Over the last two weeks, the TeenFlight crew has been working on the engine preparation and installation process. Although the engine comes completely assembled, there are a lot of little things to tweak on it to suit its application and compatibility "under the hood" of the RV-12.
One of the things that the RV-12 requires is the installation of a cooling shroud that fits snugly over the top of the main part of the cylinders. This requires that we remove the carburetors, the ignition modules, and the cooling system, and flip them back to access this area.
This is how the cooling shroud fits over the cylinders. After it is trimmed down to size, the gaps between the fiberglass and the engine will be filled with RTV (Room Temperature Vulcanizing) silicone caulk. The purpose of the cooling shroud is to directly blast air evenly onto all four of the cylinders by way of a hose that runs from the cowling to the top of the shroud.
Other pieces of the firewall-forward kit that we worked on were the oil cooler and its bracket. It will eventually be installed under the engine and will face forwards out of the cowling.
More next week.
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