Jul 21, 2021     cowl       Category: Cowl

The cowling took a lot of time and introduced me to what patience really means. After getting the seams between the upper and lower cowls perfect, I was reminded to leave extra room for paint, duh (what was I thinking?). After spending hours getting it just right again, my friend Jim, who would be painting my airplane, stopped by to inspect and said to leave more room for paint (ouch). After finally getting that task completed, I set out to tackle the air inlet holes which also required many hours of work. When I thought I was done, I took a picture, labeled "air inlet holes", and was stunned to see that the inlet on the right (facing the picture) was so much bigger than the left. Many hours later I got them perfect. Maybe this is the cause of some RV-14's having higher temps than others. I used a couple of props underneath the cowl so that I could easily install the cowl myself. The baffles went on very easy and is a very nice addition that Vans has produced.