Good Day all,
Here is another chapter as I slowly put this Spit together. I want to say that most 30cc engines will fit in the Spit without any problems and you will have a cowled in engine. I have chosen the 35cc EME because of it's growing reputation. The engine is much less money than the DLE counterpart, and it will start better, run better, and because of the schnerle porting and improved reed block design, top end is fantastic. The E 35 sits pretty on top of the engine box, but we had to epoxy the box together so I did. When I sit the engine on the stock firewall, it does not reach far enough to clear the cowl so I filled up the gap in the front of the box and made it flush in which I sandwiched together the stock firewall and two 1/4" firewall plated and glued all together and clamped into position. When I checked the distance, the engine fit like a glove and please notice just how much of the engine fin breaks thru the cowl. Consider we have to cut out that area for cooling anyway, I say we have a perfect match. Based on the weight of the plane, the weight of the engine, the power... We will have a thrust to weight ration of at least one to one. I bet the guys flying the real birds wished for such performance envelopes lol. So I fixed the fuselage vertical and set the engine on the firewall to mark the stand off locations. One does this the easiest here if you aren't a good mathematician. Since the cowl is in a fixed location, it was easy to locate the engine on the firewall to align with the cowl and spinner. Once done, I drew around the standoffs for location, then set one on the circle drawn and used a transfer punch that just fit inside the standoff then tapped the punch to locate the drilling location. Mounted the engine and we have a perfect location. Coated all wood parts with resin and let dry. On to the next step
