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Firewall Forward Kit from Van's

mcattell

Well Known Member
I'm getting ready to order a firewall forward kit from Van's for the IO-320 with governor. Is there any suggestions on whether I should order it as is or is there anything that's best to delete from the kit and buy elsewhere? Were you happy with your firewall forward kit or have you changed out any of the standard stuff with something better?
 
Hi Mark.......

....we're building a -7A which is very similar to yours from the firewall forward and it's a very complete kit, with fuel lines firesleeved, stainless braided oil cooler hoses just the right length and on and on...a really easy way to go that'll save you time and money in the long run, IMHO. I did my -6A the hard way and so did my buddy with his -4 in my hangar...always lengths of hose left over, too short for anything useful and frankly, wasted money.

Depending on whether or not you have injection or carb, they need to know since the controls are a different length. C/S or fixed...you'll get a governor pad.

Regards,
 
If you are going injected, make sure you order the 0-360 lower cowl. You will need the extra room for the airbox.
 
not sure...

I thought someone had suggested not ordering some of their fuel hoses if injected. Cant recall but do to fuel flow transducer or something i thought there were a few things that are better deleted and made to order based on location. I think i wrote down some advice on this several months back. Will see what i can dig out.
 
Rick is correct..

....since I forgot to say that we also have an XIO-360 FI engine that was bought from Van's so they know which hoses, etc to supply/delete.

Thanks for the correction,
 
If you have a carb I'd ditch the totally useless vans carb heat muff and buy the one sold by Wicks. The part number escapes me at the moment. I can dig it up if you can't find it.

Also the aluminum cabin heat valve Van's sells will last about 30 seconds in a intense fire. There's a stainless steel version out there that will last much longer.

You may have trouble getting all the pre-made hose/line lengths to work if you have a engine other than a factory lycoming.

Doug
RV6
 
Individual items for me

By the time I got around to needing the FWF kit, I had already purchased a number of items in the kit so I just ordered individual items.

I remember that I had already purchased and installed things like the Master & Starter contactor and ANL from B&C. I had already put in a SS heater box, installed the Odessey battery box and a number of other small parts.

Even on my "piecemeal" FWF kit, I ended up returning or not using some items. I returned the Vans engine mounts and got some Lord mounts. I also ordered a number of steel AN fitting to use on my engine (Oil lines, carb, etc) and went with a real S&W oil cooler. I used the carb heat muff from Robins Wings (I think that's the name).
 
Even with my oddball engine, I did order the entire O-320 kit from Van's. Some things I had to have custom made, like the fuel line from the gascolator to the mechanical fuel pump had to be slightly longer.

I also had to have Van's stamp me out a throttle bracket w/o the holes for the carb as they only had them for the MA4 carb body, not the MA3.

Little stuff like that. For the most part, it was really nice just to go the shelf and grab the required part.

I also bought their wiring harness and used most of the big cables but cut up the harness itself and used the wire where I could.
 
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