21-Apr-99: O-360-A1A engine delivered. Not a very impressive cardboard container for such an expensive piece of machinery!

27-Apr-99: Mounted the engine. Getting the bolts through the rubber mounts was not as difficult as expected.

28-Apr-99: First trip outside to turn the fuselage around - it doesn't look very big from this angle! The engine installation work will proceed in the garage at the end away from the door.

9-May-99: S type cowling trimmed & mounted - fits pretty well. A spacer made from PVC pipe sections was used to position the spinner back-plate at the appropriate place.

9-May-99: Air scoop cleko'd to lower cowling. This will get riveted (soft rivets) & glassed later.

17-May-99: Carb & filtered airbox installed. Standard Van's equipment with carb heat door at the intake.

17-May-99: Vetterman exhaust fits very nicely. The Robbins heat muff is quite close to the cowl.

31-May-99: Baffling mounted, before trimming top to cowl. This fitted fairly well right out of the box. A two piece top will be fabricated later to make an enclosed plenum, rather than sealing to the upper cowl.

5-Jun-99: Oil cooler mounted on rear left baffle. Plenty of reinforcement added here. A cockpit controllable door will limit air flow in winter to keep the oil temperature up.

18-Jul-99: Top view of vacuum pump, regulator & filter. The filter was later moved to the other side of this bay, aft of the regulator, for better hose routing.

18-Jul-99: Gascolator mounted with drain flush with cowling. The gascolator is set out from the firewall to clear the engine mount tubing. The supporting band at the bottom of the gascolator prevents undue movement when pressing on the quickdrain fitting

30-Sep-99: 1/8" copper tubing connects the electric valve, above the gascolator to primer ports on three cylinders. This is connected with steel T fittings supported by adel clamps.

30-Sep-99: Oil & fuel pressure sensors. The third position on the sensor manifold is for engine manifold pressure. Starter solenoid in background.

29-Oct-99: Fuel flow sensor connected between the gascolator & engine fuel pump. Fire sleeve on the 3/8" Al main fuel lines & also on the 1/4" Al line to the primer solenoid.

2-Jan-00: Lycoming issued an AD for hollow crankshaft engines using fixed pitch props. The rear crank shaft plug needs to be pierced to relieve oil pressure - there have been some occurrances of pressure building to the point where the front plug blows out, causing loss of oil. Of course, these plugs must be pierced with a punch as drilling may leave metal filings in the engine! Three images showing piercing the rear crank plug & replacing the front plug. This was another task that turned out to be a lot easier than expected. The new front plug was sealed with high temperature RTV gasket maker before being flattened slightly to expand it into place.

5-Jan-00: The Sensenich propeller is mounted with the Sensenich spinner. The spinner has all the right cut-outs & floating nutplates installed, ready to just bolt on. The cowl still fits!

5-Jan-00: The 1/2" prop bolts are torqued to 62 ft/lbs & safety wired.

25-Jan-00: Matco brake reservoir used to collect oil drained from the air/oil separator. After much research, it was decided that this was a more appropriate installation than draining the oil back into the engine, via the filler tube for instance.

29-Feb-00: The process of "pounding" the spacer onto the prop left a scratch on the prop from the spinner backplate - ugh! After seeing this photo, Ed Zercher (Sensenich) said that it wasn't a serious problem & should be smoothed with 350 grit sandpaper & painted with Tempo Hartzell grey.