Nose gear mod II

I added this to the old post but should have started a new one.

In the old one from 2011, There is mention of aftermarket nose forks that can be put on a 6A to accommodate a larger tire. I can't find any current website info for the names cited. Is anyone still doing that?

I am considering buying an older 6a with the SB mod for the higher clearance fork. I've read all of what I can find about the failures and modifications and am aware of the anti-splat device. I would feel better having a bigger tire.

I've never seen a larger fork for sale. That said, you could always make your own. The RV-6A plans have all the information to Fab a fork. It doesn't look like it would be all that difficult. Just keep in mind, the longer fork will put more bending load on the gear leg exactly at the common failure point. In the end, the safety margin may be a wash.

What I would like to do is build an RV-10 style gear leg, but that would required a new/modified engine mount as well.

Yes - that would be better

I’ve done a 500x5 fork mod on a RV7A, the increased nose height made it sit tail low like a stock 6A. If you did it to a 6A without using the longer 7A (or 9A) main gear legs, the plane would have even more of a tail low stance.
The effects to the 7 were lighter weight in the nose during taxi, special care in flare to avoid touching the nose before mains, and limit baggage carrying capacity somewhat because of the aft weight shift during taxi. These symptoms would definitely be even more pronounced if attempted on an otherwise stock 6A.
I also fab’d up a fork for a 8A and the owner ended up getting a unique nose gear leg fabricated to use for the installation to minimize the additional height &aft wheel positioning and other above mentioned undesirable byproducts.
Personally I would not recommend this mod & would rather suggest concentrating on the piloting skills to prevent these potential nose wheel related issues.

Gear mod

While I agree that there is no substitute for pilot skill ,once the nose wheel is on the ground a 5.00 x 5 tire will go over many terrain elements that a 4.00 inch tire will not like. With a properly designed custom gear leg and fork the only negatives that I can identify is slight weight increase,need for larger wheel pant,and possibly more load on engine/gear mount. However the larger diameter wheel will likely roll over obstacles easier resulting in less load to the mounting structure.
I have 500 hours on this setup with virtually no loss in speed using a rv10 wheel pant and have found no negatives that keep me from going this route again.