Bad news and good news regarding the durability of the DLE 20! I've been running this one on a Mojo 65, and I haven't been nice to it at all other than feeding it it's recommended amount of oil. I had just landed and was at idle when it just stopped with a thud! Sure enough, tear down revealed a broken crank pin. (I saw where others had experienced this, so it wasn't entirely unexpected).

Now for the good news. Other than a couple very minor dings on the rod and piston skirt, there was no other damage. $30 bucks off to Tower put a brand new crank in my mailbox, 30 minutes of my valuable time, and it's off to the races again!

A couple of points here. I'm not particularly impressed that the engine failed of course. Looking at the broken crank pin I could see evidence of wear (galling), the bearing (caged roller) appeared to be in good condition, no discoloring of the pin, so I don't think it was running hot or under lubed, didn't even have much debris from the failure. Top end was very clean with little to no carbon buildup. Probably had about 3 or 4 gallons of fuel used total. Engine had been run hard and I'm sure has exceeded 10K rpm at times. (16X8, 9K+ static) This was an early engine (?), low 4000 s/n, bought it mounted, but never run, so no warranty, on my own here, but the price was right.

Hopefully the new crank holds up better? Kinda leads into my 2nd point here and the reason I'm running DLE engines. All engines fail. Some sooner than others, and for different reasons, hitting mother earth for one, abused is another, maybe just junk to begin with? Anyway, I needs parts. Tower sells DLE,s, has complete listing of parts in stock and the price is right. I think that's pretty tough to beat with any other brand out there.

Oh yeah, and the ignition curve sucks. I wonder if you can reprogram that?