ORIGINAL: foxy42
The XRay XB8R is, as all the Xray kits, an engineering marvel which goes together beautifully.
Why then, is the body such a poor fit? The exhaust cut out is in the wrong place (and not just a little!!). The engine head cutout is not perfect (out with the dremel! [>:]). And the worst thing of all, which almost ruins the buggy in my opinion...The throttle linkage has to come through the body...GRRRRRrrrrrr, that makes me so angry. Check out photo. If I did something wrong, or there is an alternative solution to carving up the body, please let me know.
Everything you mentioned sounds like your engine/pipe combo are at fault. Or not really at fault, just not what XRAY had in mind when they designed the body.
You should see my 9.5 Pro body. I have two different holes for carb adjusting, because Cipolla and Rossi mount their carbs funny. My current engine is an OS RG which has the smallest cooling head known to man, compared to the Cipolla engine I had before it which was huge. So now I have a giant hole, with a tiny little cooling head (hole is at least twice the size of the RG cooling head). Also, I had a short Team CRC tuned pipe, which is now replaced by a jumbo whale (aka Jammin JP-2). So my pipe cutout in the body measures like two inches (so does the chop in my sideguard).
Moral of the story: the body fits the car perfect, at least until you modify the car. Don't worry about asthetics. Kick someones ass with your swiss cheese body and they will copy its ugliness(not that your buggy body is ugly) thinking its a performance advantage. Then you can stare at the starting line a couple weeks later and laugh at the startling lack of lexan surrounding you.