Trident - made some decisions - and need to make more - Comments welcome!

First - I did not like how the pod tail cone was so short and didn't line up with the fin pattern. So I ordered some other cones from eRockets. Man they got here fast!. Shipped Thursday. Initial tracking stated they would be delivered Tuesday and showed Saturday! Here is how the new cones look.

But now my next decision. Based on the tube diameters and the fin, I'm going with a 2.25x scale factor. Used the dimensions from the Estes kit to mark and place the rings on the engine mount. Not bad looking....

But then I thought to check the engine mount to the body/nose cone - whoops. You can see that the cone won't seat fully. And no path for the exhaust gasses.

I see 3 options:
1) Make the body tube longer - but it is already at 2.22x. Making it longer will become non-scale
2) Just shorten the motor tube. I presently have CTI 3G and 6G cases with spacers. The motor tube is presently 12". The 6G case is 12.6". So I can shorten the motor tube and limit myself to 3G motors max. Although I could still be set up to allow a 5G case if I ever wanted more power - just need to buy the case.
3) Move the motor mount back by at least an inch. I got 2 extra rings so I could even add a 5th ring to fill some of the space (see pix below)


Personally, I am leaning for #2 but as I stated, looking for comments/thoughts.
(I did consider trying to hollow the nose cone but felt I would just mess it up)

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