Hi,

I don't think you will see much benefit from using timing over about 28 degrees. These small bore engines just don't need that much timing, though a little more than stock does seem to help. Porting can help, but be careful. If you do a search there is a lot of info about hopping up the Homelites available from the boat guys that race them. Tuned pipes will work as well, but they are quite long when tuned properly. Something over 25". Pipes are available from Mac's products, as well as from the boating guys. Try www.shark-racing.com for some more info. (It takes a while to load.)

I'm flying my Homelite 25cc on a Hangar 9 Ultra Lite Stick 120, and it does great. No need to stick to only the Cubs unless you want to because there are other choices. Anything with over 1000 square inches of wing area usually works pretty good, as long as the front end is stout enough to handle the engine. There are a number of planes in that category if you look around. Even the Great Planes Big Stick will work. Just mount the servos in the rear, and go for it.

There are some Weedeater and Poulan engines in the smaller 18cc category, and one of the magazines just did an article on converting them. I really don't personally recommend them, as a Kioritz 21 to 25cc engine for example, will weigh about the same but have a lot more power. One of these Kioritz engines, (supplied on Echo equipment), would be sweet on that Spacewalker, and fly a lot better than an 18cc engine. The ports on those cheap, smaller engines are really small, and I don't think they are worth converting, but that is just my opinion.

Good luck and have fun,
AV8TOR