October 15, 2007 - Firewall Pass Through

 I am trying to limit holes in the firewall for wires to two.  And I'm going to use a stainless steel pass through kit for each hole.  You may recall I bought the stainless steel heat valve from EPM.AV.  They sell the stainless steel passthrough kits as well, but I discovered that SafeAir1 also sells them.  SafeAir's kits have a large diameter hole, apprix 1 1/8 and cost less ($47), so I bought two kits from them.  I also bought their Dynon magnetometer bracket kit, which goes on the wing tip rib.

I was pleasantly surprised with SafeAir's kit.  It came with everything you need, including stainless steel nuts, washers and bolts.  
 
But it was the instructions that stood out.  I've bought a lot of things for my RV-7 and while the instructions or drawings may or may not have what you need, you have to dig for it, and there is a lot of head-scratching.  Half the time you have to go to the Vans Air Force forums or look on Dan Checkoway's web site to find missing pieces of the puzzle.
 
The SafeAir instructions are the finest I've seen yet on the project.  They are well written and complete, from start to finish.  And there are color pictures to illustrate.  THIS is how instructions ought to be done!
 
I supposed some of the fun is figuring it out, but I have no problem with being led by the hand through an installation. 
 
Following the instructions, I widened the hole in the firewall to 1 1/8" and match-drilled the four screw holes to #19.
 
Then I screwed in the pass-through and backing circle. 
 
Clamped on the outer firesleeve and ran my wires through it.
 

From the aft side of the firewall. 

When I'm sure I have all the wires I want through the pass through.  I wrap the wires in two more layers of firesleeve.  Looks pretty fireproof to me. 

I'll have another wire passthrough on the left side, for the engine sensor wires and P-leads. 

 
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