I headed out to the airport first thing this morning, and hoped to perhaps get two flights done. But, when I did the walk around, I noted that I didn't have nearly enough clearance between the wheel pant openings and some parts of the tire. In fact, one tire was touching the wheel pant opening in one place. So, off came the wheel pants, and I removed a bunch of fibreglas. Two hours later I finally was ready to go flying.Given that this was the first flight with wheel pants, I concentrated on cruise performance. The air quality wasn't perfect, but initial indications are that I am getting very close to the speeds that I expected. I.e, I believe that Van's claimed 75% cruise numbers at 8000 ft actually were done with 2700 rpm and full throttle, as many people believe that this represents 75% power. In fact, with Van's excellent airbox design, and with the ram pressure recovery from RV speeds, the manifold pressure at full throttle at 8000 ft is high enough to develope quite a bit more than 75% power. Van's RV-8A prototype was tested by the CAFE Foundation, and at 2700 rpm and full throttle at 8000 ft it achieved the speeds that Van claims for 75% power.I also did some testing at 7500 ft with 75% power with mixture set to approximately best power, and 65% power with the mixture set lean of peak. I also did a series of runs at 2200 and 2300 rpm and full throttle, with the mixture set to get various fuel flows. At 75% power at 7500 ft, the speed with wheel pants, landing gear leg fairings, etc, was about 15 kt faster than the speed without those items. This is an approximate value, as the air quality today was not as good as when I did the baseline testing.I also did some forward CG stall characteristics testing. I was disappointed to find that I have essentially zero aerodynamic stall warning. This is good buffet right at the stall, but no warning before that. The aircraft does have a good stall, in that it does not drop a wing, except during full power stalls in a left turn, when the right wing drops.I did a bit deeper analysis of the hand recorded data from the airspeed calibration tests I did yesterday. If I use a reasonable assumption for OAT probe recovery factor (to be verified by later test), that brings the actual OAT values down a bit, and I get an airspeed error of about one knot. This is still preliminary data, as I should get more precision from the flight test data, when I find time to look at it.I've got 7.3 hours on the aircraft with 6 flights done.