Building this kit now i know why everyone says it comes out heavy. The balsa in this kit is as hard and heavy or heavier than plywood! It builds easy but what drives me crazy is how GP makes you glue a lot of parts together that should be in one piece to begin with IE: Fuse sides, top and bottom I bet you could save a pound by recutting the balsa with sig balsa.
Has anyone turned a standard 2 stroke where the standard muffler was directly under the fuse and cut out a channel where the muffler goes? maybe even build a tunnel for the muffler?

I have this kit and it has been sitting in my basement untouched for 2 yrs. There are 4 or 5 at our field and they are powered by a side mounted OS 71 Surpass's or a side mounted OS 46FX's & now a 50SX with a Pitts muffler with 2 outlet tubes. I was going to side mount my ENYA 50CX and get a Pitts muffler but LHS said there isn't such a muffler for that engine. Looked into doing what I think you are intending to do but you have to cut away to much of the cowl and go into the engine mounting wall. So my GP Ultimate bipe sits there. It was Christmas gift and I hate to tell my wife I'm going to sell it un-built. By the way, I ended up mounting my ENYA 50CX in a NEA BelAir 40 bipe. terrible kit, and pretty good engine but I just sold kit/plane a month ago. New owner loves the combo but I simply need to sell if I want to build more planes this winter.

buidling is in progress!

Made a FG cowl and wheel pants!
Dual aileron servos (wells in bottom wings)...

H

I have this plane and it flies great. I powered it with an OS 70 Surpass 2 and a 13X6 Prop. Vertical is a little limited but it is still fun to fly. Unverted flat spins are awesome. They will go perfectly flat. With this motor there is no lead in the plane and all gear is in the stock locations except the aileron servos. Only mods I did was add dual aileron servos in the bottom wing and add a Pull-Pull rudder system. Enjoy!

Phil

Oh Yea, Stans Fiberglass cowl too.