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Dave's RV-7A Builder's Log
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Date: 1-17-2015
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Number of Hours: 4.00
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Engine baffles
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After clearing various family and work commitments, and with a little warmer weather, I finally made it out to the hangar for a few hours. Today was more work on the engine baffles. An air cooled engine requires a fairly precise volume and flow of air around it in order to operate at the optimum temperature, and like any other Lycoming-powered aircraft, the baffle system on the RV-7A is designed to regulate the airflow that enters the cowling by directing it across the cylinders and then down to exhaust out of the lower aft portion of the cowl. In addition, there are several places where openings scavenge air for component cooling, and allow ignition wires to reach the upper spark plugs. Most of this is already accommodated in the baffle kit from Van’s, but due to engine installation variances, some must be adjusted by the builder. I can’t imagine trying to figure out how to fabricate these on my own.
The aft baffles require an oil cooler installation on the left side, already detailed in previous posts, and a 2” SCAT tube on the right, so that’s what I started with today. Van’s includes a piece of aluminum screen (pretty sure they source that at Home Depot…) which must be trimmed to fit. That done, a bead of high temp RTV to seal the opening and out with the rivet gun to install 4 AN4 rivets.
The baffles require a lot of “on/off” fitting, so the rest of the time was spent installing a couple of support brackets, filing edges to clear interference on the engine case, and various other small tasks. Next up will be trimming the forward edges and installing the air ramps that optimize the air flow as it enters the induction ports.
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Screen trimmed and ready for installation
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Temporary fiting
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Aft support bracket
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