KillerClam,

You're not having a torque problem, you are having a propwash problem. Torque would
be causing your plane to roll to the left. What you are seeing is yaw to the left, which you
try to correct with rudder, probably overcompensating, causing the fishtailing. This is caused
by the spiraling airflow from the prop hitting the vertical stabilizer. Picture the swirling flow
moving back along the fuselage, and then hitting the fin. If your fin had as much area on the
bottom as on the top, then the propwash would not cause any yaw. This is usually not practical,
so the top part of the fin is much bigger, and the propwash only hits the fin above the center line,
pushing the fin to the right, steering the plane to the left. I have an overpowered Goldberg Eagle
that I built as a taildragger, and it suffers from this problem also.

There are several things you can do to help with this problem. The main one, as several people
have mentioned, is to learn the skill of using rudder to compensate. This will happen in time,
and will involve some hairy, possibly scary, takeoffs. You can also reduce the steering effect of
the propwash. One way is to ramp up the throttle gradually. This way, the propwash is weaker
early on, when the plane is moving slowly. As the plane gains airspeed, the air moving backward
past the fin gives a 'weathervane' effect, preventing yaw. You will notice that when the plane is rolling,
or flying, fast, the propwash has no noticeable effect on yaw, because the weathervane effect is
stronger than the effect of the swirl on the fin. Another improvement you could make is to add some
fin area below the center line. Even though you can't add as much below as above, you can probably
add enough to reduce the yaw effect of the propwash. To keep the bottom part of the fin from extending
too far below the fuselage, you can extend it along the fuselage, to get some additional area. You
could also clip the top of the fin, to reduce the amount of area above the center line. If you do this,
be careful not to get carried away, and to preserve enough rudder area. One other thing you can
try is to use a prop with less pitch. Generally, a lower pitch prop will generate less swirl in the
propwash than a higher pitch prop. If you aren't using a very low pitch prop already, give it a try.

Good luck,

banktoturn