Author Archives: Michael

Engine is Hung

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Time: 2 Hours

My buddy Glenn received his IO-360 from Vans a few days after mine arrived. With both engines now in the shop we asked our good friend and RV-7 builder Pete to come visit and bring his engine hoist. This gives us an extra set of hands to help with each engine install. I gathered all the parts for the mounts and set them out. One other item I decided to install prior to the engine install is the Show Planes engine driven fuel pump cooling shroud. This shroud wraps the pump and allows for a tube to be connected to the baffling to direct ram air over the pump. This will help keep the pump cool and help with any vapor lock. Installing this with the engine in place is a challenge so getting this done now is ideal.

It only took about an hour to get the four engine bolts and mounting hardware installed. Definitely looks like an airplane now! Now on to the fun stuff!

Engine Hanging Prep

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Time: 2 Hours

In prep for my eventual engine hanging I’m working on attaching anything I can to the rear accessory section of the engine. The space is pretty tight back there after the engine is installed so doing them now is advisable from what I have read. One item is the propellor governor. This controls the pitch of the propellor blade via a cable control in the cockpit. It’s bolted with four bolts and torqued to 180-220 in/lbs. The governor has small screws around the perimeter that allows you to “clock” or rotate the inner part to allow the arm to move to a position so the cable gets full range of low and high pitch on the prop.

I will safety wire the screws again once the engine is mounted and the cables measured so that it is clocked just right. I also put in the Dynon oil temp sensor in the oil filter adapter.

Like the back of the engine I also wan to put as much on the firewall as I can. I bought the Raven inverted oil system with my engine and installed the oil separator and valve on the firewall. I spent a lot of time and photos looking at RV-8’s in OshKosh over the last two years to determine where I wanted to mount these.

I just have a few items that I want to take care of before the engine is on but needed to order some parts from Vans first. Hopefully they arrive before next weekend otherwise I’ll be working on those with the engine in place.

Engine Arrives!

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Time: 0 Hours

The time has come and my AeroSport Power IO-375-M1S Engine has made its great trek from Kamloops BC to Oswego IL. The truck arrived on time and the driver made quick work of carefully unloading it off the truck. After a quick inspection of the condition of the crate I signed off on the paperwork so he could be in his way.

Once I had it in the shop I put it off of the way so I could work on the wings. With the right upper gear leg fairing done I was finished with the wings and we could remove them. With Glenn’s help we made quick work of the six bolts I had holding the wings on and we put the wings back in their cradles. I then moved the plane back into the original position so that we would have good access to both of our engine mounts for the engine hanging party we will eventually have. Next up was to uncrate the engine after I put it into position just below the engine mount.

We are shooting for next weekend to get the engines hung which will give me a week to get items ready for the big day.

Upper Gear Leg Fairings

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Time: 10 Hours

So the fuel tanks have no leaks after having both the left and right tanks full of 100LL for several weeks. I drained the fuel out back into the 5 Gal fuel containers using the fuel sump drain. While the wings are on I’m gonna finish up the upper gear leg fairings. I couldn’t do these before when I had the wings on since I didn’t have the gear leg covers done. Now that they are I can get this last gear fiberglass task done. The upper fairings I bought from Cleaveland Tools and matched the lower fairings. These are not a perfect fit so you have to some work. I started by finding the two lower holes and drilled them. These holes are part of the gear leg inspection cover holes and I just needed to match drill them to the fairings. After that I worked slowly trimming the remaining edges to get the best fit possible. I found that the upper edge needed a lot of work so I decided to cut most of it off and add a layup to the inside and make the fit perfect. Before I did the layup I needed to secure the fairing on the top so that I returned it to the same position each time. I took an idea from my buddy Glenn and used a nutplate but reversed, meaning I put it on top of the side skin on the fuselage rather on the inside. Trying to put this nutplate on the inside of the gear tower would’ve been a nightmare. So I ground off one ear of a #6 nutplate then I drilled a hole large enough for the center of the nutplate to fit in. I then drilled for the wing of the nutplate for a blind rivet. I countersunk for the dimpled nutplate wing so it would sit as flush as possible.

After that setup I added some epoxy/flox to fill in the gaps and smooth out the transition. I also added some SuperFill to get the fit against the fuselage better.

The left side is done for the most part and just needs some finish sanding. I started the right side and had the same issue with the transition so I cut it up as well to add a three layers of fiberglass to make the transition work.

The inboard section of the right side had a gap of around 1/4” so I needed to cut off a good section in order to get it to lay up flat to the gear leg. After a couple of layers of fill I had the fairing pretty close. I then added a little Super Fill to the leading edge so I could get a real nice fit around the fuselage.

I real happy with the fit and will call them done, minus a little surface work but that can be done off the airplane. So now the wings can be removed again until final assembly!

Aero Sport Power Build School

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Time: 12 Hours

This weekend I made the trek from Chicago to Kamloops Canada to attend the Aero Sport Power’s build school to assemble my IO-375-M1S engine. They offer this one-on-one school to assemble your engine with the help of a pro builder. The first morning started with Darren giving me the tour of the shop and all the formalities. After that we jumped right in and began assembling. I cannot say enough good things about Darren Jones and the whole team at Aero Sport Power! Great customer service! My emails and calls were always answered and there was never a doubt that I was getting a great product backed by a great company. I got to be as hands on as much as I wanted which was a great experience for me. I asked a lot of questions about the engine and the parts…Darren is a patient guy! After the building was done we moved into the testing shop where the attached all the parts to be able to run it up. We put the engine through it’s paces for 2+ hours and all went perfect. I’m not gonna try to describe all the steps rather I’ll just give a timeline in photos…enjoy!