Baffle material

Ready to cut and install the baffle material. The only guidance in the plans is, essentially, don't do a bad job 'caus that could be bad.

I sent email to the factory but thought I'd also ask what the consensus is here.

1... How much of the material should overlap the aluminum sections (going downward where they attach)?

2... How much overlap of the material in moving from one section to the next?

3...How much material sticking up above the aluminum? I've got a pretty good 1/2" gap all around - with one spot just behind and to the right of the prop being a bit more than that.

Going off memory (so take this with a grain of salt) I cut mine so the bottom of the material overlaps both the top of the baffles and the adjacent section of material by about an inch and trimmed the top of the material so I had about 2 1/2 to 3 inches of material above the baffles. When in doubt be liberal with the measurements and leave a bit more material and you can trim it back.

I also created construction paper templates that I cutout and clecoed in-place to do a mock-up in order to work out the shapes and sizes out before actually cutting the baffle material. Once I was satisfied I then laid the templates on the baffle material sheet and cut out the individual pieces.

Check out this thread: http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=141528

Doesn't show the process but it does give a good idea of what to (or what not to) end up with. A search will return much more information. (Thanks again to Dan H...)

Material

I recommend not using the cheap black material which comes with the FW FWD. I noticed a 10 degree drop after switching my baffle material to the silicone type. It doesn't fold up and stiffen like the cheap stuff.

Follow-up

For the sake of future builders asking the same question:

Van's said, assuming a 1/2" gap all the way around between baffles and cowl top: Material should overlap 3/4" down over the baffles, 1/2" overlap between sections and 2" sticking up over the top edge. "This usually works pretty well."

I went 1" down, 1" overlap of sections, and 2" over the top edge.

And I'll see how well this works in about 2 months.