I'm using the Van's canopy track, which is a more asthetically pleasing extrusion than the stock parts, but it has a curved inner side, which will make setting the pin-capture blocks at the rear of the canopy frame harder to affix properly. I may need to weld that part on and grind it to shape, but there's plenty of time to think about what's best to do.
I trimmed the rear portion of both canopy tracks to suit the fuselage, then removed the access cover (which will later be held back in place with a screw and nutplate). I trimmed the aft sections to length, the recessed them for the front sections. I used a long ruler and two cleco clamps to make sure the rails were absolutely paralell from front to back. It doesn't matter if the whole arrangement is very sligthly rhombus shaped to match the fuselage (I doubt mine is) because the only important factor is that the rails are absolutely parallel so the canopy trucks run smoothly.
