Unfortunately, I started the LA criticism in post #4 and things have wandered around a bit. As I said there, it isn't a bad engine & as ckangeroo has noted, the LA runs just fine. The problem is that it just isn't worth the price, since there are equal or better engines in the same market segment at significantly lower cost -- hence it should be avoided.

I'm sorry I started it -- the topic got hijacked by the LA issue. Let's beat on something else for a change.