After a LOT of measuring this and researching that and scratching my head I decided to take the plunge on cooling intake design. I started with green foam pressed up against the back side of the turtle deck and spars. I then found a 4" cardboard tube cap for reference of intake size. I've read a LOT of reviews that state a round intake is by far the most efficient so I was set on making it work on my airplane without using some dragster hood scoop design. I wanted smooth lines that will blend easily into the cowling curves. One of the hard parts of this design is that I cant run the intake too far forward because of my canopy latch points. I need access to those pesky screws. This means I will have to blend the fuselage into the 4" circle is some areas that will require a pretty quick turn for the airflow. HOWEVER, this will be in spots that may actually be inside the boundry layer and therefore not as bad as it looks. Either way I have a really neat Idea for the forward blending of the outside fo the circle going forward. After sanding the foam as CLOSE as possible to each other I attached them with aluminum tape, prepped the entire surrounding areas and got ready to glass. This was the perfect time to finish up the 6 ply BID lips behind the spar and to add 1 ply toward the outside. This means glass was unside and outside of the first round of BID I did a while back. I also layed up 5 plies of BID over the intake foam and staggered the plies in transition to the other glass layers. After all this I added peel ply and will let her cure for a couple days. Good news! The harsh winter cold will finally be over this weekend. Temps in the high 60's coming up!
