FWF Done!

Wow.. What a ton of work! I’ve now completed all the Firewall Forward plumbing and wiring. The only thing left to do is to put spark plug ends on the wires and maybe tidy up a couple of wires, but outside of that.. I’m done. I also took a little extra time to revisit my baffle material seeing I wasn’t completely happy with it the first time. I changed the left, right, and aft material so each was one contiguous piece of material. Previously they were broken into 3 pieces. The aft part had some puckering that I didn’t like as well, so was addressed with this update.

The next couple of pics are from the front.

The right side of the engine.

Boy does it really get busy in the space between the firewall and the engine. Especially when you have 2 coil packs for the spark plugs.

The left side of the engine.

Again busy busy.. It really took so much time not only to wire things, but to come up with reasonable routes and securing things.

Now its back to finishing the inside wiring and getting my panel powered up!

FWF wiring never ends

Mostly been focused on FWF wiring. There are lots of connections to be made and properly securing the wires seems to take considerable time. Fabricating brackets.. etc..

Below you can see the metal L brackets I made along with a short straight metal piece to secure the #2 starter cable to the oil sump. The straight metal piece allowed me to mount the adel clamp for the #2 wire inwards, sort of on top of the sump. The adel clamps down lower allow for the lower voltage signal wires, mainly CHT and EGT, but also throttle position sensor wires to be secured.

Left side brackets

I also secured the AC hoses FWF along with putting the ends on the compressor side of the hoses. I secured the hoses to the forward-most intake tube, a plate secured to the left side of the cold air sump.

Left side AC hoses

The hoses connected to the FW and secured (although not in sight) to another metal bracket attached to the bottom of the cold air sump. I may also secure them to the engine mount in the middle of the run shown below.

Right side AC hoses
AC hoses ready to be connected to the compressor

CHT probes were screwed into their locations in each cylinder. I then got to locating the EGT probes making sure they have clearance seeing they stick straight out of the exhaust pipe. I targeted 2 1/4″ down from the flange. I was able to locate 2 of the 3 on the inside of the pipes and #2 needed to be pointed outside due to the angle of the pipe and the heat muff being on this pipe giving few other options.

Drilling a hole for the EGT probe
Probe secured in place
Left 3 pipes have EGT probes installed.
Left side coming along

I’ve run spark plug wires to their destinations. The left coil pack services the top set of plugs and the right coil pack services the bottom plugs on each cylinder.

Top Right spark plug wires routed.
Top Left Spark plug wires routed.

At this point the left side is just about complete. Still need to finish the spark plug wires and the Tanis wiring to each cylinder heat element. Time to work on the right side.

Left side nearing completion.

Below are some other pics of having a bung welded into the right side exhaust collector for the SDS O2 sensor installation spot. I had a local guy TIG weld this on for me.

O2 sensor bung.

I also split the forward tunnel cover into 2 pieces like most builders do with an Aerosport center armrest/console. I also mounted my bracket for the throttle and prop cables.

In unrelated news.. I received my Aveo Engineering Zip Tip wing tip light units. I ordered these at Oshkosh, so 6-8 weeks turned into 6 months wait time, but they are here and they look great!

Zip Tips!

FWF hoses, Oil door pin airfoil, and exhaust update

Most of the FWF fuel and oil hoses are complete now minus some Adel clamps that still need to be added. I’ve tried to annotate the pictures as much as possible to help show what all the hoses are.

Below you can see the main fuel supply comes out of the firewall bulkhead fitting on the left (pilots) side and attaches to the SDS post filter. In this picture is also one of the two oil cooler lines that connects to the engine.

Below is the closeup of the post filter clamped to the engine mount.

The fuel supply comes out of the post filter and continues on to the fuel rail after it passes through the baffling. Also shown is the fuel pressure line that comes back to a sensor, the other oil cooler line, and the oil pressure line.

A better view of both lines coming out of the oil cooler.

The blue hose is the oil breather line connected to the Air/Oil separator. This configuration will keep oil off the belly of the airplane. I also added an adel clamp on the firewall to hold it midway.

Moving to the other side of the engine, we have the manifold pressure line coming from the sensor on the manifold block. You can also see here the fuel return line coming through the baffling as it makes its way back to the fuel pressure regulator.

One of the add-ons I decided on was a remote oil filter adapter. This will make oil changes much easier with the filter readily accessible and with the filter oriented vertical, all excess oil will be in the filter when you spin it off preventing a mess. This does, however, require 2 additional hoses to get back and forth to the engine as shown here.

Below you see the Borla pressure regulator for the SDS system mounted to the firewall and taking return fuel (top right) from the engine, and returning it to the firewall mounted bulkhead fitting below the heat box on the right (copilots) side. I still need to attach a manifold line to the center of the regulator.

Looking at the engine side and the fuel block on top of the case.. you can see the supply, return, and pressure lines as they make their way from the rear baffle to the block. There is a T fitting in the supply inlet to provide the pressure back to the sensor.

Each of the cylinder is fed out of the sides of the fuel block like the 3 cylinders shown below.

I also drilled a small hole in the oil filter adapter to attach safety wire to when safetying the oil filter itself.. not done here as the install is all temporary for now.

One of the other things I needed to finish up as creating an airfoil of sorts to back up the pin for the hidden oil door. I used some air-drying modeling clay to form the shape that I wanted.

I then laid up a few layers of fiberglass cloth over the clay and allowed it to cure overnight.

I finished it off with some micro and sanded it smooth.

With the pin inserted.

Another task I needed to figure out was how to feed air into the left side heat muff. With the AC compressor installed on the engine there is no good way to use anything from the air inlet area like the stock setup does. The only options I saw were to feed it from the aft baffle (like the right side does), feed it from the left intake snorkel, pull from the right inlet area (but this is also tight with the alternator over there), or add NACA vents to the lower cowl.

I’ve decided on pulling from the left intake snorkel. This does steal some combustion air , but the Showplane’s setup is designed to only need air from one side to be sufficient. So I will add a 2″ SCAT tube between the locations shown with arrows below. Of course, I’m going to need to get a 180* setup for the #2 cylinder heat muff from Custom Aircraft parts instead of the normal 62.5* one I have now. This will have air come in from the outside of the exhaust and intake tubes to the engine and the outlet will be on the inside of those tubes feeding the left heat box.

A rough mock-up of where the 2″ SCAT tube will go. There seems to be sufficient space between the lower cowl and the engine to do this.

A rough approximation of where the inlet to the heat muff will be.

In talking to Clinton about this, he’s also been fighting some cracking in the exhaust on the left side. He had previously sent me a support setup for the exhaust to help with vibration, which I have, but haven’t done anything with it quite yet. He asked that I install my exhaust and check for any interference with the intake tubes and in the end, I’ll need to send my entire left side of the exhaust back to him for modification to help prevent cracking in the future.

Left side of exhaust installed.
Right side installed.

While sending it back, I’m also going to have him “stud” the heat muffs on both sides (as shown below) to allow for some better heat transfer. I didn’t know about this option prior to ordering and it apparently helps get some more heat for the colder months. The stock Vetterman exhaust is known to have too much heat, but that’s not always the case with the Custom system.

Picture of Bob Lusslow’s studded exhaust that I’m going to have done.