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cbrown747

Active Member
I have heard from a couple rv owners about the firewall forward kit. I noticed on vans list it was about $3700+.

I am a little puzzled about the advantages other than it is suppose to provide every hose, and items needed for the engine. I thought If you bought an engine it was already suppose to come with this.

Is this price charged by vans, above what it would cost if you simply purchased an engine.
 
Yes. All the stuff in the FWF kit is what doesn't come with a stock engine (ie hoses, alternator, exhaust, etc). Of course some of the FWF kit can be ordered with the engine (depending on where you buy it) and you can deduct anything you get with the engine or from another source from the FWF kit, but the cost is really a wash. You can pay Van or someone else.
 
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Hi Charles....

...the FWF kit is very well done. It is specific to the engine/airplane combo and the oil and fuel lines are just the right length and have steel ends where necessary (fuel). There are solenoids...starter and master, oil cooler and lines, battery and battery box, engine baffles and rubber gasket material, as well as lines to the manifold that the oil and fuel pressure senders attach to, exhaust system and attach brackets....the list goes on....rubber motor mount kit and prop bolts...etc

Best,
 
Charles

I just received my FWF kit this past week. Definitely worth ordering it from Vans vs trying to piece it together yourself. What I did was order the FWF kit plans only ahead of time to see what I was getting into. After reviewing the plans, I figured it was much easier to get most of the items from a single source. I left out a couple of items. The prop gov. From what other guys indicated, the Woodward prop governor is very smooth and reliable. I was going to order LORD mounts separate but when I called Vans to place the order, they indicated that they are now shipping LORD mounts with the FWF kit. The final thing I ordered from another source was the SS heater selector.
Good Luck
 
Whether or not you save money buying the FWF kit (some people are REALLY good at finding deals elsewhere), the biggest saving for me was TIME! You have everything in the shop that you need to finish (well, almost....) the airplane at one time. If you go without it, you will go to the shop, figure out you need something, then go place an ACS order. Repeat a couple hundred times, and you'll lose a year of build time waiting on UPS or FEDEX. The FWF kit is very efficient - you'll need pretty much everything in it. The most important stuff are the little parts you might have trouble finding, like restrictor fittings.

Well worth it for me (and there isn't one for the RV-3....we'll be "roughing it")

Paul
 
Yep the FWF stuff is a cost that most people do not originally plan for in the begining and it can be a significant cost....All those bits and pieces add up fast. (so does wiring, so does avionics, so does interior, so does seat belts, so does......)

I used Van's kit and I did subtract stuff for full credit (before ordering) that either I was replacing with stuff other than what Van's provides or stuff that I bought earlier in the build that I would not need again.

The kit assumes you are following the standard Van's design/plans and have the combination of motor/prop ect. that the plans were designed for. I found it to work very well as I followed the Van Plan very closely and had a standard setup.

If you stray from the standard/plans or have a different motor combo, the kit may not work well for you.

The value of the kit has been shown to be about a wash cost wise but it saves time and shipping.
 
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