Working on the test firewall at the moment. I am building a test stand that doubles as a firewall construction test bed as well. The new firewall will be made of 9 mm birch ply and attached to the original firewall with bolts and washers, to get the right down and right thrust angles:

This new firewall will be glued to the sides as well.

After mounting the engine, I’ve tested the alignment of the prop shaft and checked the clearance of all engine parts with the fuse sides. I think this position works very well (which is one degree down, one right, and 10 degrees tilted to create more space for the exhausts):

Also, the carb fits well within the available space and doesn’t touch the fuse side:

I couldn’t resist checking what it looks like wit the prop on…:

Now, I’m going to redo the new firewall, to fix some small alignment issues, and reshape the cutout of the original firewall to accommodate the rear exhaust pipe. It takes a while but we’re getting there!