I'm not familiar with the Balsa USA kit, but I encourage you to experiment with some scale enhancements. The only problem you might encounter is turning a 3 month project into a 30 month project... The thing is, you want to have an idea of how far you want to go before you begin. Look at some three views and photos, spend some time studying the aircraft. Pick out the changes you want to do, take notes, formulate a sequence, then have at it. Capturing the 'character' of the airplane can be one of the most difficult things a scale modeler will do.

Good luck on your build!

John