Van's Air Force
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Spinner/Cowl Clearance?
- Thread starter Pounder
- Start date
rockbottom
Active Member
1/4.” Mine is less but they don’t rub against each other. It requires care though when removing the cowling.
J.Baker
RV8
J.Baker
RV8
Richard Connell
Well Known Member
I can’t remember what the build manual explicitly said for my 7 but I built it at a little over 1/8 and never had any issues. If you planned a lot of acro then that plus sag over time may get it closer but that’s addressable with mount washers and/or new mounts.
I never noticed any appreciable sag over 10y and maybe 800h- little acro tho.
On my 10 have it at exactly 1/8 which is per the construction manual. 200h. Hasn’t budged.
Ultimately it’s a tradeoff between ease of maintenance (cowl R&R) and efficiency.
The closer the better. As long as it doesn’t rub. Big gaps not only slow you down they also affect cooling efficiency.
Prepare for the pages of people that will say you need 1/4-1/2” to get the cowl off. Not so. You can slide a thin bit of plastic cut to shape down the gap to protect your paint while you do it if you are concerned.
I never noticed any appreciable sag over 10y and maybe 800h- little acro tho.
On my 10 have it at exactly 1/8 which is per the construction manual. 200h. Hasn’t budged.
Ultimately it’s a tradeoff between ease of maintenance (cowl R&R) and efficiency.
The closer the better. As long as it doesn’t rub. Big gaps not only slow you down they also affect cooling efficiency.
Prepare for the pages of people that will say you need 1/4-1/2” to get the cowl off. Not so. You can slide a thin bit of plastic cut to shape down the gap to protect your paint while you do it if you are concerned.
If you have the engine mounted, give it a few good yanks up, down and side to side. I thought that I had my cowl spacing and height good, but the plane's jostling trip on the back of a truck from my garage to the airport resulted in a new resting position for my engine, and the spinner is now about 3/16" lower than originally planned.
Richard Connell
Well Known Member
There’s a few good threads floating about on gaps.
Somewhere there’s a shot of the bevel to place on the cowl just behind the spinner to aid in R&R.
Somewhere there’s a shot of the bevel to place on the cowl just behind the spinner to aid in R&R.
Dougnabbit
Member
Van’s Demo Aircraft gaps:
RV-7A .180”
RV-14A .200”
RV-10 .250”
Just data points. Interesting to note as the HP and/or engine length increases, the gap increases.
RV-7A .180”
RV-14A .200”
RV-10 .250”
Just data points. Interesting to note as the HP and/or engine length increases, the gap increases.
