My Sukhoi is powered with a TT pro .46, with a Tower Hobbies .46 muffler. No wheel pants, 3" Dubro lite wheels. Hitec hs425 servos on surfaces, Hitec HS422 servo on throttle. 4.8v 600mah pack. No additional weight needed to balance. Weight is somewhere between 5.5-6 lbs. Flies excellent scale aerobatics, but has limited vertical. Knife edge requires very little correction, not enough to warrant a change in engine thrust or radio mixing. Aileron rolls are fast and axial, snap rolls are very fast and tight. I did sort of a full speed blender with it.....it stayed together...airframe A-OK... I still can't get a good flat spin out of it, upright or inverted. Stall speed is surprisingly slow....it will float for a while just before touchdown.
I modified my cowl mounting a bit.....instead of 4 screws, I used 7, and I glued small 1/2" by 1/2" squares of 1/16" ply to the fuselage for something more for the cowl screws to bite into.