Robin, could you clear soemthing up, pls? When you sa you are at 1.5 or .5 "turns out" I gather you mean you are that number of turns from RUNNING OUT of threads on the main needle valve, right? In other words, the carb doesn't seem to be responding to the needle valve position, huh?

If that's the case, mine did the same thing when new. It seems the fuel draw improves significantly on these engines with additional running time. After 40 mins of bench running and about 25 flights, my Moki 1.35 is just STARTING to really break in. It's now turning and APC 18X8 at 8500 rpm and is very reliable.

I also went to large (1/8" ID) fuel tubing, but be sure to tie-wrap or use clips to keep the seal to the tubes good.

To improve the mid-range and get rid of the rattle you describe, I had to close the idle adjustment disk (lean it out) about 5 degrees. It now transitions and idles very well.

One last thought, throw out the stock glow plug, if you haven't already and replace it with an OS F type or Enya #3 plug.