I recently received my engine and fabricated the mount using Eric Newton's manual and Russ Erb's pictures as a guide. I bolted one of the engine mount isolators together an measured it's compressed thickness, then used washers to simulate that thickness when welding the mount together. I leveled the fuselage fore/aft and side to side then used a laser to establish crankshaft to thrust line orientation ensuring the engine was also level. After the mount was complete I bolted the engine up using the actual isolators and found that it was not level, it sagged a little. This makes sense because the weight of the engine compresses the isolators unevenly, the forward isolator is compressed on top mounts and rear isolator compressed on the bottom mounts. I didn't account for this when fabricating the mount, and it doesn't seem that Eric did either - or didn't include that detail.
Is this even an issue? Will the engine "pull" itself up to centerline when generating thrust? I haven't attempted to measure what nose down angle the engine makes relative to the fuselage, it can't be a lot, but it's enough for me to see on a level. If it is an issue can I just stack some washers under the bottom mounts to bring it back up to level?
IMG_9555.jpg
Is this even an issue? Will the engine "pull" itself up to centerline when generating thrust? I haven't attempted to measure what nose down angle the engine makes relative to the fuselage, it can't be a lot, but it's enough for me to see on a level. If it is an issue can I just stack some washers under the bottom mounts to bring it back up to level?
IMG_9555.jpg
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