Just an update on my broken Saito. I got home from work today and there was a UPS note on my door. It was my Saito. However since I wasn't home he will redeliver tomorrow. I sent that engine out last friday at 1:00pm. Can't believe 6 days later it arrives at my doorstep. Anyway, being the nosey type I am I figure I'll call Horizon and talk to a tech. I was dying to figure out what was wrong with the Saito. To my surprise he tells me that they had to replace the connecting rod. Definately a surprise to me. From what I've heard a broken connecting rod is almost always caused by a lean running engine. Anyway, to make a long story short, I am very surprised this happened because I definately do not run my engine lean. I run it ~300rpms below max which ends up being around 9650rpms. The engine has a nice smoke trail and it spits out it's fair share of oil out of the exhaust. He told me to treat the engine as new and I'll have to break it in again.

He also told me that the connecting rod is not normally something they repair for free under warranty but because the tech was impressed by the condition of the engine he fixed it for free. Yes he really said that.

I am using a cline regulator which had worked wonderfully. But I'm wondering if it could possibly cause a lean condition. I would expect not, but just a thought. Like I said, there is plenty of smoke from the engine so I'm pretty positive it wasn't lean.

I'll fire it up this weekend and see how it runs.

PS. While I had him on the line I asked him about castor. He said that Saito recommends using 20% oil. Either all Synthetic or an oil with a castor percentage of up to 20%.