Drat, rtn beat me to my own link
My AUW on the 2nd plane, after all the lightening, was still in the high 11's. This is adequate for making this plane fun to fly. By fun I mean you can land it without stressing out that it is going to tip stall, and it has plenty of vertical for IMAC and 3D.
I put a couple of hundred flights on the first plane at 13.5 lbs, and in the end its demise was a snap into the ground on a dead stick.
These planes are squirrelly when they are fat.
If you are skilled at 3D on other 1/4 scale aerabatic planes (Not UCan Do's etc.. I'm talking Caps, Edges, etc,) you can probably handle it. If you are not it is a not a good plane to learn 3D on.
I can also tell you that I think the wood weight in these planes varied a bit. On my site you will see Bill's plane, a yellow version, which came in at just over 12 lbs with same motor and no lightening efforts.
Every ounce counts. Go with a Saito 1.80, OS 1.60 or Moki 2.10. Agreed that there are gassers that will probably work fine, but you are after the highest power to weight ratio you can get if you want to 3D. No gasser will give you the same power to weight that one of the above 3 motors will.
Good luck - they are a blast to throw around when set up right!
Bob
PS - Neither of our planes came out tail heavy with the Saito. We always had enough room to move the motor fwd or back to get the CG right on.