rwilder91, I've got the same engine almost ready to run, I'm waiting on the mount. The first thing is the stock carb must go. I'm going to be using a zama carb from an old homelite 25cc engine that I converted and put a bigger carb on. You need to have twin needle adjustments on these carbs for best performance. Also you may need to solder shut any hole in the carbs butterfly. The hole is there so that on the weedeater it would only idle so low but not kill the engine, some carbs have this hole and some do not. I havent ran my ryobi 4-stroke yet but past experience tells me the carb is the biggest problem you have right now. If you have any other carb lying around that has both high and low adjustment bolt it up and see what happens. Oh...and yes, CDI would improve things somewhat but once you get the setup right using the mag you might not see the need to spend over $100 on the CDI setup. Keep me informed of your results and we'll compare notes later. Piper
One more thing...check for air leaks on the carb side...it sounds like a too lean setting caused by sucking air.