Hi Jan,
Your D.V looks marvelous! You are ahead of me in that you have yours on its wheels. Your landing gear looks great, too. That was going to be my next step, bend the cabanes and LG struts. I'm going to be the one to find out if Kay's location for the cabanes works ok! I think you are correct about the cowl aperture, the only concern I would have is adequate battery/motor cooling. The originals had problems with cooling because of the spinner, too. Have you looked into the spinner question? There is a great technique that Bert Ayers shows in the AerodromeRC newsletter.
Model on!