My last so called "kit" of the project arrived. The firewall forward (FWF) kit. I say, so called kit, because I think technically Van's doesn't actually consider it a "kit". It is really kind of glossed over, but make no mistake...this is a $5000+ kit! $5000 is not an after thought to me...not sure about you? So I was kind of caught off guard when I realized I needed to order this bugger. Mostly it was just my naivety though...of course you need this stuff to finish the plane, no way around it. I just wish Van's would include it in their price structure so builders like me aren't caught off guard by it.
So, anyhow, its difficult to get a FWF "kit" that is exactly right for your needs, since there are so many FWF variations between builds. What I did was order the "FF RV7 O-360" kit and then made quite a few deletions. The O-360 kit is the best match for an IO-360 with vertical induction. After deleting some of the big tickets items like the prop governor and exhaust (more on this later...I thought I was going to get a four pipe exhaust from Larry Vetterman...only to find out the four pipe exhaust on the IO-375 is only available for the horizontal induction version. Long story short, just order the crossover exhaust from Van's...also supplied by Larry), the price came down to about $2400. Not exactly sure what in this kit cost so much?...because as you can see, there isn't much to it.
With all my griping aside about money...it was still fun to once again, oooo and aaaah over the new goodies. I love getting new parts and seeing them for the first time. This will be a part of the build I will miss most...the "RV Christmas" every time a crate or box arrives from Van's
Inventory time...need a good dark beer for the task, helps me concentrate ;)...Oak aged Yeti from a Denver microbrewery called The Great Divide...mmmm
Some time ago, Van's started shipping Lord engine mounts. I'm glad, because this was one thing I was planning to upgrade...now I don't have to. These are expensive little buggers though...
The baffle kit. Some guys still like to do their own from scratch, not sure why...there are some pretty intricately bent sheet metal in this kit. For $250...it looks like money well spent. I plan to use the Sam James plenum, but I will use most of this kit regardless so you need to order it if you are going the SJ plenum route like me
And even better, GREAT instructions are included for the baffle kit...I was impressed with the detail as you can see from this drawing.
I spent some time, with a good cup of coffee, just reading through the firewall forward instructions and drawings that came with the FWF kit. This removed some of my anxiety about the FWF...I didn't realize that there were drawings available for this part of the build...I thought I would be on my own. That will help quite a bit as I navigate through this install.
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