Sonex* at Sun N Fun 2000


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Most of the views on this page are of the engine compartment. This is the engine that I am using, so I wanted to see what they did. 4/11/00.

Note oil cooler hose routing, EGT sensor location. Discussed possibilities for carb heat/cabin heat cuff on exhaust stack with several people. Saw photos at Jabiru booth of 3300 installation in Kitfox which uses straight exhaust stacks like these with cuffs for carb & cabin heat. 4/11/00.

Close-up of oil cooler support structure. It all hangs from angle - the tapped holes for this are in the intake manifold. The manifold has been changed to a 2-piece machined part, and the oil sump casting has been changed. I have a picture of the newer manifold on the SunNFun2000 page - 3300 on a Kitfox (display only, not a complete installation). 4/11/00.

View of air intake / air filter. I will probably come up with a setup to add carb heat. 4/11/00.

Oil breather tube off top of engine. Jabiru has an air-oil separator to minimize oil on fuselage. They report that if engine is over-filled, it blows off the excess. 4/11/00.

Fuel tank vent location. 4/11/00.

Battery box (on firewall). Breather exits behind oil cooler. With air-oil separator added, this location would probably change. 4/11/00.

Another view of battery box. (Note to self - landing gear retaining bolt.) 4/11/00.

Additional air outlet (near my smudged red arrow). The two Jabiru aircraft present also had these - allows some cooling air into area closer to crankcase. 4/11/00.

Another view of oil cooler hoses, engine air filter, and oil cooler air inlet. 4/11/00.

Panel. This has been modified to raise the bottom edge 3/4" higher than what was shown last year to reflect the current plans. Switches on lower left, from left to right: alternator, ignition L, ignition R, start button, master, EIS, mixture. Stock Jabiru engine does not have mixture. Sonex is using Ellison instead of the stock Bing carb - but Jabiru has changed the carb and the intake manifold since this engine. Switch above ball selects between oil temperature transducers (testing temp. drop across oil cooler - not required). 2 1/4" gauges: airspeed, altimeter, compass, manifold pressure. I did not prefer the 2-stick - seemed pretty confining towards the left side, particularly with the flap and brake handles right there. 4/11/00.

Another view of interior. 4/11/00.

View of components on firewall. Jabiru has changed the starter - similar size, 1.5x the power as what is on this engine. They also changed the cap on the forward end of the engine below the output flange - see Tony's airplane for the "bulge" mod to cover this cap. I don't know if Sonex will be incorporating this change into the cowling - sounded like they probably would since the cowling is intended for the Jabiru engine. 4/11/00.

View of wing. Much shinier than last year due to Nuvite products - 800-394-8351 - the Nuvite rep suggested using "F7" followed by "S". This is shine with only the "A" (between F7 & S). They had done a section of the turtledeck with the S and it was clearly even brighter (can tell by clarity of reflected images). The 6061 takes more work to bring up to shine than alclad, but is reported to hold the shine better/longer. 4/11/00.