Finished

 Plane is painted and I consider it done!!

90 hour update

 10/25/2023

After 90 hours, here is some notes:
1) the vacuum pad alternator was not a good primary alternator. it didn't charge after start an never really kept the battery charged on the ground. I was finding after a flight, during taxi back, the battery was discharging. Then the next morning, the battery was low when trying to crank a cold engine. as mentioned in a previous post, I switched to a small belt drive alternator. Same weight, but really good charging at low RPMs

2) The cowl inlet ramp on my right side was placed too far back. The right side of the Lycoming has the cylinders forward of the left side. The inlet ramp needs to be as far forward as possible so as much air as possible can get to the rear cylinders. I modified this after the Phase 1, but is still not great. At the 100 hour inspection (start of yearly conditional inspection) I will redo cowl inlet ramps and the two associated baffles to get even more air in back.

3) O2 was installed and works great. However, the O2 controller uses batteries to open and close the metering valves. On my first tank, the batteries died before I ran out of O2, so I found myself coming back during night cross country at 8500' without the benefit of O2. I am switching to aircraft power for the o2 metering controller. 

4) I rarely fly at full speed. Seems the plane likes to fly at peak EGT to get terrific fuel economy and reasonably good speed.

Next phase is getting me and the plane reading for IFR flying.

Plane Complete!

 6/13/2023

Well plane is complete.

First taxi tests went well.

Awaiting weather to clear for first flight.

Factory Demo flight and Purchase of the tail kit was on 6/26/2016, 7 years ago.

Engine Start

 5/19/23

First engine start today.

It was a non event.

I did the fuel flow test yesterday with 3 gals in each tank. It took a bit to get the fuel pump primed. I had to blow in the fuel filler to push some fuel to the pump, then the fuel pump worked great. ( Unlikely to self prime in flight with low fuel, guess I am never gonna run it dry)

After that I disconnected the fuel line at the distribution block and pushed all the preservation oil out of the fuel servo into a bucket.

After filling the oil cooler as recommended by Lycoming, I turned the engine over by hand, with the lower plugs removed, to push all the oil out of the cylinders. Once tied down outside, i engage the started with the fuel valve close and fuel pump off, to build oil pressure.

Then performed a normal prime and engine start. Engine started on second blade. I was shocked it fired right up.

Ran it until cylinder head temps got to 300C.

Mag check was good; idle speed and idle mixture were good too. No adjustments needed!

No leaks or other issues.

My A&P friend and I dont see a need to run it again before first flight.

To answer a question from the other thread, battery charging was, like, 9 amps at about 1100 rpm. I think I am really gonna like this B&C alternator mounted on the vac pad.

EDIT: After 40 hours of phase 1, I took off the pad mounted alternator and went with a belt drive. The vac pad alternator just doesnt do a good enough job of charging battery during taxi in and after start to be used as a primary charging method..

Ready for inspection picture:

Weight and Balance

 5/16/23

I am sooooo close to being done, I weighed the plane today. With the whole G3X suite and the new nose gear, it came in as expected.

But the important part is that everything was ON for the weight and balance.

There are still some things to clean up, like re-bonding tie bases, checking trim throws, fuel testing, etc.

Doing the CG math, if the pilot and passenger combined weights are between 100 lbs or total plane is below gross weight, and I adhere to the 100 lb baggage limit, I cant exceed CG limits. I am glad I have a lightweight Catto prop.

It seems the RV9A CG is perfectly designed; Vans did this one right.

bleeding brakes

 5/13/23

Today we bleed the brakes.

I first tried to suck all the entrapped air from the fluid using the air compressor as a poor mans vacuum pump. There wasnt much air but some bubbles appeared in the fluid and quickly moved to the top as foam and then disappeared.

I used a hand pump and slowly pumped from the bottom of each caliper. It worked out well. Brakes appear solid. I tried the parking brake and it seemed to offer some drag, But without the brakes bedded in I dont expect much holding power yet.

The clear brake reservoir made it real easy to see the level. Maybe I will put a piece of white paper behind the brake reservoir to make the level easier to see.

Wingtips

 5/07/23

Finished wing tips. I chose to use screws and put the Archer VOR antenna on a mid rib support instead on the bottom; mainly because I didnt want to be unwiring the antenna everytime the tip comes off. (Which I hope is never) I used the soft foam to keep the antenna from vibrating against the fiberglass wingtip.

With platenuts, the factory said there is no need for the aluminum strip.