RE: 1/8 scale TopFlite Corsair Mods
The engine is a saito 125, has the stock exhaust for now but might switch to a keleo or a straight pipe after maiden to get rid of the muffler hanging out. Plane balanced by using a home-made stainless steel spinner nut as nose weight, no other weight needed with the rec battery against the firewall. Thought about putting the pack in a box ahead of the firewall, but decided not to do that. The cowl is the standard one that comes with the kit; I did not join the cowl flap ring and the cowl together per the instructions or I'd never get the cowl over the engine or be able to reach the internal mounting bolts with the dummy engine installed. I slotted the ring section of the cowl to create the flaps & bent them out using a heat gun per prior posts in this thread. The dummy engine is the top-flite kit, and the oil coolers are what came with the kit. You have to remove a lot of the leading edge of the wing to make them fit right; don't worry about the removed material it's just a bit of work. Pay attention to when the interference is the recessed part of the oil cooler making contact with the wing as you need to relieve the die-cut opening in the LE a lot to make the coolers fit right. And be sure to sand/carve away the thickness of the plastic for a flush fit. They work just great. I also used the cockpit interior kit which really adds a lot of detail in short time & relatively low cost.
One thing I modified was the harware used on the tail control surfaces... I replaced the snap-on ball link/double rod connector thingy for the tailwheel tiller arm with a higher quality du-bro unit with a captive ball and more rigid threaded sections, and the final clevis for both the elevator and rudder were replaced with sullivan clevises with retaining clips instead of nylon clevises with fuel tubing keepers. You cannot access these areas ever again without serious surgury so make sure you're happy with it before the sheeting goes on!
I'll post some pics of the gear door mechanism as requested a few pics earlier.
Thanks everyone for your comments!