10 hrs between yesterday and today and a few of them just scratching my head. The new Cowling will actually be wildly different than the first version due to a major exhaust layout change. The new exhaust will offer bone simple installation with 6 short pipes. The crazy part will be that I'm considering using cylinder #1 and #2 pipes inside the cowl and the other 4 outside the cowl. Crazy I know, but it may just offer an advantage for lower CHT's and better temps during taxi. More on those later. First thing I noticed right off the bat was the need to re-shape the plenums by cutting down the forward exterior corners. These will require a fiberglass patch but will greatly reduce the cowling bulges that would have been there had I left them as they were. I then knew that part of the upper cowling change would be to build it around the diameter of a spinner bulkhead. I had a used Klaus style flow-guide and bulkhead I mounted for reference. If I do it right, there will be about a 3/16" gap on top of the flow guide as I assume in time the engine mount rubbers will give and that gap will increase to about 1/4" or a little more. Just right. Now it was time to start hot gluing some foam. I used a large sheet of 1/2" from home depot to set a nice gap between the engine and cowling. Not sure why it's taking me so long but I'm designing it while building it, so I'm working like a turtle. Either way, so far I'm pretty happy with it. Hoping to have the topside ready for glass before the weekend. We shall see about that :) I must add that the new 6" saber extension gives so much more breathing room in the back end. I'm really glad I paid $800 for 2" more. Wow :0
