The time had finally come to mount up the 'ol IO-390 to the front of the RV-8. It was a pretty exciting day, to say the least. This really felt like a major milestone on the project. I opted to use the Aerobatic Engine Mount bushings. They are harder and hold the engine tighter to the airframe. The downside is that they transfer more of the engine vibration to the airframe. The upside is that there will be little if any "sag" in the engine over time. I have seen a number of RVs where the engine has sagged and caused a mis-alignment of spinner and cowling and that just plain (plane?) looks awful. One thing I won't have to worry about.
I connected the engine up to the engine hoist and jacked it up to about 3' off the floor and then removed the roll-about cart I had built. Once that was off, I took it all the way up to the level of the engine mount on the front of the fuselage. I got the engine up close to the mount and then realized that I had to put the vibration mounts in before I got the engine too close. I used masking tape to hold all of the pieces of the of each mount together and onto the mount. Worked amazingly well.
The plans say to start with the top two holes and then lift the whole fuselage up by the engine to get the lower holes lined up. It actually worked pretty good. The giant engine bolts went in pretty easy and I had to add four washers on the top and two washers on the bottom to get the castle nuts to align with the cotter keys.
It took about 3 hours to get the motor mounted and I'd say it was probably one of the easier jobs on the whole construction! Go figure.
