This is my newly painted firewall and my powder coated engine mount. I've always liked white! It's very sanitary and you can tell if/when/where you've got a leak. I kept the powder coating covered with vinyl tape until today. It did a nice job of protecting the finish while all the stripping, painting, etc. was going on.

I'm pretty proud of how the engine came out. This started out as one sorry looking piece of equipment. Sometime I'll get around to posting the "before" pictures.

This little guy has 4 new ECI cylinders and a brand new B&C starter. All the red is powder coating. The exhaust stacks are ceramic coated with a material that resembles polished aluminum. Supposedly it will not turn blue or tarnish. Time will tell...

Another shot of the engine. I'm just messing around in these pictures. The engine mount is being held to the firewall with temporary hardware. I just wanted to get an idea of how this will look when it's in place.

Check out those valve covers. The "Continental" is machined in place instead of stamped in as with most O-200 valve covers. The guy who rebuilt the engine for me had these laying around his shop and offered to trade me. I think they look pretty cool. He powder coated the valve covers and then machined off the "Continental" lettering to expose the aluminum.

That ignition harness looks pretty bad compared to all the new stuff. Looks like it's time for me to pop for a new harness. I'm thinking a YELLOW harness would look cool!

I finally hung the engine on January 1, 2008. It was a pretty big milestone, I guess, but it didn't really take that much time. After listening to horror stories from my RV friends, I thought I'd wrestle with this thing for hours. I guess it all comes down to the difference between a conical mount versus a dyna-focal mounting. I guess it's hard to get the bolts in on a dyna-focal mount. In the process of mounting the engine, I discovered I ordered the wrong engine mount bolts. Dadgummit! Those things aren't cheap, either. I ended up installing the engine using the old hardware with the idea that I'd replace it with new after my next Aircraft Spruce order. For the record, I ended up ordering AN6-50A's and used the AN363-624 all-metal stop nuts. I also used these AN363 stop nuts on my engine mount bolts. I could have used regular castle nuts with a cotter pin, but I think the AN363's look cleaner.

I think this is a pretty cool picture because it shows just how large our 16" spinners really are in comparison to the little O-200 engine. The old ignition harness looks a little ratty against the shiny engine. I may have to find a replacement... Stay tuned!

Uhm. This is my old baffling. Obviously, it's not going back on the airplane! Niiiiice.

I got out my handy-dandy shape-tracer doo-dad along with about $4 worth of poster board and a bunch of circle templates. I'm not really looking forward to making new baffling, but it is supposed to make a huge difference in cooling and more-specifically, cooling efficiency. I'll do my best...

What you see in this picture is the outline of my valve cover.