For years I've been looking at the hose that carries fuel from the firewall to the engine-driven fuel pump, wishing it wasn't so close to the engine mount. Finally I decided to do something about it. I replaced the straight fitting at the pump with a 90-degree elbow, and took the hose to a local aircraft hydraulic place to get it shortened by two inches.
Now there's plenty of clearance between the hose and the engine mount. It's a little tight between the hose and the starboard exhaust pipe support, but I can tweak that part's position when I put the exhaust back on.
Another view looking up from below. The location given in the plans for the bulkhead fitting that brings fuel through the firewall is plain wrong, if you ask me. At least on my airplane it's very close to the starter solenoid, the resulting hose routing is problematic (see this post), and it's pretty difficult to get a wrench on the hose end nut. A better location would be straight below the heater air valve – you can see in this photo that it's completely open, and the hose routing from the firewall to the fuel pump would be very straightforward when using a 90-degree elbow on the engine side. Maybe they don't have you drill the hole there because they're reserving room for the nosegear weldment, but my airplane doesn't have one of those. Oh well, yet another thing to file away for next time.
