My engine uses cylinders from ECI that have tapered barrel fins. This saves between 5-6 lbs of weight, but complicates the baffle installation. The premade baffles are designed for non-tapered barrel fins, so they have to be modified to seal properly. ECI provides a template for building a filler piece to close off the tapered end and to fill the wedge-shaped gap along the bottom. I didn’t like their template for a couple of reasons, so I decided to just make my own. First up, I used some safety wire to pull the inner baffles tight against the cylinder barrels without twisting them.
I then used a piece of manila file folder to trace the shape of the inner edge of the baffles.
After adding some ears and cutting it out, here’s the template for the #2 cylinder. I then repeated the process for the other three cylinders.
After transferring the templates to some 0.032″ 2024-T3 aluminum sheet, I cut them out. Here’s the #4 cylinder filler piece clecoed in place.
You can see that the ears are bent around the outside edge of the baffles.
