Best wiring paths

[8 Builder]

Hi all-
In about a week, my avionics will be arriving from SteinAir. It was a long winter of decisions, decisions, decisions. My question for the group is:
Is there a best route for wiring to the rear of the RV8? I will have remote transponder, tail lights and an ELT back there. Battery is on the firewall. Best to go high under the longerons, mid-high under the arm rests or lower along/under the floor? Anyone find problems with any certain approach? Wires in the way or getting snagged all the time?
Thanks for any ideas. Rich

 

[Raymo]

The ones I have seen and helped with were wired primarily under the floor and through the spar to the aft area.

 

[Carl Froehlich]

Along the floor in conduit. Run one for each wing and one aft. Assume at some point you will be installing an ADHARS behind the baggage compartment so conduit larger than you need right now and leave a sting in the conduit for adding wire. Behind the baggage compartment is also a convenient spot to install your ADS-B receiver and ADS-B antenna. This will be problematic if you mount the XPDR back there so consider the mounting the XPDR behind the panel and the XPDR antenna in the traditional location.

Assume you might want to back fit and AOA pitot tube so plan for three 1/4" tubing runs (static, pitot, AOA). If you have steam gauges for airspeed and altitude you need to run tubing to them as well as the future ADHARS modules.

One other recommendation - install your battery in the forward baggage well, not on the engine side of the firewall.

Carl

 

[pvalovich]

Wiring

-8A. I have my battery mounted on the forward firewall, and my fuze/grounding blocks in the forward baggage well. No regrets.

I ran most of my wires aft under the floor. One glitch - I didn't realize how many wires there were going to be and access through the spar web holes became really tight. Also ran the static system hose through there. Recommend you include spare wires in your installation planning. A lot easier to run a properly tightened bundle through than forcing an individual wire late in the build.

 

[8 Builder]

Thanks guys. This is one part of the build that you can really go at it so many different ways. I'm not completely comfortable with not having specific instructions so your replies have helped a lot. Rich.