Today and yesterday were all about the exhaust pipes, EGT probes and crankcase vent tube final installs.  I did a final check through all my notes and also some online stuff to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.  This included a chat with GRT Avionics on the EGT probes installation.  Moreover, I needed some 5/16″ star washers that I didn’t have on hand, but was able to get from a fellow EAA homebuilder that just finished a VANs RV-10.

With star washers in hand I got to work.  In addition to mounting the exhaust pipes, starting on the left side, I also did the final install on the EGT probes, including safety wiring the probes-securing hose clamps.

Here we have the engine right side —the #2 cylinder exhaust pipe having just been installed— while I’m in the process of finalizing the EGT probe install/safety wiring on the #4 cylinder exhaust pipe before I do its final install.

Also note that the hose clamp securing the black rubber crankcase vent tube to the aluminum tube has been replaced with safety wire securing the two together… having used the ClampTite tool to get that done.

Here we have the right side exhaust pipes, EGT probes and crankcase vent tube all installed for the final time (for now at least… ha!).  I marked the exhaust pipe mounting nuts with orange torque seal as an inventory tool to identify what engine hardware has been torqued prior to engine first start.  I am fully aware that the heat of the pipes will probably burn it off in no time flat.

Since we’re discussing exhaust pipes, last night I drew up some initial exhaust pipe end caps up in CAD to kick off the design process on making breathable desiccant inserts to both keep any wannabe nesting bugs or critters out while also drying any air out making its way towards the cylinders.

Speaking of which, I made a point to examine the exhaust ports prior to installing the exhaust pipes, and all the valves, ports, etc. looked very clean and shiny.  Nothing out of order!

I plan to continue to press forward tomorrow, and since I’m running out of engine components to install I’ll be transitioning more to final cowl work before I pull the engine here in the not-too-distant future.

Before heading out the shop I broke out the manual for the Silver Hawk fuel injection servo to ensure that I got the final configuration and torque values correct for both the throttle and mixture lever nuts that went back on or were replaced during the repositioning of those levers.

But my first task out in the shop was to get some composites curing… carbon fiber specifically.  I noted when I did my thorough sanding of the bottom cowling that I had some small low spots on the outboard left side.  Again, instead of relying on thicker micro fills I’m adding a small ply of CF into each of those depressions.

In addition, when trimming the added carbon fiber plies during the bottom cowling rebuild I accidentally cut through the skin with my Fein saw.  So today I filled that cut with 3 thicker strands (left over from my West CF UNI tape) of carbon fiber to fill the gouge.  I then peel plied all the filler patches and set the bottom cowling off to the side to cure.

Back on the Silver Hawk fuel injection servo: after torqueing both mixture and throttle lever nuts to final value as per the manual, I then reinstalled a new cotter pin on the castellated nut on the throttle lever.  I then torque sealed all the mounting, mixture lever and throttle lever nuts.

I also connected and torqued the -4 hose that connects the fuel injection servo to the fuel distribution spider on the topside of the engine.  Once threaded on and torqued, and the fuel servo -4 fitting nut torqued as well, I then added torque seal to those.

In the forward left corner of the engine compartment, I got to work securing the left rudder cable CS-spar-mounted cable guide to the oil cooler bracket via an Adel clamp. I started by marking the position of the Adel clamp post.  I then drilled a 3/16″ hole at the mark.

I removed the oil cooler angled aluminum mounting bracket and mounted a K1000-3 platenut on the oil cooler flange.

I remounted the oil cooler bracket to the oil cooler permanently using AN3 bolts and AC grade nuts, before adding a spacer to set and secure the position of the left rudder cable guide via an Adel clamp.

My goal tomorrow is to do the final install of the exhaust pipes, so in leaning forward and prep for that job I removed the left side exhaust pipes.

It was getting quite late (seems to be a theme) so I didn’t tackle removing the right side exhaust pipes and crankcase vent tube, but will get that knocked out along with final pipe install tomorrow.

I got a late start on the build today, and since it was very late in the afternoon —and thus cooler— I took the opportunity to sand on the bottom cowling for about 45 minutes.  I was mostly knocking off the old blue paint, but also hit the new added carbon fiber panels fairly aggressively to knock down any egregious high spots and smooth out the surface for upcoming micro.

I then got to work on the final install of the alternator cable/wire and starter cable Adel clamps, which secure all this to the throttle cable bracket on the right side of the engine.  I needed a slightly longer AN3 bolt, a thin washer and a 10-32 star washer for the standard jam nut I’m using to secure the alternator B-lead/F-lead pair in the upper Adel clamp.  These will stay attached here on the motor and get disconnected at the firewall when/if I need to remove the engine.

On the remaining threads of the bolt protruding below the jam nut, I then secured the big yellow starter cable in an Adel clamp using a temporary jam nut.  For final engine install I’ll swap out the jam nut for an A/C grade locknut (I have to disconnect the starter cable and run it through the firewall covering when it is installed).

In addition, you can see that I covered a good bit of the starter cable with a heat shrink anti-chaffing sleeve.  I also labeled the starter cable.  After I install the firewall I’ll do the final trimming of this cable to length and crimp a terminal connector onto the end of it to mount to the starter stud.

I had also planned on getting the fuel injection servo officially installed and also the left side rudder cable guide secured to the oil cooler mounting flange with an Adel clamp, spacer and K1000-3 platenut. I completed the former, but not the latter.

In my attempt to drill safety wire holes into the 5/16″ nuts my efforts were rewarded by nothing more than a few broken bits.  And I was using higher end bits to try to punch through the tougher A/C-grade (or automotive grade 8) nuts.  Plain and simple: no joy here.  My guess is that this device is only for medium to lower grade hardware.

My backup plan from I’m guessing well over a year ago was to use these steel sleeves around the 5/16″ nuts that provide safety wire holes.  Once again I spent nearly half an hour in the “find me if you can” game since at some past shop flooding they had gotten wet and had some surface rust (just remembering this now).  They were over by my lathe where I had taken them post-flood to drench the baggy of them in oil.  That was forever ago, and I had to hunt them down tonight to use them.

I know Lycoming prefers star washers in mounting components, and I do have 1/4″ and 3/16″ star washers on hand, but no 5/16″.  I also did a quick check online and some pics I have of these Silver Hawk fuel injection servos bolted in place, and most builders used the star washers.  I do have 5/16″ split lock washers on hand so I simply used those instead, since the critical element in this endeavor is torqueing these nuts to the proper value (204 in-lbs according to Lycoming).

Before the final servo install, I removed it, cleaned each face with Acetone and applied a very thin layer of Permatex gasket RTV to the gasket.  I let the gasket RTV tack up for about 5 minutes before installing the fuel injection servo back onto the cold air induction plenum.

I only used the safety wire sleeves on the top nuts, while using just a standard washer and split lock washer on the bottom studs.  I then torqued them to value… well, the bottom ones anyway.  There was no getting a torque wrench up on the top nuts so I just, once again, followed the lead of my RV-building brethren and ensured the top nuts were on good and tight.  That being said, I still used a cross pattern while tightening the bolts.  I then safety wired across the two top nuts.

I’ll note that I safety wired the two top nuts starting on the right and going left, because I didn’t want the tail of the safety wire to come anywhere close to the pivoting throttle lever arm.

Yes, another task taking at least twice as long as I planned for, and it was quite late by the time I finished up.  Tomorrow I’ll apply orange torque seal to these nuts, and get that left side rudder cable guide secured to the oil cooler mounting flange!

Pressing forward.

Today I finished the installation of the top spark plug wires that connect up to the Electroair electronic ignition system’s firewall-mounted coil pack.  I’ll note that I have the spark plug wires ran with somewhat low profiles since the top cowling is fairly close fitting.  I do have some room to play with to shorten the spark plug wires to bring them a bit lower for clearance, if need be.

I also gooped up the front baffle spark plug wire pass-through assemblies mating surface with hi-temp RTV and mounted those into place, spark plug wires included of course.

Here’s the “business” end of the top spark plug wires, coming through the front baffle in the installed pass-through assemblies and connected to the coil pack.  Yes, my job with these wires is not 100% complete since I need to secure them to the engine mount… which will happen later when I have the engine off the plane.

In keeping with my modus operandi of making sure every task takes as long as possible to complete(!), I spent a good 45 minutes sanding the inside lip of the prop spinner to get it to seat properly onto the the mounting flange of the spinner flow guide… about 6 rounds of sanding to dial it in.  I estimate that during this process thatI removed the majority of a ply of CF that I just added.

But as with nearly all things on this build: persistence paid off and I eventually got ‘er! Here we have the prop spinner firmly mounted to the “lampshade” flow guide for the first time since I received this spinner from Catto around 3 years ago (IIRC).  Note the #6 screws securing the prop spinner in place.

Tomorrow I’ll continue on with engine-related and other build shenanigans.

Well, I had an entire to-do list with a bunch of stuff I wanted to get done today, including finishing up the prop spinner fit onto the spinner flow guide (“lampshade”) mounting flange.

As I made my way to the shop after getting organized, I could see the clouds rolling in and heard some distant thunder.  I also noted “my” wild feral cat that lives on my property darted into the carport post haste.  Something was afoot…

Inside the shop I pulled the peel ply and started to gather up my Fein saw to take the prop spinner outside to trim the cured overhanging carbon fiber around the edge.  That’s when all hell broke loose, the sky opened up and a virtually deluge ensued.

So, I ended up trimming the raw carbon edge over the trash can, as I literally saw water pouring into the shop from under the walls.

After a good 10 minutes over a 1/3 of my shop was flooded again… this after days of waiting for the damn thing to dry out.

In the pic of fitting the prop spinner onto the spinner flow guide, you can see that some sanding will be required for the correct fit.  That clearly means my 6 ply estimate was correct, as now sanding some of the inside edge is required for fit vs adding more material.  Thank goodness I didn’t opt for adding a 7th ply.  Also, for your viewing pleasure, I angled the camera so you could see the new round of flood waters overtaking the shop (there’s a reason why a good bit of my shop floor is rust colored!).

I was (and am) quite annoyed that a 30 minute rain shower has set me back to square zero with needing my shop to dry out once again.  I ran out to knock out some errands that have needed my attention for a bit, and upon my return I worked a good while in the house on CAD modeling… more on that to come here in the near future.

Day 2 I finally got back into the shop with my altered plan of getting the top spark plug wires assembled and installed.  I had watched the how-to video from Electroair, made myself a cheat sheet (below) to organize my thoughts, inventoried all the wires and parts, and got to work.

My first task was attaching the spark plug wires to the Electroair CDI on the firewall.  Simple task: plugging in spark plug wires… right?!  Uh, no.  This is an experimental aircraft, and will be treated as such!  Like the PMag wires, the Electroair spark plug wires require a minimum 1/4″ separation from each other.  Moreover, with my placement of the CDI right at the edge of the firewall, I can only angle the 90° spark plug wire connectors somewhat “parallel” or inward of the top cowling surface… clearly to avoid wire chaffing otherwise.

This turned into a good 20 minute machination of angling, assessing and repositioning spark plug wire runs to keep the wires segregated from each other.

Here’s my cheat sheet for cutting the spark plug wires to length and assembling the threaded aircraft spark plug connector on the plug end of the wire.  I’ll note that in the video Electroair links to, red wires are being assembled.  I have blue wires… that difference comes into play.

You see, once I got the wire cut to length and the plug end connector assembled, it was time to do a resistance check on my newly assembled wire.  Per the Electroair video we should see 475 ohms per inch of spark plug wire.  Uh, I was seeing around 30 ohms per inch.  Something ain’t right in Kansas here Dorothy!

After doing some more digging around online, I found some comments from our RV brethren discussing Electroair blue vs red spark plug wires.  Ahh, a poster confirmed that the blue wire has a way lower resistance than the red wire, about what I was seeing. A quick call to Electroair confirmed the blue vs red wire resistance values, and I was on my way after this.

Here we have the #1 cylinder top (Electroair) spark plug wire installed on the spark plug.

Yes, my build schedule was shot to hell with this recent round of rain (not to mention the tropical storm) and I had planned on getting a long day of building in yesterday, and made plans to have dinner with Jess this evening.  So after spark plug wire #1 was complete, and my wire-terminating process dialed in somewhat, I called it an early night.

Ahh, tis the season!  The stormy season…

While last year a tropical storm moved up the east coast as Marco and I were ready to return from Rough River (thus an extra night at Mike Beasley’s to let the storm pass through), this year a storm hit pre-RR.  Again, nothing major except a lot of wind and rain.  More rain this time than wind.

So, it may not be surprising that I report that over half of my shop has a soggy floor, going on a couple days now. And as such, I’ve been focused on some tech refreshes (both personal and airplane) and checking out/developing my action camera mounting & use plan for the Long-EZ.

Pre-storm I did pull the peel ply from the bottom cowl aft baffle rib outrigger layups, and then marked and trimmed the newly made baffle ribs //slash// bottom cowl stiffener.

Here we have a couple of shots of the final-configured bottom cowl aft baffle ribs and stiffener with the bottom cowl installed.

Although my shop is still drying out, I was done being sidelined and pressed forward with a task that may not be critical in the initial airworthiness of this airplane, but one that’s been gnawing at me and that I wanted complete.  And that is correcting the looseness of the fit between the prop spinner and flow guide’s (“lampshade”) mounting flange that the spinner attaches to.

Many months ago I confirmed that my spinner was woefully lacking the correct number of plies when I was discussing with Dave Berenholtz cutting the spinner to mount over and around the prop blades.  He noted that he filled in the resulting notches just forward of the prop blades with carbon fiber plates he laid up using 10 plies of CF.  10 plies?!? I asked.  Why when the spinner is only 3 plies thick?  Well, apparently his Catto spinner is 10 plies at the mounting interface, while again mine is only 3 (as guesstimated with my micrometer measurements).

Since I needed to sand the inside edge to add 6 plies of carbon fiber inside the mounting interface (I’ll add more if and as required), I also wanted to get rid of some of “gob-a-goos” that were for some reason included with my Catto prop spinner.  Here is the first blob (pic 1) and then removed with the Dremel tool and sandpaper (pic 2).

And the same thing on gobagoo #2.  Thankfully that was all that remained from Catto’s build process.

With 6 plies of CF getting laid up, I stepped them with the first 2 plies going in being 1.5″ in width (or deep, maybe).  The second pair of plies going in were 1.25″ wide, while the last pair was 1″ wide.  The constant reference point was the opening edge of the spinner.

I used the high temp epoxy HTR-212 I have on hand, and peel plied the layup. I then set it aside to cure overnight.

My next task was also something I’ve been pondering over the last week.  I removed the engine starter and alternator cables and remounted them in a couple more configurations than I originally had them (with starter cable on top) before settling on this configuration below, which provides the best clearance between all cables, engine components and that ubiquitous fuel line.

To ensure the starter cable wouldn’t get gnawed through over time from the bottom cowling, I covered the cable with 2 pieces of cardboard zip-tied in place to act as a sleeve, to give me about 1/4″ thickness as reference.

I then mounted the bottom cowling and put my phone up into the right armpit air intake scoop and grabbed a few blind pics.  It may be hard to tell in this pic, but if I blow it up on my phone I can see definite good daylight between the inside bottom cowling and the padded starter cable.

I confirmed the gap by shoving my phone into the gap just near the #2 cylinder bottom spark plug to get this shot, also showing good clearance with my now settled starter and alternator cable runs/configuration.

And with all these build shenanigans under my belt, I called it a night.

Yep, pressing forward… ever so slowly!

I started off this morning by pulling the protective tape from the aft baffle skirt to get an idea of the gap and general look of the bottom cowl aft baffle ribs… not bad.  I’ll note that due to the tightness of my cowling, and thus the bare minimum gap between baffle and cowl, I have these carbon fiber ribs offset just a hair aft of the baffle skirt. In addition, I’ll remind you all that these baffle ribs also serve as my bottom cowl stiffener.

Another shot of the aft side 2-ply carbon fiber bottom cowl baffle rib layups, with peel ply and tape pulled, on the left side (pic 1) and the right side (pic 2).

I needed to do a little Dremel work and rigorous sanding on the front side of these new rib layups to get them prepped for the final front side layups, so I took the bottom cowling outside in front of the shop to knock that out.

Once back in the shop, I cut 2 plies of carbon fiber for each side, peel ply patches (due to the curved surface) and a small wedge of Lantor-Soric filler material (shown below) to help in the transition to the preexisting mini-bulkhead edges.

I then wet out and laid up the 2 plies of carbon fiber each side, and peel plied the layups, again using hi-temp HTR-212 epoxy just as I did the aft half layups.

I let the layups cure for a couple of hours before mounting the bottom cowling back onto the bird.

Just after I finished the layups I jumped on a sideline task that is definitely flying related, but not specifically build related.  Since I’ll be flying again soon, with my BFR (biennial flight review) on the near horizon, I thought I would get my ANR headphones configured.

You see, a couple of years ago as I was talking to my buddy Brian Ashton (twin-engine Long-EZ builder) in Alaska, he mentioned that he had just tried out his Sony noise-cancelling headphones with an aviation mic attachment.  I thought that was cool, but didn’t take much note of it, until a follow on conversation a few weeks later… where he explained his setup more thoroughly.

The kit is as follows: you take a pair of Bose or Sony non-aviation noise-cancelling headphones and marry them up to an ANR microphone kit that is sold by avee, a company out of Norway.  I bought the mic unit (top in pic), a standard GA jack cord, and a Bose LEMO jack cord (I have both LEMO and standard jacks in my bird).  I also separately bought a Bose LEMO to standard GA jack connector from ACS.

Oh, and they’ll personalize the case for you as well!

When I talked to Brian, he was using the Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones.  Being cheap and after watching reviews on YouTube where folks noted virtually no difference (much like my recent action camera purchase) between the models, I pulled the trigger on a set of like-new WH-1000XM3 headphones off of eBay for a fraction of the price.

Now, these headphones are known to occasionally need a battery replacement after long use (or no use) and mine was no different.   It also doesn’t help when you don’t take the time to really understand how to operate something (which I didn’t)… ahem, there may have been no real battery issue at all!  Anyway, I set them aside after thinking I needed to replace the battery and never got back to them.  Well, in trying to clear out the queue of all my electronics that are awaiting repair (I recently mentioned my MacBook Air battery replacement task) the time to bring this headphone kit online was now.

After maybe 30 minutes of research and prepping myself to change the battery (more involved then just installing AA’s), I found a nifty and pertinent video showing how to reset the headphones with simple timed button pushes.  Sure enough it worked, and after a half hour charge I spent the next few hours wearing the headphones, listening to music, etc. synced to my cell phone via Bluetooth.

With my headphone ops function test a success, I proceeded to perform the simple task of attaching a strip of magnets to the bottom of the left ear cup, just adjacent the 3.5mm jack port.  I first cleaned the adhesive magnet strip mounting area with an included alcohol wipe . . .

Then peeled off the protective backing off the adhesive magnet strip, which comes pre-mounted on the microphone assembly (pic 1), and then plugged the microphone assembly’s 3.5mm jack into the left ear cup, keeping the entire unit pressed firmly in place for 30 seconds (pic 2).

And Voila!  I now have a set of wireless Bluetooth noise-cancelling headphones AND a pair of ANR headphones for the plane.  Pretty cool!

With the magnets, clearly you can see that the microphone assembly can be removed, but only if you really want it to.  Otherwise it stays firmly attached to the headset.

Here’s a closer shot of the magnet strip on the left ear cup of the headphones.

And another shot here of the Sony headphones, the avee microphone assembly, avee Bose LEMO cord, and the separately purchased Bose LEMO-to-GA jack.  Obviously the cord plugs into the back of the microphone assembly.  There is also a volume knob on the microphone assembly as well.

I’ll note that when I was doing my original research, after Brian told me of this cool kit, that I saw a number of positive reviews from airline pilots using this setup.  Moreover, the fact that it cost about a 1/3 of what a pair of Bose ANR headsets cost, I was definitely curious.

I closed out the evening doing a number of hours of CAD modeling work on a few different Long-EZ components.  I’ll cover those over the next few days.  For now, I’m calling it another late night.

Moving onward!

I started out this morning attending my local EAA chapter’s monthly meeting, which turned out to be amazingly productive.

After having a nice post-breakfast chat with a local Grumman Tiger owner and my fellow canardian buddy, Guy, a group of us went over to the airport to help a fellow EAA’er, Joe, with his airworthiness inspection on his just-finished (and very nice!) RV-10.

At one point the DAR was discussing Joe’s flight test area, and after a couple of questions (and this pic) the DAR started discussing what my upcoming 40-hour fly off test area would be, since the Long-EZ is a bit faster than the RV-10.  After discussing the Airworthiness Cert inspection and paperwork process, I got the DAR’s business card… it’s great to have met face to face, discuss my bird and my build, and how to get ‘er in the air!

Moreover, a new EAA member is a new (to me anyway) CFI at the airport and we discussed doing my BFR soon… like I said, a very productive day!

By the time I got into the shop it was very late afternoon.  I spent a decent bit of time getting the contour of the lower cowling baffle rib’s “outriggers” (or ‘wings’) transferred over into cardboard jigs.  Which I then used as templates to cut out 2 plies of carbon fiber per side, and both inside and outside segments of peel ply.

With the tape on the cardboard jigs serving as mold release, I then taped them into place on the lower cowling.  After which, I mixed up some HTR-212 high temp epoxy and wet out the aft face of the jigs and the cowl surface.

I then wet out and laid up my inside pieces of peel ply, followed by a micro fillet in the corner, pretty much the entire length of the outrigger jigs.

And laid up 2 plies of carbon fiber per side.

And peel plied the carbon fiber layups.

The tricky part of this layup was letting it cure for a few hours (it was getting quite late) to allow the epoxy to get into its “green” state (just starting to really set up, but not totally cured) to allow me to pull off the cardboard jigs, trim the layups down a good bit (it was too hard to do that with the cardboard jigs in place, which was my initial plan).

I then set the jigs back in place and mounted the bottom cowling into place on the bird to allow the aft baffle ribs —which also serve as bottom cowl STIFFENERS— to cure with the bottom cowl in its mounted position.

After all that, I called it a night!

In prep for getting back into the cockpit in the not too distant future, plus my upcoming trip to Rough River in the back of Marco’s Long-EZ (JT), I dusted off the iPad and ensured my FlyQ EFB (“Poor Man’s Foreflight”) was up to date.  In doing so, I noticed that my iPad seemed to be going dead quicker than usual, so I found a video online that showed all the myriad of things to turn off to help conserve power.

In my fervor of getting my technology squared away, I’ve also had a few occasions over the past months to access my MacBook Air laptop to get a doc, pic, whatever off of it… just one problem: it’s been dead in the water for almost a year(?) now.  No big deal before, but it does have a good bit of info on it regarding my Long-EZ build that I don’t have on other computers.  Sooooo…. I took about 45 minutes to take it apart, remove the old “exploded” battery and find a decently cheap-but good one online.  Which I pulled the trigger on.

Out in the shop, after refreshing the desiccant in the spark plug desiccant holders, I swapped out the wing root aft heat shield screws for the final 316 stainless steel hex drive button head screws.  That actually took a good little bit to get done.

The next “quick kill” item on my list was to get the oil cooler return hose secured, since it is in the form of an arch and I don’t want it flopping around unsecured in the engine compartment.

After finding the correct size Adel clamps for the engine mount tube side and the oil cooler return hose, I then got busy modeling up a required cross-connect tab in Fusion 360 CAD.

I then post processed the newly modeled part and machined it out.  All detailed in this highly informative comparatively short video!

And here we are: oil cooler return hose securing task complete… Voila!

And just in time to shut down the shop at a decent point to take my girl out for a Friday date night.

Pressing forward… some days more than others!

Today I finished installing the aft wing root heat shields by getting right side K1000-6 platenuts riveted into place on the mounting tabs.  Again, I’ll final trim the glassed-in mounting tabs once I pull the engine off to gain better access to the tabs, and to ensure I don’t do any damage to anything on the engine.

Here we have the right wing root aft heat shield officially installed!

And here is a video I cobbled together showing a good bit of the effort that went into constructing and mounting these wing root aft heat shields.

I had to grab something off my shop work desk and was a little taken aback seeing this massive spider on the edge of the desk.  I guess he’s the new shop boss?!  It didn’t help that a few hours earlier as I was entering the shop a snake plopped down in the doorway as I swung the door open.  Critters abound everywhere here!

With the wing root aft heat shields officially installed I turned towards a task I started a few days ago: the final electrical cable runs in the engine compartment.  It took a bit over multiple days to dial in my exact plan, but I finally figured ‘er out.

Here I’m drilling out the center rivet on the engine’s aft baffle skirt to replace it with a button head screw (pic 1).  I then drilled out the rivet hole to 3/16″ (pic 2).

On the front, business side in this case, of the aft baffle skirt I installed the field wire (F-lead) and the thick #8 cable B-lead to the alternator.  I then secured those cables, as they began their trek forward, onto the front side of the aft baffle skirt via an Adel clamp.

Here we have the Adel-clamp-securing button head screw —which replaced the center rivet— now in the center position on the aft baffle skirt.

After a good bit more assessing/pondering/scheming/planning I also drilled a hole into the right engine side 7075 aluminum throttle cable bracket to add 2 Adel clamps to secure the alternator’s B-lead cable and F-lead wire in one Adel clamp, and the starter’s big yellow cable in the other.  I’m using 2 separate Adel clamps to allow me to remove the big yellow starter cable during engine removal while allowing the alternator cables to remain securely attached to the engine.

Moreover, if you look closely in the lower right corner you’ll see that I cut the F-lead wire, terminated a knife splice connector on the end, and then added more length of 18 AWG wire with the associated knife splice connector traversing the firewall into the hell hole.  This added 18 AWG length will get permanently spliced to the wire heading to the B&C voltage regulator in the nose once the firewall covering (Titanium sheet + Fiberfrax) is in place.  Having the knife splice connectors will allow me to disconnect the alternator’s F-lead during engine removal, and easily connect back together whilst remounting the engine.

Also in the lower right corner of the pic is a red Blue Sea threaded terminal, which is what the Alternator’s B-lead connects to for passing through the firewall, and will disconnect from during engine removal.

Pressing forward!