Today has been another fitting and sanding day. Using a long sanding block, I continued to sand away material from the long side line on the top cowling in order extend the gap between top and bottom cowl to 0.05". This gap is what is required for the material build up by the paint layers on both sides.

It takes patience and installing and removing the cowl multiple times.  By now, you are at the point you can not count anymore how many times you installed and removed the cowling from the firewall.

I'm using the back of a wood spoon to check the gap. By chance, this wood is very close to 0.05" in thickness.
Here I'm checking the front gap between spinner and air inlet.

Top cowl installed, Skybolts fastened. This is what the gap will look like.

Wood spacer fits nicely on the pilot side.

Same on the passenger side

There will be a little more filling and sanding required near the front to get a minor step out between the bottom and the top cowl. This will be part of the final finishing work when prepping the coil for painting. I'm getting pretty fed up for now with all the sanding and want to get the cowl work behind me.

With the sun on it, it makes me feel happy to know the sides are now finally done.

cool view with the air intake rings installed.

Top cowl gap showing. It needs some more fine tuning and that's work for the coming days.