dstuber

I am having some issues with my thunder tiger 46. I was having a very hard time setting the needles the other day and someone at the field pulled out the needle valve and wiped the o ring on his finger and some black stuff came off. He told me that these wear out very fast which is why thunder tiger gives spares with the motor. Anyway, i changed it out and it is definately running better now but something still isn't right. My idle screw is only open about 1/8th of a turn from closed and doing the pinch test, it takes 5 seconds to kill the motor.(slight increase in rpm, but not drastic) Also, I get no hesitation from idle to full throttle. I believe that the low end is set right but i thought the idle screw would be out more than it is. The needle valve is what is giving me the most grief. The manual states 2 to 2 1/2 turns. It is 3 1/4 out and when the plane is on the ground at full throttle, it takes about 10 to 15 seconds to go over 300 degrees! When i drop it back to a slow idle, it dies. The motor is down on power too. I have it on a OMP edge 540 profile that weighs 4 1/2 pounds, 15% fuel and an APC 11.5X4 prop. Climb out from a hover is pretty pathetic. I am getting 12500 RPM. The motor has about 8 gallons through it now. What do you think? Is my engine ready for the garbage or am i doing something wrong?