center console, clearance to the fuel valve parts, room for running wires and the heat control cable, the maximum swivel angle of the cable tips, etc. Our first version was workable with almost all of those, except the holes were too high so the cable was hitting the inside edge of the console, and the angle was not sufficient, so the cables were hitting their maximum swivel:
Forward side of the cable bracket, showing that it clears the fuel valve selector
Inside of the center console, looking forward at the cable bracket
Interference between the control cable and the inside of the center console
so we made yet another bracket, with a larger angle and with the hole slightly lower, and match-drilled it into the tunnel top for attachment with AN3s:
Control cable bracket match-drilled in position, avoiding the fuel valve selector extension
Throttle and prop cables no longer interfering with the inside of the center console
I added nutplates to the tunnel cover, primed the bracket, and attached it:
Cable bracket attached to tunnel cover
With that done, I'll wait until I close up the tunnel to do final attachment of the cables (not a lot left until then either).
