Thanks for all the suggestions. I talked to Brian at DA this afternoon and explained the situation. He informed me that they can't even get the DA50 to get rich at full throttle. They peak it and fly it there. He was very surprised that my buddies 50 could be dropped almost a 1000 rpm on the rich side at WOT. My question is if you can't go on past peak to 200 rpm or so on the rich side, how do you ever KNOW what peak rpm is?? I've NEVER seen a chain saw, leaf blow, or weed whacker that couldn't be richened up that much. Most of the time you can get it so rich it will almost die on you. They're sending me a new carb 2 day delivery, so I'll get it on Wednesday. Curious to see what it does. Brian said the QC on the carbs is awful. They have a pile of them up there that are just junk.

I tore into the carb again today for a 2nd time and really went through the low and high ports. Got to figure it out anyways. This carb has 3 ports on the low needle, and one large one for the high. Thing is, the low needle has a larger diameter tapered needle than the high. Seems to me you would want it the other way around.

I assume the fuel flow works on vacuum thru the venturi. On that assumption, any leakage around the needles would prevent maximum fuel being pulled thru the ports. I had a chain saw once that kept going lean on me, and it had a bad O-Ring on a needle, so I wraped teflon tape around both needles, and the engine responded to tuning much better. It held idle without fluctuating, and I was actually able to get 50 rpm on the rich side at WOT. One other thing I found out. There is a spot at 4,000 rpm that will be lean if you set the low needle for best idle and transition, and you can't get it out with the high needle, it has to be the low. I had to open the low 1/4 turn to solve that issue, then of coarse it is rich at idle. I've noticed this spot before, because that's the rpm I seem to want to do my harriers at. Not a good time to be lean. If you were able to be 200 rpm on the rich side, it might catch that spot at 4,000 on the high needle instead of the low.

I'd be curious to know from you guys that are running DA50's, how many of you can adjust the high needle 200-300 rpm's on the rich side?