Baffle and Horizontal Induction Snorkel Questions

[UnPossible]

Hey - I am working on the ever-so-fun baffles and am running into some issues with figuring out when to stop working on the left front baffle and shift towards the horizontal induction snorkel installation.

What I am struggling with is do I bend up the left front ramp to match with the cowling before I fit the snorkel?

One of the first instructions for the snorkel is to measure down 3/8" from the left front ramp and draw a line that you trim the snorkel to. If I bend this ramp to match up with the cowel inlet, the cut on the snorkel will not be straight. I also am struggling a bit with seeing how the filter will lay flat on top of the bent ramp.... it may be the correct way to go, but wanted to check with those that have gone before me before I screw up yet another part.

Thanks,
Jason

[dlloyd3]

There will be a bunch of advice from others but first, don't bend that left ramp or you will waste more that a day straightening the thing out later. Look closely at the snorkel directions, there is no mention of bending the ramp. The bend is only if you have a scoop.

[jeffmoreau]

The ramp remains flat. Do not bend it. It will make sense once you begin fitting everything up.
There is a possibility that you will have to do some "surgery" on the fiberglass snorkle to fit it exactly the way you want. I had to cut and fiberglass mine in a couple of places. It wasn't a big deal and in the end it turned out great.

[UnPossible]

Originally Posted by jeffmoreau

The ramp remains flat. Do not bend it. It will make sense once you begin fitting everything up.
There is a possibility that you will have to do some "surgery" on the fiberglass snorkle to fit it exactly the way you want. I had to cut and fiberglass mine in a couple of places. It wasn't a big deal and in the end it turned out great.

So do I just lightly bend up the outside edge of the ramp to match the front of the cowling opening, then measure down 3/8" to trim the snorkel?

[Bavafa]

what a nice and shiny engine?I am envious One either needs some shade just to work on that engine.

Anyway, as others have rightly suggested, don't bend it. Good chances are that you will need to trim some of that inlet back so your filter will fit in there. If you put your filter or the snorkel, you will find that the cowl inlet is too close and not enough gap for the engine movement. Once you put the snorkel (hopefully won't require much surgery) it will be more clear as what needs to be trimmed and how much.

[mburch]

I am finishing up the left inlet ramp and the horizontal induction filter/airbox right now. Contrary to the previously posted advice, I bent the inlet ramp and everything turned out fine. The baffle to cowl fit is great and the filter simply conforms to the shape of the baffle.

One thing I would advise: don't trim the left inlet ramp very much at all until you see how the airbox and filter are going to fit. The filter is like 90% of the size of the whole baffle, so it's pretty easy to run out of room either laterally or longitudinally.

Some further documentation here:

http://www.rv7blog.com/2011/01/02/ba...r-duct-filter/
http://www.rv7blog.com/2011/01/16/air-filter-brackets/
http://www.rv7blog.com/2011/01/23/ai...etaining-ring/

good luck,
mcb

[Noah]

Originally Posted by mburch

I am finishing up the left inlet ramp and the horizontal induction filter/airbox right now. Contrary to the previously posted advice, I bent the inlet ramp and everything turned out fine. The baffle to cowl fit is great and the filter simply conforms to the shape of the baffle.

One thing I would advise: don't trim the left inlet ramp very much at all until you see how the airbox and filter are going to fit. The filter is like 90% of the size of the whole baffle, so it's pretty easy to run out of room either laterally or longitudinally.

Some further documentation here:

http://www.rv7blog.com/2011/01/02/ba...r-duct-filter/
http://www.rv7blog.com/2011/01/16/air-filter-brackets/
http://www.rv7blog.com/2011/01/23/ai...etaining-ring/

good luck,
mcb

I'm with Matt on this one. The instructions for fitting the ramp and snorkel are not very clear (at least for the angle valve engine). I fit my snorkel first as the instructions suggest and then the ramp to the cowl, but at that point I could not bend the outer part of the ramp up to meet the inlet as suggested, so had to re-fit the snorkel to ramp after bending the ramp up to meet the inlet.

For those who say not to bend the ramp up to meet the cowl, how do you prevent all of the high pressure air from just spilling forward into the large gap between the ramp and cowl inlet, into the lower cowl?

I think you will find that the filter is very flexible and the ramp need not be flat for a positive seal around the edge of the filter.

[Bill Dicus]

Seems the bend worked fine for some and no bend for others! Not realizing the bend didn't apply to my (snorkel) set-up, I did the bend and later ended up flattening it out almost completely. I think it's going to work out fine once the snorkel is fitted. I hope. Bill

[flyvans.com]

totally agree with matt.
look at fitting the filter/airbox first.

the filter is able to take a considerable amount of "twist" without a problem. so if the right edge has a different slant than the left edge, it's not really a problem.
also, consider trimming the cowl just a bit if everything is too tight otherwise.
you will still want to be able to mount/unmount the cowl and be able to pull the flexible gap bridge cloth/rubber on top of the air filter easily.

fitting the airbox to the engine intake while still fitting with the alternator mounts, cylinder head oil supply line and starter is the trickier part.
it has to fit both sideways and fore/aft to the baffling and to the intake at the same time. also, there's not much left of the baffling ramp in the end.
we had to mod our airbox quite a bit and then re-glass it.

rgds bernie

[Randy]

Just sharing my recent experience with the snorkel and left baffle arrangement. I was happy to see that my snorkel actually was a good fit with it sitting pretty close to dead center of the left inlet ramp. This is on an RV7A with IO375 and Superior cold forward facing intake setup.

For anyone getting close to this stage I recommend studying the baffle instructions and the snorkel/air filter instructions till you really know them well and can easily pick out the contradictions and left out information.

The instructions are particularly deceiving in these parts as they get very specific with some hand holding involved, like reminding you to deburr the parts etc. but they are seriously lacking in the important details. The drawings for the air filter arrangement are not good.

I agree that the best approach is to use the directions as a general guide for what the end product should look like but to generally put them aside and do your own thing, very carefully.

I approached this with my motto being do not rivet anything until you really have to. This has saved me from making some mistakes. SAme thing with drilling

I have gone back a forth a few times between installing the air filter and then reverting back to finishing off the rest of the baffles in order to make sure the final placement of the cowling is not going to move and spoil my fitting of the air ramps up front. I had to cut the bafffle height down in order to put the top cowl on to double check this.

One particular area that had me confused is the baffle instructions have you making the conical gusset for both the right and left sides. The air filter retainer seems to take the place of the conical gusset on the left side when installing the filter. I am considering combining a conical gusset and air filter retainer into one part. Curious if others have done this... Perhaps after cutting so much of the inlet opening away to make room for the filter, a conical gusset is not needed like it is on the right side?

Randall in Sedona
New firewall forward install.