RV-14 Wing Order

I'm looking to place my wing order soon.

Looking for people to chime in about typical deletions and changes.

A few points:

I think I am planning on deleting the harness. I plan on FlyLED lights, but I'm not sure about Dynon vs Garmin yet. For AP, Pitot and ADAHRS how useful is it to have these chosen now? I assume doing the install via the open wing bottoms after the wing is together is more difficult.

I'm pretty much sold on aileron trim.

Finally, I think I'm leaning towards hose fuel caps that TimO had made on his 14 (and I think lots of others have gotten). Anyone know what parts to not ask for if I'm doing this?

Thanks in advance!

I?m just finishing the wings now and I plan on leaving the bottom skin off till near the end of the project. I don?t see a need to put the bottom skin on till then. I did use the wiring harness that came with the wings but modified it a bit.
Kerry

One example

Here is what I ended up doing with the wing order

Add Pulsar NS90 L/R Lights
Add EA-10/14 Electric Roll Trim Kit (no electrical)
Add Two AN257-P4X6'
Add Two AN257-P3X6'
Add Tank Sealant (2 quarts)
Add T-00007C x 2 (locking fuel cap)
Eliminate T-00007A x 2
Eliminate WH-00011/12/13 (electric harnesses)
Eliminate PT1/4OD TUBEX20' Polypropelyne

I am doing all my own wiring and planning to use piano hinge for the wingtips rather than screws. I also ordered Nylon 1/4" tube from amazon for Pitot/Static rather than Poly along with locking gas caps.

Not recommending one way or another on any of the items, just one example.

mulde35d said:

I also ordered Nylon 1/4" tube from amazon for Pitot/Static rather than Poly along with locking gas caps.

Click to expand...

What's the advantage of nylon over poly?

Jon,

Approximately how much money is saved by eliminating the wiring harness for the wings?

Thanks

Wing Wiring Harness Savings

My 2-1/2 cents. Don't think you're saving anything really eliminating the standard Vans wing wiring harness. Just deferring the cost. You will spend nearly equal amount of money on wire, connectors, tools, etc. to do it yourself.

Unless you just really like measuring, cutting, terminating, and tracing wires all over the place, stay with the Vans supplied harnesses. They work with Garmin, Dynon or AFS avionics suites. Can be easily modified or expanded for whatever lights or other systems you want to customize.

The only thing we were not enthralled with on our build were the Molex connector systems used in the Vans harnesses. But, they do work, are simple, and relatively easy to fix when you get something hooked up backwards (yes that will happen, guaranteed).

We used AFS for our avionics and bought their main fuselage harness and quick build panel harness. Very good value and their support was/is fantastic.

I would tend to agree on ease of use etc. But things like unsheilded wire and not running a ground back (just attaching to airframe wherever) wasn't what I wanted. I also heard that the harnesses are very close to final size so it's tough if one want to change something because there is no extra wire. I have also read it's more work to try and tweak it vs just building your own.

Building the cables doesn't worry me too much, heck I'm building an adorable vs buying one for a reason.

Cost wise, I'm almost expecting it to be more expensive to make my own. I'll probably end up with more wire than needed and my connectors will be more expensive.

Really appreciate your two cents and a half cents!

Electrical

I am using nylon instead of poly because it is more flexible and overall I like its properties better. But it only took $1.95 off the wing kit cost.

Eliminating the 3 harnesses saved $141.65 (about $47 each), but more importantly it would have been a complete waste for me to by the electrical harness since I have no plans to use any of it. I did a LOT of research and made my own electrical diagram which I plan to wire up entirely myself. I am also replacing all the molex connectors with CPC.

All in all wiring the entire airplane myself with a full Garmin G3X suite will be around $700 of materials (including the RG400 antenna cable). I bought these mostly from skygeek which has pretty reasonable prices on electrical wire as long as you order the minimum quantities (normally 25 or 100 ft each). Tools are around $300 for electrical so $1000 total to do it how I want it done without compromise. Essentially eliminating the vans harnesses from all the kits covers almost all the raw material costs of doing the entire airplane from scratch. But I like learning new skills and taking the time to research the details. If that’s not you then by all means buy the vans kit and pay steinair quite a few thousand dollars to do your panel as it will be much faster.

I have shown it in a different post, but I am more than happy to share my electrical diagram with anyone who is interested. Simply PM me your email address and whether you want the editable version in Visio or the view only in PDF.