Starting Point

This project is an E-Racer MK-II. The purchase included many parts as shown in the pictures below. My best guess is I’m the fourth owner of this project. The first owner likely did the bulk of the work and bought all the prefabricated parts, and the workmanship is of good quality. The second owner didn’t finish very much, and the workmanship wasn’t as nice. The third owner didn’t do anything on this project but did do some research and digitized the manual.

Fuselage

A previous builder decided to use the MK-I firewall. Extra wood and fiberglass was included in the purchase to allow for rebuilding the firewall as a MK-II if desired. The firewall has not been attached to the fuselage.

Most of the fiberglass work on the fuselage was of good quality. However, the area front of FS-22 needs work and may need to be completely redone due to several deficiencies:

Nose gear stringers are not parallel to reference planes.
Nose gear pivot cannot be removed because foam on the sides was not removed before glassing.
FS-1 has a small area of fiberglass delaminating from the foam.
The area between FS-1 and FS-22 has been shaped with micro but fiberglass has not been laid on the outside.

Landing Gear

All three prefabricated landing gear, all gear links, and most of a hydraulic system was included.

Three nose gear actuators were included, but only one is usable in its current state. They are all Cessna 210 main gear door actuators. One of the unusable actuators has the wrong size of swivel joint, and the other has a broken piston rod. All actuators, including the main gear actuators, should be resealed before use.

Two styles of nose gear cams were included. Both appear to function.

The mains are pre-molded carbon fiber over wood and weigh about 30 lbs each. Each gear leg has a copper tube molded into the front edge for brake plumbing. The wheels and brakes appear to be Matco WHLW50LD (manual), and the tires are 11-4.00×5.

Strakes and Spar

The strake skins are fabricated by KLS and are likely for a Glassic SQ2000 XP, although there is no documentation specifically saying so. These strakes may be usable on an E-Racer, but it might be easier and safer to start from scratch.

In contrast to the strakes, the spar does appear to be for an E-Racer. No other airplane has the distinctive shape that supports a through-spar driveshaft.

Wings and Canard

Eureka CNC does sell E-Racer wing, winglet, and canard cores but doesn’t sell wings like those included in this purchase, so it’s unclear who made these or even if these are intended for an E-Racer. Everything that can be checked with a tape measure or inclinometer matches the plans to less than 0.25″ or 2°. The wings match the plans very closely, and the canard is closer to the plans than anything else I can find.

Engine Cowling

Like the strake skins, the engine cowling is likely from a Glassic SQ2000. It doesn’t follow the trailing edge profile of any Velocity. It’s too wide for a Cozy or any tandem canard. In any case, it doesn’t follow the fuselage profile, and it will likely take more effort to modify this cowling than it would be to build my own from scratch. That’s a bit of a shame since it’s so well built.

Materials and Other Parts

Plans

Three complete sets of plans were included in this purchase: 130, 357, and 428. None of these plans have been completed. Plans number 130 appears to be completely untouched, and no templates have been cut out. Plans number 357 is missing almost all of the templates and includes many of the E-Racer Newsletters. Plans number 428 also has most of the templates cut out and, as far as I can tell, is what most of this project has been built against.

Summary

N34ER is going to be a bit of a unicorn. There are very few E-Racers in existence. As mentioned above, the pre-fabricated parts appear to have been a combination of several plans and aircraft. Some parts appear to be designed for the Glassic SQ2000. If needed these parts should be usable on N34ER since the SQ2000’s performance characteristics are close to the expected characteristics of N34ER.

It is not a King Racer, which has some alterations that allow for a heavier maximum weight:

Instrument panel and seat are moved aft by 4″, increasing maximum occupant weight from 200 lbs to 240 lbs.
Cockpit is widened 2″ for added comfort.