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Builder's notes:

• This is the third engine acquired for this project - second one to make it to the airframe. The first two were not certified engines. Both Continentals, but not overhauled to FAA certification specifications. The first was bought relatively cheap from a project that never got underway, but after a magnaflux inspection was not in good enough shape to overhaul. The second - a non-electric C65 - had been given (by somebody I used to trust...) what we will charitably refer to as a "Krylon" overhaul. That is, it was cleaned up and spray painted, but that was about all. It was difficult to start (and showed me that I don't want to make a habit of hand propping an engine) but made it through taxi testing and the first flight. It wouldn't start at all for the attempted second flight a week after the first, and proved to have at least two cylinders in irreparable condition. At that point, having had so much trouble with it already, we bit the bullet and pulled it from the aircraft and replaced it with a certified C85 capable of supporting an electrical system. More weight with the additional equipment, but also more horsepower and more convenience and safety. In fact, the additional weight allowed us to remove the nineteen pounds of steel plate we had had to attach to the firewall with the C65 in place to balance out the 30-plus pounds of the ballistic recovery parachute system behind the rear cockpit. Fisher did not design the Celebrity™ with that kind of additional weight so far aft.

  Were I to build another project, I would either budget to buy another certified aircraft engine or a new "firewall forward" automotive engine conversion package, rather than try to get by on the cheap with the un-certified variety. It would have proved less expensive, by far, in this case to have gone one of those routes in the first place.

• Note that we opted for separate exhaust pipes for each pair of cylinders. Unlike such aircraft as the J3 Cub, there is no room between the engine accessory case and the firewall to cross pipes and add a muffler. This solution also avoids the necessity for tuning the exhaust system to avoid horsepower-draining back back pressure. These pipes were homebuilt, starting with standard collectors at the cylinder exhaust ports and building out and down from there, cutting and welding pieces of standard aircraft-grade exhaust tubing.

• The silver tube on the port exhaust pipe is the heat exchanger - again homebuilt, from stainless steel - for the carburetor heat supply.

• For those with experience with these engines, you may notice that the carburetor is mounted 180 degrees from standard. We could find nothing in the engine manuals against this configuration, and it fit with no trouble. Mounting it so provided an easier route for the carburetor control cables (coming in from the left edge of the firewall - right edge in the picture). Later, however, when we were having a lot of trouble getting the engine to run well, and being just about out of ideas, we turned the carburetor back around to its normal position, re-routing the cables. This operation may or may not have had a beneficial effect on engine performance, but I feel better, with a certified engine, having the carburetor mounted "correctly".

• The white circular-shaped object above the carburetor heat shroud is an oil filter. It is Supplemental Type Certificated (STC'd) so that the engine remains certified, and I feel more comfortable with the additional filtration (and bit of cooling of the oil) it provides over the simple brass screen of the original engine design.

• The small rectangular box on the upper-right corner of the firewall is the voltage regulator for the electrical system.

• Looking at the edge of the firewall, where the fuselage fabric wraps under it, note the slight rise out from the edge, near the vertical middle of the firewall edge. There is a tapered and rounded block under the fabric to alleviate an otherwise tight curve on the fabric - a place where people like to touch the fabric at airshows - leaving it vulnerable to damage. See page 51 for the detail of this block before fabric installation.