Hi guys,
I'm enjoying flying my new E5s and am very happy with how it is going. One thing that I think could be improved is the front canopy mounts which are a bit fiddley to locate every time I put the canopy on. I have seen a few people using the new N7 mounts on their Synergies so decided to see if I could fit them up to the E5.
The parts you need are:
Synergy 405100 U-channel canopy female x 1
Synergy 405101 U-channel canopy posts x 1
Synergy 106804 tail blade washers x 2 (packets)
M3 x 25mm cap head screw and locknut x 2
M3 x 8mm cap head screw x 2
Washers 3mm id and od between 12 and 18mm x 2
Taking the canopy first remove the o-ring and keychain mount, you can then put the 8mm cap head screw through the large washer and screw the female mount to the canopy. I have left the holes in the canopy round at this stage but you could slot the holes to match the mounts which can key in. If I find the mounts move around in use I will probably do this but didn't want to modify the canopy before I was sure the modification would work. The large washers used on the canopy help spread the load and the 18mm ones I found fit into the divots in the canopy to give a neat finish, but smaller ones would work. Unfortunately the ones I found were some old blade washers and have a 4mm id so I added some 3mm washer to them that you can see in the picture.
The E5 has a nice feature of sacrificial carbon straps for the canopy mounts, first remove these from the frame and remove the female keychain mounts from them. The new posts need to be spaced out from the frame a little, you can use 3 or 4 of the tail blade washers on each side for this, I managed to find a couple of 5mm spacers that I used instead but the tail blade washers will work just as well. Bolt the new post to the carbon strap with the locknut against the strap end.
The only real modification you need to make is the holes in the frame made for clearance of the pan head screw that holds the old mount needs to be opened up to allow the locknut to fit in the hole. I used a 6mm drill and needed to ream out the hole just a touch more before the locknut would fit, but it will depend on the size of the locknut you use, in either case the hole was enlarged by less than a mm so there will be no strength issues.
Now you can test fit the canopy and check you have lined up the female mounts well in the canopy, the mounts do need a little bit of a push to go on, but lock in place nicely.
//Dennis.
