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Modifying IO-360 C sump for forward facing servo

J

jbasol

Member
All:

I am a Cozy 4 builder that has run into a snag with my engine selection. I selected the IO-360-C1C after learning that the A1A required cowl modification for the intake pipes (the C series sump does not).

Now that the engine is bolted on firewall and I'm starting to bolt accessories to it, I realized that the space between the servo flange and the firewall is too small to mount the servo and get a tube up to it. I did notice that the sump seemed capable of supporting the servo on the foreward face though.

In searching for information on forward facing fuel servos for IO-360-C series engines I ran across some helpful information in these forums. It seems a number of RV builders have made this modification, so I'm hopeful someone will have drawings that I can provide to a local machine shop to have them modify mine.

Thanks in advance!

-John Basol
 
John,

Welcome to the VAF forum. Careful these guys may talk you out of sanding and into pounding rivets.

I recently saw a vertical sump IO-360 with a snorkel bolted on and the servo mounted to the other end in a horizontal orientation. Could you have something like that made up to put the fuel servo where you need it?
 
Hi Bill,

Thanks for the words of caution. :) They wouldn't have much arm twisting to do on me either. I'm pretty sure I'm trading my sander for a rivet gun on my next project.

I tried to determine how to put some sort of snorkle in place that would allow me to mount the servo below the sump. While it could be done, it would mean having the servo facing the rear of the plane instead of into the NACA scoop airstream. Just isn't enought room in there. :) I should have made my own cowls (heck, I made everything else), serves me right for trying to save some time with prefabircated parts.

I thought about switching to a verticle sump as well, but the exhaust won't work with a verticle sump. So it seems modifying the existing sump is the easiest option.

Am I up the proverbial creek without propper method of propulsion or what??? :)

-John
 
As was said, WELCOME aboard.

I would try talking to the good folks at Airflow Perf they have a nice selection of parts that just might be what you need.

I am in the process of changing a vert induction to a horizontal using one of their elbows.

Good luck.
 
jbasol said:
All:

I am a Cozy 4 builder that has run into a snag with my engine selection. I selected the IO-360-C1C after learning that the A1A required cowl modification for the intake pipes (the C series sump does not).

Now that the engine is bolted on firewall and I'm starting to bolt accessories to it, I realized that the space between the servo flange and the firewall is too small to mount the servo and get a tube up to it. I did notice that the sump seemed capable of supporting the servo on the forward face though.

In searching for information on forward facing fuel servos for IO-360-C series engines I ran across some helpful information in these forums. It seems a number of RV builders have made this modification, so I'm hopeful someone will have drawings that I can provide to a local machine shop to have them modify mine.

Thanks in advance!

-John Basol
Click to expand...

John,
No drawings for you. However, any competent machinist should be able to inspect the mounting surface of the rear of the sump and replicate it on the front. He has to mill the casing flat, bore the inlet hole, drill & tap the mounting stud holes. You then need to fabricate a cover plate and gasket for the rear servo opening.
I'm emailing you some photos of an RV which has had this mod done. I hope this will help.
Charlie Kuss
 
I too have a simular problem with my IO360C1E6 and have been told that Divco in Tulsa OK can do the work and have done it on a IO360C1E6. Im down in New Zealand so looking for some down here to do the work.

Divco did come highly recomended though.
 
chaskuss said:
John,
No drawings for you. However, any competent machinist should be able to inspect the mounting surface of the rear of the sump and replicate it on the front. He has to mill the casing flat, bore the inlet hole, drill & tap the mounting stud holes. You then need to fabricate a cover plate and gasket for the rear servo opening.
I'm emailing you some photos of an RV which has had this mod done. I hope this will help.
Charlie Kuss
Click to expand...

Charlie. Can you also email me the photos. It may be helpful for me as well.

Thanks Dean
 
Well, good to know Divco can definately do it, though they may be a little proud of their work. :)

Hopefully, the machine shop I use for automotive needs will be able to do this. I'll give them a call tomorrow. If mine turns out well, I might be able to facilitate having others done as well. I'll update when I know more.

Thanks again for all your help folks!
 
As long as

The bosses for the studs are cast then this should be a very simple job if one has acess to a mill.

I bet you could even do it on a decent sized drill press.

Frank
 
problems with converting

I have a IO 360 B1B that has been converted to a forward facing servo. The servo on the B1B was originally rear facing.
A couple of things to watch out for are:
Make sure the new mounting plate for the servo at the front of the sump is positioned in the correct position. Mine was mounted high on the sump and it has caused issues with fitting of a induction air cleaner, also it positions the servo further forward than standard so the Vans FWF kit will not fit. In fact you will find you will have to manufacture new hoses also.
The other issue I have had was the exhaust, due to the shape and positioning of the induction tubes on my engine, no Vetterman exhaust would fit. I contacted Larry and he offered to manufacture a new system for me. Great guy, thanks Larry. Since I already had an exhaust I modified what I had, I will take Larry up on his offer in the future and replace it down the track.
Don't forget to have bosses welded to the underside of the sump for the control cables. I have had to make a strange looking setup because of no mounting points.
If I was to do it again i would replace the sump and induction tubes to save all the problems. I have watched two other RV7 builders fit off their aerosport engines in quarter of the time it has taken me.

Mick Haynes
 
An apples to oranges comparison

mick said:
I have a IO 360 B1B that has been converted to a forward facing servo. The servo on the B1B was originally rear facing.
A couple of things to watch out for are:
Make sure the new mounting plate for the servo at the front of the sump is positioned in the correct position. Mine was mounted high on the sump and it has caused issues with fitting of a induction air cleaner, also it positions the servo further forward than standard so the Vans FWF kit will not fit. In fact you will find you will have to manufacture new hoses also.
The other issue I have had was the exhaust, due to the shape and positioning of the induction tubes on my engine, no Vetterman exhaust would fit. I contacted Larry and he offered to manufacture a new system for me. Great guy, thanks Larry. Since I already had an exhaust I modified what I had, I will take Larry up on his offer in the future and replace it down the track.
Don't forget to have bosses welded to the underside of the sump for the control cables. I have had to make a strange looking setup because of no mounting points.
If I was to do it again i would replace the sump and induction tubes to save all the problems. I have watched two other RV7 builders fit off their aerosport engines in quarter of the time it has taken me.

Mick Haynes
Click to expand...

Mick's suggestions for welding on mounting brackets is a good idea. Don't know if it's needed for a Cosy though? Mick's experiences with his IO-360-B1B don't apply to the -C1C. The sump on the -C1C is located further to the rear when compared to IO-360-A series and -B series sumps. The intake tubes are also shaped differently, as they are also located closer to the rear (towards the accessory case). RV-8A aircraft can not use the -C series sumps because of this. The C series sump hits the motor mount tubes.
Charlie Kuss
 
gregyoungsrv6motormount.jpg


Above is a photo of Greg Young's RV6 with modified motor mount to allow use of the IO-360-C1C sump and intake tubes. You can clearly see that the lower section of the sump sits farther to the rear, compared to the -A & -B series sumps.
Charlie Kuss
 
Last edited:
Yup, that's the same sump I have. Fortunately, the Cozy mount is built to allow for the sump, even the servo (just no room left after the servo for the intake tube). You can see photos of my engine and mount at www.basol.net/jcb/cozy Just click on the Chapter 23 link on the left. The engine pics are at the bottom of the resulting right hand frame. The first couple rows of pics show the mount and engine as well as them bolted to the airframe.

A fellow Cozy builder just sent me pics of an adapter he had made for that keeps the servo on the back of the sump, but angles it up and to the port side at about a 30deg angle. Very clever, though I'm curious how much it would cost me to have the adapter plate machined.

My automotive machinest is going to take a look at the sump on saturday, but is confident it will be no problem to make a flange on the forward side.

I'm sure it would be easier to pick up an A1A sump and patch the cowling to fit the pipes, but after all I've gone through to fit my cowlings, I kind of want to leave them be.

-John
 
IO 360 c1c

Does anyone know if this version of the IO 360 can be used for the RV-7a. I'm new to the forum and finally getting to the point where I'm looking at buying an enigne and prop. Would I be experiencing the same amount of added work as mentioned above with the c1c?
 
We did it.

We modified an IO360 sump from rear induction to frontal induction, and I designed/machined an adapter to do the job with minimal additional spacing in front of the sump.

I posted the whole project in another thread.
 (scroll down the page a little to see the sump adapter)

Please note: we have not run this engine yet, so I can't give any operational feedback. We have had several A&P/IA's look at it and they liked what they saw.

We have everything in place to make these, since we saved all the jigs, mill programming, etc. I'd be happy to help if anyone needs another.
 
IO360C sump on RV8

chaskuss said:
... RV-8A aircraft can not use the -C series sumps because of this. The C series sump hits the motor mount tubes.
Charlie Kuss
Click to expand...

Charlie refers to the RV8A, here but I wanted to show how the IO360C sump fits up on an RV8:

engineleftside02.jpg


One thing to take note of: This IO sump is mated to an "O" top end. So, the intake pipes required special 1/4" adapters to fit up. They're visible right where each intake pipe bolts to the cylinder. We can make those too. The left front intake pipe is missing; I finally gave up on finding a good used one and ordered a new one for $330 bucks. Ouch.

But, its a neat installatioin. Really compact, smaller vertical profile, nice clean cowling, simple and direct control runs. We'll see how it runs shortly...
 
I doubt it

Craig Jones said:
Does anyone know if this version of the IO 360 can be used for the RV-7a. I'm new to the forum and finally getting to the point where I'm looking at buying an engine and prop. Would I be experiencing the same amount of added work as mentioned above with the c1c?
Click to expand...

Craig,
I can not give a definitive answer to your question, as I've never seen anyone try it. I doubt that it would work with any A model (nose gear) RV because of the additional tubing in the motor mount. Look at the 2 photos below, which show why you can not put an IO-360-C1C in an 8A. There are two additional tubes which start at the lower engine mount points and go down to support the nose gear leg socket. It is these two tubes (and probably the entire nose leg socket) that prevent the engine from going back far enough for the engine to be mounted. The C1C sump protrudes farther rearward than the A1A or M1B sumps do.

whytheio360a1csumpwontf.jpg


whytheio360a1csumpwontf.jpg


Charlie Kuss
 
Milling forward sump boss

Machining off the frontal sump casting boss: A standard knee mill does just fine for this job. CNC not required, although I prefer it. Here's how I jigged up my sump to do the work:

engineoilsump03.jpg


Facing off the casting boss:

engineoilsump04.jpg


After that, we just drilled and tapped for studs.

By the way, if anyone needs a forward facing sump, I have one on the shelf here. Its off an O360 A1A; was updraft now its set up for forward facing injection. All work done by a certified shop, really nice work.
 
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