What I could do is make new mains that bend rearward a 1/2", and the 1/2" set back on the nose gear should equal out. I have seen planes with the nose gear angled forward, but cant recall which one. I'm still working on the platform to mount it to in my head. So far what I have come up with in my minds eye has worked on this mod. Since I used scrap pieces of 1/4" for the mount and just tacked them in place for now, I can adjust the thickness so the spinner to cowlclearanceis right on. The one thing I noticed, when I lined theengineup with the cowl on the bench, it was right on the money, but when I mounted the firewall on the plane with the motor, its slightly off to the upper right. It may just be that itwasn't100% clamped to the fuse too, cant fit the cowl on with the clamps in place.For mounting the nose gear, still trying to come up with a strong but light design. The original was a box that tied the fuse to motor mount together. I included the picture of the original box, the nose gear is at the top. The fuse internal sides stuck out and ply was glued to them, then the motor/gear mount ply notched in to the sides, and a pice on top and bottom notched into the main firewall and motor mount. Pretty strong, took a really hard nose in landing to break it.
So what Im thinking is two pieces of 1/4" ply, or maybe 3/16" to keep the weight down, notched into the 1/4" firewall on either side of the gear mount, the height of the mount, then angled upwards a bit for more strength, and a 1/4" ply backer notched into the front of the side pieces, with a 3/16" floor piece also notched in for rigidity. I think this should be strong enough to take abusive landings. For some odd reason I land tail draggers much smoother than trikes. Then again both trikes I have are really light electrics, this T-34 being one of them. Even with the glow engine it will be light. I will probably need to add some tail weight because of the added plywood, but the Magnum, mount and tank weigh in right about where the ESC, motor and pack weigh. The RX pack and throttle servo may be enough to offset the plywood, but overall the plane will not weigh much more than it did when I first flew it.