(page 22-02) One omission and one mistake....         

The omission was Van's (confirmed by them). Step 2, sentence 3 should read as follows: Machine countersink the uppermost hole in the F-1288 Cooler Stiffener and all rivet attach holes.  The mistake was all mine and had nothing to do with the omission.  After carefully doing the cutting and deburring, I countersank the hole on the wrong side.  Only cost a few bucks to order but it set the tone for much confusion to follow.  In step 3, everything after the words Tunnel Ribs should be deleted.  I wasted quite a bit of time trying to figure out how the instructions, saying to rivet nutplates to the firewall bottom, could possible make sense.  Turns out they couldn't.
Step 9 has the instructions for those nutplates in the proper sequence.  Overall, I've been quite pleased so far with the entire kit, including the build manual.  There are a few places, however, where I wish they'd let me rewrite it.  I'd do it free! 

The firewall is stainless steel and everything that I'm attaching to it is aluminum, so I was a bit concerned about dissimilar metal corrosion.  I ended up priming the entire firewall (scuff with maroon ScotchBrite, clean with acetone, spray with NAPA 7220) as well as the faces of the aluminum pieces which attach to it.  Throughout the build, I've primed all mating surfaces with self-etching primer from Lowe's, which costs about one-third what the NAPA stuff costs.  The EAA instructional videos push the NAPA primer (which is made by Martin Senor) as do the people on the forums.  I did some informal scratch tests and couldn't tell any difference.  I used the "good" stuff here since it's the foot well and parts of it could presumably be visible around carpeting.  I'm not sure what goes in there, actually.