Paul,

We have a small tail 360. We have the long engine mount and the battery in front of the firewall. We reduced the maximum travel of the flaps to ~35° to be able to flare the plane at the landing. By the way, we have built the wing with the extentions (wingspan 27 ft).

With this setup we have no problems and the plane is easy to handle. Our CG is at the foreward limit if we have a full header tank and only the pilot. Our limitations are given by the max takeoff weight.