Paul,

 I want to make a simple firewall to attach to the front of Seawind mount
 frame. It is a non structural element for the cowl and only needs to be
 strong enough to support the water reservoir, oil filter and pass
 through connection.  I am thinking a thin sheet of stainless but what
 can I use to back it up so it has some strength? 1/4" plywood comes to
 mind but I am concerned about how long it will last with a hot flame on
 the engine side.  Of course it could be argued that the FRP cowling will
 be burning as well.


 Doug in Japan

 If it has thin stainless on both sides it won't burn. It needs air to
 burn. I think it will turn to charcoal if the heat is high enough. The
 best bet for a low density fire proof core may be the ceramic foam stuff
 they use on the space shuttle. It is probably real expensive.

 The XB70 had brazed SS honeycomb panels.

 Paul Lamar



The KIS firewall is 1/4" plywood, with a facing of fiberfrax and then thin
SS. It is far more fireproof than the cowling, which will burn like a
candle
if ignited.
Bill Schertz
KIS Cruiser #4045
N343BS
Phase I testing

Bill,
What have you experienced so far in tuning yuour engine?

Paul Lamar
---------------------------------------
I was able to get it pretty well tuned on the ground, enough that I was
willing to fly. First flight 4/22/09, put a total of about 10 hours on it,
and had the Blue Mountain EFIS fail (and the company close).  I am in the
process of rewiring the plane to put in different instrumentation, so have
been grounded since August.

There is one tricky point on tuning, where the engine transitions between
low rpm and high rpm table -- you cannot access the high rpm values at low
manifold pressure on the ground, so when you push the throttle forward
quickly, the engine will stumble. This is solved by manually adjusting the
values in those bins so the mixture stays in the right range. After that it
was smooth.

Bill Schertz
KIS Cruiser #4045
N343BS
Phase I testing


Thanks Bill. I await the results you get with the rotor housing
pressure taps. Sorry to hear about the Blue Mountain thing having
known Craig. I wonder what happened. I am still a fan of steam
gauges for the engine stuff. Any electronic stuff should
be an add on and not needed for flight IMHO.

Paul Lamar