1. I bought a laser level that shoots both a horizontal and vertical line. I leveled the airplane and took the measurements for the engine location. Horizontally it was about 1/16" off. Vertically it was 1/8" off. Not bad for a scratch built airplane!!
So I don't see that my engine or fuselage construction are the reason for the top of the cowl being massively "off" starting at the break (the acute angle where the cowl goes across the windscreen). That means I have to do some surgery on the cowl.
2. I was going to split the cowl horizontally anyway, so I did it now instead of waiting. The Sonex Association method of splitting the cowl horizontally uses Skybolt fasteners to hold the cowl together. I am going with an alternate method using piano hinge. So it's OK to split the cowl now.
I used a sting and some tape to lay out the rought cut line. Then I took away the string and used a straight edge to make the final line.
Used my Dremel cutoff wheel to cut along the line. See the photos on the next page.
Cowl before cutting horizontally
The lower blue line is where I decided to cut the cowl.
