Still struggling with the cowling. Think I've trimmed it all I can. You can see from the pictures that there is still a gap on the bottom, but if I push the cowling halves together with approx 20 pounds of force, it closes nicely.
I'm going to send another email to Sonex tech support to see what they think I should do next. I hope that I can somehow force the halves together instead of adding more fiberglass.