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When did you hang your engine?

N546RV

Well Known Member
So here's my situation: my RV-8 project is about ready to move to the finish kit stage. Wiring harness is complete and going into the airplane now, I expect the next few weeks will be spent finalizing a lot of electrical stuff. Once that's done, I expect I'll reattach the empennage and start thinking about working on the canopy.

Here's the rub: I ordered my Titan engine last October. Original ship date was going to be January, but supply chain issues have put a big hitch in that. Most recent communication regarding completion asked when I'd likely need my engine, so they could work on scheduling.

Thing is, I'm not really sure offhand what the answer to that is. I know I'll need the engine hung to work on the cowling, and fairly obviously for almost any FWF work.

There are other miscellaneous tasks that can be worked on ahead of that as well. Most notably, I can get my wings closed up and do the initial fitting at some point, and there's beaucoup fiberglass work - not just the canopy but also the empennage and wing tips.

I don't even know exactly what kind of answer I'm expecting here; maybe just some idea of how people's build process went at this stage. Things seem a whole lot less linear at this time, so I'm struggling with getting a mental picture of when I'll really need that engine (or conversely, when not having that engine will become a roadblock).

Thoughts?
 
FWF

You're correct. It becomes non linear.
I elected to finish canopy which led to fiberglass work. Since the shop was in fiberglass mode, I finished wingtips and empennage tips. Note, in my case this led to riveting the forward top skin and completing the windshield work. That means I crawl around on the floor a lot. After all that, I went FWF. My wiring is coming up soon. More crawling. :eek:
 
As an RV-8 builder who bought the engine in 2018, hung it in 2019 and removed it on Xmas 2020 because of the crankshaft AD, I can offer a few suggestions. There are two conflicting aspects of engine installation: you need the engine in place in order to perform a few hundred hours of baffle and cowling fabrication, but if you're installing a new engine, you want to try to avoid an extended storage/preservation time to avoid any deterioration of engine condition. It's tricky to balance those two requirements. So I guess my advice is don't buy it before you're ready to do all of the firewall-forward work, and try to schedule all the other elements of the build so that the engine doesn't sit around for a couple years before first start.
 
It took me 3-4 months and hundreds of hours to do the canopy and empannage fiberglass work. If you have the engine mount, you can install that and get 90% of the firewall holes drilled and prepped. I just hung my engine 2 weeks ago because I'm starting work on the cowl. I've already closed and fit my wings (though I haven't done wingtip fiberglass work yet), so they're a mostly simple bolt on affair now. The engine mount was installed a while ago along with the landing gear and brake components (everything except the soft lines). I'm waiting to do all my wiring until after the cowl is in place, but there's not a whole lot that actually needs a motor in place.

EDIT: I guess I hung the engine a few months ago for the first time. Got a feel for the firewall layout I wanted since I'm going off plans with an SDS injected IO-375. I removed it about a week later, did all the firewall work and then rehung it 2 weeks ago. If you're going with standard firewall penetrations per the plans, there's no need for the initial hang.
 
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I did all the wiring I could, attached the canopy and skirt, did the fiberglass landing gear and intersection fairings and wheel pants before I hung the engine. This included mounting the battery on the firewall, battery/starter relays, current limiters, etc. That was months of work before I was really ready for the motor.

There is also some initial work you can do on the cowlings prior to hanging the engine such as opening the oil door and getting the upper and lower cowls to meet at the front.
 
A 7 and not an 8, but I affixed the mount to the engine while it was hanging. Then installed (both) to the firewall. It was attached and removed a few times as it was easier to do things I did not foresee on the firewall. it was easier to roll (slide actually) the fuse into the engine mount rather than roll the engine lift straight to the fuse.

So - another option for you.
 
I mounted the engine after I did most of the avionic wiring behind the firewall. After I mounted the engine, I delayed closing the upper forward fuselage because I was running a lot of engine monitoring wiring back to the EMS mounted on the avionic shelf. I am working on the cowling now and I can't see how that work can be accomplished without the engine mounted first.
 
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