7 hours.
Spent a good portion of the day iterating the front inboard baffles. This is where it gets weird: I used the IO-540 baffles from the RV-10 kit as a template to modify the baffles that came with my kit. Pretty straightforward, except that the hole for the governor is going to be very interesting.
The process here was pretty simple: Trace the outline of the 540 baffles onto the 360 baffles supplied with the kit, then cut away the excess. The 540 baffles sit a little farther back on the engine, behind the bulge for the governor drive gear and governor pad. I had already spent a good bit of time yesterday trimming the left front baffle to fit using more or less the same method, except I screwed it up a little. I didn’t leave any metal crossing over the centerline of the engine to link the two halves up. No big deal, that’s what spare .032 and platenuts are for.
Since the right baffle sits a little bit more aft, I needed to cut down the bottom of it about 7/8″ and cut the forward part straight back. It turned out OK, but left about 1/2″ of difference at the top from the left side. This is not problematic either, really, since a good chunk of that material has to be removed for the cowl fitting.
I’ll also have to extend the sides out to just past the ring gear on the flywheel, since the front baffles are now mounted too far aft.
I got my replacement #4 cylinder baffle parts, so I worked on those for a while. I”m not going to tackle the oil cooler until I’ve trimmed the baffles down for cowl fitting.
Speaking of which, that happens next. I have to get the spinner off the prop, make some 2 1/2″ spacers, and get my spinner put on the engine so I can line up the cowl. We’re about to head back into fiberglass land, folks. Yay! The entire world will be covered in pink dust. Like a Chtorran invasion site.