OK,
If you say you had an Ign. fail, I believe you...really, but those IGN.'s happen to be the finest on the market...do they have a 0% failure rate...no, nothing does, but saying that DA doesn't have a lock on good engine design is silly...They put those Ign.'s on 2 3w sponsored engines at the last TOC. You wouldn't happen to have run one of the 4.8v Ign's on 6v wouldya? They also accounted for 17 of 19 (I believe that's the number) of engines flown at the TOC...that wasn't because of sponsorship either...although they WERE sponsored it was up to the pilot which one he chose as the engine to fly his plane at the TOC...those guys would have their choice of any engine...as they should, and they only choose the what will give them the best in performance, and reliablity. There is more to an engine than price. Power, reliability, service, and price all have to be taken into account. You get what you pay for. There is an old saying in R/C that still holds true...buy cheap, buy twice...Buy the good stuff...buy once.The materials and the design of the DA engines are of the highest caliber...noone else uses stereo lithography or the exacting tolerances or the forward design that DA uses...guys that run these engine know that. That's why the TOC guys use them, and nearly every other IMAC, and Masters leading pilots use them. The weight difference between the DA and a ZDZ is negligable...I can see where you would see a difference between the 3w and the ZDZ though as the weight difference is MUCH more. I am not knocking the ZDZ...I stated in my previous post that it's a good engine...but you can't compare it to a DA...it's just in a completely different class. I wasn't knocking any engine for that matter...just pointing out some of the limitations of them so the gentleman could make an informed buying decision.