Kent Ashton

Likely not. It is probably a cover built onto the canard. Can be removed by cutting it off and gently sanding off the layups that attach it with a small angle-grinder and sanding disk but don't sand into the canard skin layups.

.050" 4130 works pretty well. Make a pattern for the piece from posterboard or flashing. Drill the wheel pant holes to match the 4130 piece. A strong light on the inside of the pant will show where to drill. I have also seen a small laser sitting on a sandbag off to the side that points to the 4130 hole, then position the wheel pant and drill at the laser spot. Pants are very fiddly to install.

Google Images for Wheel Pants Attach or variations on that. You will see many pics. There are a dozen ways to do it but you have to decide what works best for you. I use a wheel nut from Vans and a lengthwise bent strip of 4130 on the inside that accepts two bolts through the two halves of the pant. I put patches of kevlar where the bolts go through. My pants separate front and back.

I would guess you are causing yourself a lot more trouble than necessary. The bit of rust on the screws is nothing. The surface corrosion seemed to clean up well. If the depression is on the upper side (in compression), it wouldn't bother me. Even on the bottom, it doesn't look like much of a problem. If the mount hole was cracked or notched where a crack could propagate from the bolt hole, it might be worth changing but I doubt that small depression is going to weaken the aluminum appreciably. Personally I would find those mounts acceptable but I can't speak to the UNI issue.

My Cozy has not flown in a year while I fiddled with getting a Special Issuance medical. The medical approval finally came through--five months after submitting the paperwork. It expires in 5 months but I think I will get back on Basic Med which will be good for two years. Anyway .. . . The airplane had a worrying miss on one of the LIghtspeed Plasmas. Low takeoff RPM and an alarming miss running on that one Plasma. I thought maybe it was fouled plugs. Nope, they are almost new. Plug wires are pretty new. I thought maybe the screw-on sparkplug caps were loose. Nope. One time I had a Lightspeed box that suffered a broken connection to an internal chip. It seemed to be a manufacturing defect but Lightspeed did not publicize it. Bad on them. I doubt thst is the probem here. Ordinarily, the boxes are pretty stout. One time I had corrosion in a coil tower connection to the plug wires that caused an engine miss. I see that Klaus says a disconnected sparkplug is very bad for the coils and a corroded connection could mimic that. I suspect my problem is going to turn out to be a bad coil. News at 11. The nice thing about the Lightspeed is that they are pretty easy to troubleshoot.

I am not an engine expert but it seems to me that these are big old heavy slow-turning (relatively) engines that would not profit much by porting and balancing. People do polish the ports and balancing cannot hurt but I doubt it makes much difference. As they say: "nothing beats cubic inches". Electronic ignition will give you a few HP. It seems that very careful drag reduction is where the money is. Removing the lower winglets would be pretty easy. AFAICT, it does reduce drag a little bit but the stall characteristics are a not as nice. I removed some upper winglets once. The lower winglet would be a piece of cake. This page: https://www.canardzone.com/forums/topic/18661-kents-long-ez-project/page/3/ What I question is if the EZ is the best design for winning races? I don't know.

I imagine there are aircraft salvage yards in Europe. Here in the states, Wentworth handles a lot of salvage engines. Make sure you know the model numbers and know what you're buying. You will need a new prop, too. As for mods, a carbed O-320 can be converted to fuel injection pretty easily. I just saw a discussion of this on the VansAirForce site. Streamling the struts is a good mod. Also use smaller wheels and pants. A smaller canopy. Seal the cockpit well so air is not leaking in and out except where you want it. See what Gary Hertzler did to reduce the builk of his cowl https://www.canardzone.com/forums/topic/45834-varieze-plans/?do=findComment&comment=79848 Very good, tight cooling will help Ah, you want a gain in drag! Forget what I said. 🙂

If you want to email them to me, I can probably post them. kjashton AT vnet dot net

Here is a big Advisory Circular on Intergranular corrosion https://www.faa.gov/documentlibrary/media/advisory_circular/ac_43-4a_.pdf

I suggest starting a new topic in the Models --> Varieze section entitled "Varieze Plans" https://www.canardzone.com/forums/forum/305-varieze/ I think you can drag and drop the files into the bottom of the post. Maybe Jon would like to create an "Open Varieze" model to which they can be moved.

Today: Also this notice (pic). The sale information is posted in a private group but I suppose you can try to contact the seller

Relisted: Sweeny Cozy IV at $65K and Machen Long-ez at $25K

Pics?

You would turn your Vari, which can fly 1000 miles into an airplane that can barely fly for 6 minutes.

This prop today. No pic.