Greetings all, planning on building Sig Citabria and have been thinking of putting a sweet running Saito .65 in it, side mounted. My concern is getting the cowling over it with the amount the head may stick out. Has anyone dealt with this situation/ Thanks for any advice.

Hi I want to build one of these airplane kits myself but I am not crazy about 4 cycle engines to power it. I am thinking I want to power it with either an OS 46 or 55 2 cycle engine. The first RC airplane that i saw fly was a Citabria back in 1972 at a ball park. It was so cool that I got into RC a few years later when I saw one in the back of a car belonging to a man I worked for. He powered his with a K&B 61 that had a fuel pump built in. It was a very neat airplane.
Check out this website, https://wanderings-ds.jimdo.com/sig-rc-kits-21-40/ there is detail information about this airplane here.
Michael

I think the Sig Citabria may be a bit over powered with a .65 up front. Unless you already have one, I'd look for a 4 stroke on the .50 size range.

About your cowl "issue", I'd mount the engine inverted, and add either a remote glow, or on board glow unit.

flew mine with am OS 48 surpass, and it was great, nice and scale plus plenty of power for the type of plane.

Tried a Saito 65 and hated it. too much weight in the front.

Wore out the 48 and will be using an OS 52 Surpass next.

Bill S.