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Engine
changes:
There have been couple
of things that I have wanted to change on 41768
since I built her. One of the changes happened
in the first year. I had a rear starter and
a prop extension but have since removed them
and installed a front starter and changed the cowl
to accomodate it. The new cowl and
13" spinner gave the airplane the right look
for doing the "shark" paintjob that sets 41768
apart from others. This cowl is now available
from Flycorvair.com along with other corvair
conversion parts for the KR2. After flying with the
new cowl I have wanted to work on a turbo
installation into the KR2S. Before I complete the
turbo installation though I really want to perfect
the normal installation. During the last
few months I have collected some tooling to
help make the changes I want easier and allow me
the flexibility to make more of my own parts.
A milling maching has been key to this
since I can now rebuild my own heads and fabricate
other custom
parts.
The goal at this point is two fold: 1)
Finish the normally aspirated installation
2)Create a turbo installation that will bolt onto
the engine without major changes to the engine
itself. One of the tools I have made to make
this easire to accomplish is the making of a
"fake" firewall. It is a copy of my airplane
and I can attach the cowling to it. This
allows me to build the engine and installtion
while still being able to fly 41768. I
really didn't want to pull the airplane out of
service for a long time. The engine I plan
to build is a 2700cc stock engine but with a few
changes. One, I will be trying to conserve
weight on the engine. It will have Pramod Katwol's
aluminium cylinders on it to save
weight. I have been flying a set on
the airplane for testing and they look like they
will do fine. There have been
othere areas where weight can be saved. An
aluminum intake, lighter exhaust and hardware,
starter and accessories. I would like to
save about 18 -20 lbs if possible. Two, it
will have a TB-10 camshaft so it is ready for
the turbo. Three, I want the turbo kit
to bolt on without having to change the
heads or highly modify anything such as the oil
cooler and such. I know this is
challange but if I can make it fit in the
mock-up firewall then it should fit the
plane. Fourth, It just has to look
good, so custom painting a detail work will
be done.
Weight
Savings:
I have wanted to do some weight
saving projects as well. I am sure I can
lighten up the seat a bit so a new mold is
made for that. A change in
the seat will also allow dual controls to be
added. The wings will come off soon -
probably during the winter for some cleanup work
and lightening. Some of the weight in
the wings is due to the PVC fuel tanks so I am
looking into aluminum tanks to be installed, or a
wet wing....not sure yet. I just rebuilt my
tailwheel assembly and saved 1.4 lbs there. and
I know that the new cowl was about 10 lbs lighter
than my original. I made the front
header removable so I will also look into making
an aluminum header tank.
Drag
reduction:
I began working on drag
reduction this year but much has to be
done. The gap between the spinner and
the cowling was closed up to smooth out
the air there. I reduced the inlet
sizes down to 4.2" and installled a cowl flap
to control heat better. I have a lot of
it done but there is much more to do.
Larger wing fairings, tapers in the vertical and
horizontal will help as well. The gear
fairings need a lot of work to get
them "right". I'm hoping to learn
a lot in doing this over the winter. Some
of what I learn will be implimented in the
twin project.
Canopy:
I
saw a neat canopy arrangement on a Pulsar that
intrigued me that I may copy. It allows the
canopy to stay lighter and more
flexable. It slides up and forward
to allow entry. This change will be
made down the
road.
Inspection
panels:
I will
be adding a couple inspection panels to the
airplane as well. They will be at
the gear and at the tail. I want
to improve the ease of maintenance in the
future.
Gear:
There is still
more to be done with gear fairings and wheel
pants. What I have now isn't too bad but I
would like to make the fairings removable and
clean for ease of maintenance. One of
the problems I've had is when I have a
flat tire the wheel pants scrape against the
ground and are hard to remove. I'm also
hoping to reduce drag by making the gear legs
airfoil shaped and blending into the wheel pants
and wing better.
Wing tips:
I made
the original wing tips removable with the goal of
making some extended tips (about 12" longer) with
bent tips so that I could compare the performance
difference in top speed and climb
performance. I am hoping for better climb
and better high speed at high altitiude which
would be a benefit with the turbo
engine.
Conclusion;
It will be a
little while before I get this all finished but I
am hoping to work on these improvements and
still keep the airplane in somewhat flyable
condition. I didn't want to take it out
of service for very long or
have some of
the projects be sone during bad weather. I'll keep
you posted as I
work on these things and show the
performance changes as I make
them.
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