Cooling System Install

The cooling system was final installed today. Here is the radiator.

The radiator is attached to the firewall at two locations and from the front with a rod which is clamped to the engine mount.

The radiator hose runs from the expansion tank, down into the left side of the radiator. You can also see 5" of hose slit and zipped tied to the main hose for anti-chafe protection from the engine mount. An 8" spring was inserted into the ID of the hose to prevent the hose from pinching at a severe bend.

Here is the hose coming in to the left side of the radiator.

The second hose runs from the water pump down into the right side of the radiator. Again, a spring was inserted and extra hose was used for anti-chafe.

Here is a view looking up from the belly.

Not shown is a 24" piece of 1/2" poly tubing running from the expansion bottle to the overflow bottle mounted on the firewall.

Lubrication System: Oil Cooler Install

The oil cooler is mounted to the front of the engine. Here is a front view of the mounted cooler.

From behind, you can see it mounted to the engine in two of the three locations. The cooler is mounted between two aluminum channels/layers of silicone and sandwiched by four threaded rods. The silicone will dampen vibration.

You can see a gap between the cooler and vertical side of the channel. There could be concern that this will shift and rub metal on metal. Liquid silicone was suggested, but I don't want to risk plugging the cooling area. I will monitor through course of operation, as it eems like it is in there tight.

My kit is missing some oil lines (manual says to be provided by Rotax) so will contact factory to obtain entire updated lines sheathed with fire resistant material.

Install Exhaust System

The exhaust system is installed and complete. Below pic shows all of the components. One half of the heater wrap, shown below, has flange fittings riveted and siliconed to two hole openings.


Here is a closeup of the flange fittings. Heater hoses will later attach here. The aluminum wrap around the muffler functions as a heat exchanger and warms the supplied air and returns it to the cabin.

Here is the heater wrap being installed around the muffler. Spacers are used to optimize fit.

The exhaust pipes were loosely attached to the engine and the muffler was attached to the pipes through a series of springs. My dad assisted while I stretched the springs with a device (handle with small hook) I had saved from stretching springs on my kids' trampoline. Worked slick. Once everything aligned and in position, I torqued down the nuts on the studs connected to the engine.

Instrument Panel: Final Fit-Up

The instrument panel is complete, save for the four push-pull knob and cables (carb heat, choke, cabin heat, parking brake). Here is the panel I cut from blank stock and had powder-coated locally for $15.
I installed all of the instruments into the panel.


Here is the back-side of the panel and the variety of depths encountered with each instrument.

The structural tubes were a big hindrance in the panel design. Turns out my Hobbs gauge and several of my switch-breakers contacted the tubes and required some improvising.

Here is the completed panel ready to be screwed to the boot cowl, once it is painted and ready for installation.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out, in spite of, the limited panel space and underlying barriers. Combination switch/breakers were a huge space-saving factor. Next thing will be to install labels for each switch/breaker and fuse.

Engine Mod. (cont.) & Installation

After quite a few weeks, I've finally got the engine installed. Here is the forward engine mount bolt connection to the block. Both bolts on both sides received loctite and safety wire.


Here is the right side bolts and safety wire, plus the mounted ignition module bracket.

The ignition module was previously mounted to the right intake manifold. Since the latter was moved to the left side, the corner had to be resupported. Here is the z-channel bracket installed on the forward engine mount and the above item supported. Ground wires were run to this fastener and an additional ground wire will run to the engine block, for an optimum ground connection.

After switching out carbs and manifolds, a longer compensating tube was required. Here is the new one installed, with rubber hose leading to a freshly "loctited" elbow in the intake manifold.

Here is the aft engine mount secured to the forward engine mount. Rubber donuts are installed at each fastened location to dampen vibration.

Here is me wrestling the aft engine mount to be bolted to the airframe. The engine hoist is a must-have.

Here is the final installed engine. Still need to hookup fuel lines to the carbs.

Airstrip Emerging Turf

I applied 125 lbs of the following "pasture seed mix" to the runway surface:

*Climax Timothy-25.0%

*Orchard grass-9.6%

*Tetraploid Perennial Ryegrass-34.1%

*Norcen Trefoil-4.4%

*Alsike Clover-14.7%

*Medium Red Clover-11.0%

The runway was then fertilized and disked. Here is recent pic of runway 2.5 weeks later, following a considerable amount of rain.

Engine Modification

The Rotax engine needed to be modified, mostly, so that the forward engine mount would adapt to the engine. This entailed swapping out left and right hand intake manifolds and carbs and turning coolant system elbows to gain clearance (among a host of other things). Below is an engine hoist I borrowed to assist in working on the engine and will ease installing it on the airframe. Rans manuals are weak in Rotax mod procedure, fortunately Rotax schematics are strong with good information (variety of loctite required for each fastener, required torque, etc.). Good advice from a fellow builder forewarned cost in damaging Rotax fasteners, hose, etc. as it is sold by the angstrom. So far so good. Specialized loctite alone priced at liquid gold.

Next several pics show removed carbs and fuel lines.

Here is relocated intake manifold (right to left).

Here is a drip tray supplied by Rans and installed on each manifold.

Following two pics show relocated carbs on drip trays. A new throttle bracket was installed and throttle spring was redirected.

This next one shows the dismantled water pump with housing removed.

Here is the housing (inlet removed and not shown). I had to heat up the upper elbows with a heat gun to soften loctite and faciliate removal.

Here is the forward engine mount trial fit before rerouting elbows and coolant hoses. Close tolerance fit would be an understatement.

Here is final assembled water pump housing, rotated and loctited inlet/outlet elbows and hosing rerouted through engine mount and clamped to elbows. What a PITA. Rotate pic 90 deg. CCW. Wife keeps asking "what's all the yelling from the garage"?

Here is electrical assembly I installed (pressure switch?). It is used to operate engine hour meter, so when engine quits, the hour meter quits.

Twin boys-for scale....
I've got the 2 of the 4 engine mount bolts torqued and loctited. Alignment is way off on bottom two and will require my Dad's assistance to align. Pray can have dang thing mounted by weekend.