Ok, tonight I went ahead and started mounting the cowl, with the TT46Pro engine in the "factory" location. Again, this will place the muffler dead center under the cowl/fuse, with half of it exposed.

I did my best job ever so far. Just cleared out enough for the engine head to peek out. Right now I'm debating... do I get the front of the cowl to line up perfectly with the spinner backplate (two planes parallel? Or do I move the cowl to have a streamlined blend onto the top of the cowl? The two are mutually exclusive. Just a small error in the cowl I guess.

I looked at some pics I had of full size SD's to see if the cowl lines up with the spinner or not (streamlined blend into the cowl top). They're all over the place. Some yes, some no. It appears some use aftermarket spinners or something, that are smaller, so there is a step going over the cowl.

I took some pics of what it looks like if I line up the cowl parallel to the backplate. It's probably what I'm going to do.

It may all sound really silly... it's just an ARF... but I enjoy scale planes.

Oh, and BTW, that is the spinner that came with the kit. It's high quality, and I do plan to use it. Nice piece. I might eventually get an aluminum spinner, just to make it more scale. But for now it'll do. I also used the factory horns and clevises. Good quality parts. I did replace the included CA hinges with SIG CA hinges, as the factory ones were a little smallish.