Jan 19, 2025: A few days ago we received the Firewall Forward Kit. Seems early to get this, since we don’t even have a fuselage or engine yet! But, a few months ago, Van’s said the lead-time on the exhaust system was more than a year, so I ordered it in a panic. And then suddenly, the exhaust system was in stock! Seems like Van’s is still not doing very well with lead-time estimates on stuff, since the bankruptcy. I think I heard that they switched to making the exhaust system in-house instead of at their outside vendor (Vetterman), so maybe that has something to do with it. In any case, we have the firewall foward stuff more than a year before we expect the engine! The firewall foreward kit includes, roughly: Exhaust system, cooling baffles, prop governor, prop spinner, engine control cables. No engine mount, though (I assume it comes with the Finish Kit, expected this summer). It also usually comes with the alternator and battery, but I deleted those, since I intend to use a lithum battery that Van’s doesn’t supply yet, and a different brand alternator (Van’s supplies Plane Power, but I intend to use B&C). Doing a complete inventory took some hours, with Mary’s help. In the end, the only big mistake was that they sent me RV-10 engine-mounting hardware, instead of RV-14. And a few other hardware bags were short of a few washers, nuts and rivets. I emailed the discrepancies to Van’s, and they quickly sent the missing parts. Back to thumb-twiddling (actually, lots of flight-instructing) while waiting for QB wing and fuselage to arrive.

Time spent: 5hr

Some tubes pic

Some tubes pic