Yes the purpose of this thread is to provide information.

1. Is electric better....we argued that one to death. Yes and No. The preference nowaday is electric, noise, environment, and for single engined aircraft, electric is usually more reliable.

2. How to wire your plane during construction. This question cannot be answered with certainty. The reason, is that most model builders, including ARF builders, have their own methods and ideas. In addition space and cooling is a major consideration. Regarding your B17, the motor controllers might fit in the engine necelles, but the batteries are installed in the fuse.

3. The electric motors are hooked up with three wires, red, black, and white, which connect it to a specific controller. So, To be safe, you need three 13 gauge wires from each of the engine nacelles to the fuse. If you mount the controllers in each engine nacelle, you will only use two of those wires. The two 13 gauge wires go to the battery pack from the controller. In addition, each controller has an additional connection that goes to the radio receiver, so you will also need servo extension leads running inside the wings to connect each controller to a Y connection, then into the receiver, which is the throttle control. Now the question arises, how to power the receiver You can use the typical nicad pack or you can use the Lipo batteries that power the motors. If you want to eliminate the nicad receiver power pack, you then must wire in something called an SBEC. This small circuit has two wires that tap into the Lipo battery wires and run to the aircraft's on/off switch. The SBEC provides power to the receiver and servos, even if the controller shuts down the motors.

As far as a wiring diagram for electric, you can find all kinds of info from Fmadirect.com, of from Greg Hovey's web site.

How does the system work? The electric motors are controlled with controllers. Some controllers are sophisticated and actually can be programmed to change the timing of the motor, and also stop the prop from turning by using a breaking mechanism. The controllers get thier throttle commands from the radio receiver and pass it on to the motors.

The weakness in the system are just a few. Since each motor has it's own controller, the controllers must match in size and performance. Cooling of the controller and batteries are also a consideration. The best bet before starting to close up your wings is to spend lots of time reading. If I were you I would find a post by Greg Hovey, follow the link at the bottom of his post back to his web site, read the reviews on each of his conversions. You will then get a clear picture of what you need to consider.

Summary:

If the controllers are in the fuse. Three 13 gauge wires will be needed, to run from each nacelle to the fuse, then into the controllers. They should be made to unplug from the controller when you remove a wing. The controllers usually come with these connectors.

IF the controllers are in the engine nacelle. Two 13 gauge wires run from each controller to the fuse, they are attached to the battery pack. They should be made to unplug when a wing is removed. In addition you need to run servo extentions from each controller to the fuse. They plug into a Y connector.

Hope I helped
Al