It dawned on me last night that the shiny aluminum sleeve under the exhaust ports was a bit more important than I realized - it completes the porting.. so when you try starting the engine with it installed upside down it barely runs off a prime and has just enough power to spin the prop faster than you flicked it. But, smarten up and turn it the right way around, and the engine behaves like an engine again. Eureka!
Now to get it to draw fuel. Spraybar is clear, I can choke fuel from the tank, NV open until it is almost falling out.. nope.
The other thing I realized is that there is a small
press in venturi insert missing. But.. it is upstream of the spraybar and doesn't seem to define the venturi diameter right at the inlet so I am puzzled why it doesn't suck. However I suspect the NV is leaking air big time. I got tired late last night and stopped at that point (and wasn't sure if the noise was making it up two floors to the bedroom.. I know the hard way she can hear an .010 up there.). Time for the small silicone tubing over the NV and I'll use an auxiliary tank for the moment just to weed out some possibilities. You can see the insert here on this shined up example:
