Cowl continued:
- In order to mount the cowl I had to cut the remainder of the fuselage sides off and sand flush.
- As the plane is generally tail-heavy I wanted to move the engine as far forward as possible. This meant that the standoffs that came with the engine had to be replaced as they were not long enough. I constructed a motor box from 1/4" ply and 3/4" hardwood triangle stock. It looks a little shot up in the pictures as I had to level the top and bottom faces of with my full-size table saw, which caused some splinters.
- I provided bolt holes to mount the motor box to the fuselage using the mounting holes from the DLE85
- The DLE55 slots into the motor box from the bottom and is secured with 4 x 10-32 bolts.
- There is about 3/8" between the muffler and the firewall. The open hole is for the spark plug wire.
I will likely epoxy the motor box to the firewall as I feel that I am now 100% committed to the DLE55.
Next up - test fitting the cowl!
