Firewall Forward
On this page I plan on documenting the construction of anything and everything that is related to the engine. This will include things that are physically located inside the plane, but are not installed until you are working on the firewall forward components - think throttle cable, mixture, etc.
Powerplant
I was able to find a
280 smoh Barret Precision Aircraft IO-320X with no damage history, 9.0:1 compression, AFP injector, dual mags, B&C starter, B&C alternator, oil cooler, exhaust, and a few other things for $12.5k. Soon after taking delivery I borrowed the Boroscope from work to inspect the internals. Everything appears to be in very good shape with no visible corrosion. The dyno tests show this thing making just shy of 180 hp, which means the RV should climb like a monkey.
Hanging the Engine
If the back of your engine looks lke a birdsnest of hoses and wires then you will want to give yourself about three or four hours to install the engine. After installing the increadibly expensive LORD mounts, the first step was to reposition the motor so that it would naturally hang on the hoist with the rear facing the airplane. Next, my dad and I had to remove most of the inverted oil lines before we could wrestle it into position. Starting with one bolt at a time we were able to eventually slide all four bolts into place and torque them down. With the engine installed its time to cut up the One Design engine baffling so that it fits the RV-3 cowl!
Fitting Cow
Dipstick Tube Trouble
The engine I purchased came with all of the necessary baffling, unfortunately it was made to fit a One Design. This meant I would have to trim the baffle while simultaneously fitting the cowl. Half way through trimming the baffling I noticed that the dipstick cap was hitting the cowl. Apparently this is fairly common on RV-3's and 4's because the cowl closely hugs the top of the engine. I replaced the original 15.5" tube with a 6.5" tube and associated dipstick. If you decide to replace your dipstick then you might want to consider replacing the lycoming paper gasket with a nice elastic rubber gasket - Part # RG-7205 from www.realgaskets.com
