Linda and I drove to Coppell, Tx so I could start to build my XP-360 engine at Superior Airparts. Its a Lycoming 180 Hp with constant speed crank in case I change from fixed to constant speed in the future. I was the only one in the class so received special attention. From 8am to lunch was an introduction to the company, the engine and the proper use of the tools. Evan Yearsley was the instructor and since he had been an A/P mechanic in Grand Junction and Montrose, Co we had something in common. After a good lunch and a tour of the building we set out with the build process. Evan and Able were also building engines on both sides of me. Evan started his and reviewed the proper checking of the parts and installation. This worked well as he was able to do his and instruct me on mine. The first thing was the crank shaft which we mounted on the swival stand as you see in pic #2 as I finished torqueing the rods after we balanced them for use on each cylinder location.After prepping both halves of the case we installed the main bearings to measure end and side play of bearings with crank in one half the in the other half for acceptabe tolerance's. We marked the large main bearing for proper location when we mount the 2 halves together, otherwise tightening the halves together with the bearing in the wrong postion would damage the bearing. Then we preped and balanced and determined the location of each cylinder(1&2 @ 999 grams,3&4@ 998 grams}. We rubbed RTV 202 on 1/2 of the case then used silk #30 thread on the flange to the inside of each botl hole with 1/2 " excess on each end, then with two of us with the one on the crank and me on the half with the cam shaft in place we put the two together and secured them with a couple of bolts, after making sure of the main bearing was not out of the indentation. After installing all bolts and torqueing, I went over what we would do on day 2. A big day!
