I started out with Aerodyne standard diesel fuel from Carlson engines. I am now using Red Max diesel fuel. I just finished running the PAW a few minutes ago. It is not overcompressed. If I back off on the compression it starts missing. It is only advanced enough to run smoothly, and idle well. The needle valve is not set too lean. I set it to peak and back off a little. While not exactly black, the oil is certainly darker than honey, more like cane syrup. I am really giving it a good try, but cleaning off the stinky mess before putting the airplane away, I had serious thoughts of replacing it with the K&B 20 that I removed for this diesel. When it was installed, I just went flying, and when I returned, I wiped off a little clear oil and that was that.

I just looked at the price list for Davis conversion heads, and for the life of me I can't see why one would pay almost the price of a new engine to convert. If I need a little more power I'll go to a little more displacement and stick with the simplicity of a glow engine.