Sam James Cowling and Wheel Pants

Does anyone in the group have experience with the Sam James cowling and wheel pants? I know Randy Lervold did (rv8a.com), but I believe he had problems due to the first batch out of the mold. I have asked around and have yet to get feedback, but I keep thinking someone has experience to share. Questions include:

* Any fitment problems with the cowling for the o-360 model? Did you use vans standard attach HW, or did you use something different? Other than the cowl, anything else need deleted for the cowl and plenum kit from Sam James?

* Does the wheelpants provide a speed increase over the new pressure recovery pants? I have heard positive things about them, but I have not seen any direct correlation to the new style vans pants. Also, I understand the James pants mount a bit low...any other installation problems that need to be understood?

Thanks,
Scott

Sam James plenum and wheel pants

I have installed Sam James engine cooling plenum and wheel pants on my new RV7---only made a few speed checks by have recorded 75% power @ 8500 ft 207 mph---aircraft has not been painted and weighs 1090 # empty---had to close off oil cooler approx 2/3 closed to get oil temp to 180 degrees--plenum and pants are a lot of work and fitting but I think worth the effort. Call me on my cell if any more questions---Roy 772-473-7700

Sam James

I have the Sam James cowling & plenum, wheel pants, and wing root fairing (modified) on my RV-6A. The cowling and plenum fit wonderful as do his airbox assembly. I would without hesitation put the Sam James cowling and plenum on any RV I build. The Sam James wheelpants fit pretty tight and is harder to get everything to fit perfect. If I had to do it again I would do the Sam James cowling and plenum and go with the Van's wheelpants simply because they are easier to fit by giving you a little more room to adjust things.

oil temp

Roy Pinner said:

I have installed Sam James engine cooling plenum and wheel pants on my new RV7---only made a few speed checks by have recorded 75% power @ 8500 ft 207 mph---aircraft has not been painted and weighs 1090 # empty---had to close off oil cooler approx 2/3 closed to get oil temp to 180 degrees--plenum and pants are a lot of work and fitting but I think worth the effort. Call me on my cell if any more questions---Roy 772-473-7700

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I had to do the same thing on mine. I could not get the oil temp up. I put a butterfly valve on mine with a control on the panel.

Cowl and wheel pants

tx_jayhawk said:

"...the James pants mount a bit low...any other installation problems that need to be understood?"

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In genral YES to the mod, more work but worth it. There are some other ways to go about it you might consider.

Scott you can fit almost any wheel pants low. The less tire sticking out the better for drag, but you do have higher chance of fairing damage. Getting more wheel fairing to ground clearance kind of kills the idea. I have his wheel fairings and they are nice. The only down side are all the pre-fab intersection fairings that are now available but only to match vans wheel pant and gear leg fairing. As far as which is better, the fastest RVs have the Rocket/SamJames wheel pants, Dave Anders, Tracy Saylor. Van's are fine but a little bulky looking. So performance=close, looks=prefer the SamJames style.

As far as the cowl, I am modifying Vans stock cowl to use Dave Anders round aluminum inlets.

The Plenum will be made mostly with aluminum; using Vans baffle kit and an aluminum top. The part between the cowl ring and plenum will be a fiberglass part that transitions from rectangular to round. Call it the diffuser. The cowl rings and fiberglass transition will be connected with flexible tube. More work but cheaper. I like Van's cowl with the core, but nothing wrong with Sam James all laminate cowl.

Cheers George

Sounds about what I have heard. It sounds like the cowling/plenum is the way to go, but the wheel pants need work. Of course if the pants offer more speed over Vans, then maybe it is worth the effort.

Does anyone have a direct comparison with Vans and the James wheel pants?

Which engine and prop gave you 207mph? Planing on installing that myself, just wonder the speeds.

I am using an Aerosport 0-360 with light speed II and mag--Hartzell blended prop---very happy with combo---Bart does a realy nice job-- Roy