This post is long overdue. I spent so many hours on this panel and figuring everything out that you may want to watch this video I have made instead of reading all this. However, the key points are below:

1) Before I installed my panel I added a firewall blanket to help reduce the noise from the engine compartment. This was a difficult job but would be a lot more difficult after the instal so it had to be done now.

2) The panel I purchased from Aerotronics came with most of the wiring harness completed and the panel fully installed. I had to completely detach the pilot side of the panel in order to route the wire harnesses through the sub panel bulkheads and then reattach. The most tedious portion of this was disconnecting the rocker switches but when it was all done the panel fit like a glove.

3) I did not know where to instal the battery backup so I decided to use the span of the “glove box” behind the passenger side panel but the connection for this doesn't not have room without routing through the lightning hole where the canopy frame is so I actually reversed this and now the battery backup is installed aft of the sub panel bulkhead.

4) The transponder location was sorta difficult and for now I have elected to use the frame that holds the pitch servo. These parts are borrowed from the RV10 and hold the battery and thus give the name “battery angles” and so it seemed logical that this could house the transponder. The GTX45R states that the “transponder should be mounted so that the blue tooth Antenna is pointed towards the panel for optimum use” and this right now might be a problem. However, I am hoping that the proximity and fact that it's slightly off center and so not pointing at but still able to reach the panel shojld be good enough to transmit. Not sure how important the blue tooth capability is for this model but this might require me to located the transponder in another location when it comes time to test.

5) I ended up using only 3 of the 12 wires from the vans tail kit wiring harness (the only ones left to be used were for the nav/strobe). In the future I would advise to people not to use the vans wiring harnesses as they are not really built for the Garmin system.

6) For the center stack I had to swap the GTN650 Navigatioj unit with the audio panel because the depth of this unit was so long that it ran into them the bottom of the bulkhead. Even after switching it with the much shorter audio panel, I had to trim about 1 inch of material from the bulkhead but checked with Van's and they told me that was totally fine structurally so long as I did not cut the bottom part of the bulkhead.

Note: I also discovered a leak in one of my brake fittings and had to remove and reinstall with permatex. I had used something else recommended by a friend and now all my fittings have permatex #2 on them.