Rinoldi, hows the conversion comming? I recently did a conversion on the blower version of this engine and had good luck with it. The ONLY thing I will caution you about is to not be hard on any of the parts during the disassembaly - specifically the shaft. In fact, leave the shaft in the case. I took mine out and used a hammer to tap it through the berings and damaged the threads on the tip of the shaft. I tried to cut the damaged threads off and start fresh but I just screwed it all up from there. I was able to get the nutt on (although it was stripped) and then welded it to the shaft to ensure it wouldnt come loose. The engine ran great. I dont know what the RPM's were but I was running a MA 18-6 and it really ran well. I had it in a giant scale float plane I am building (I had the fuselage assembled and the floats) and drove it around the pond a bit. It got right up on step and skipped across the water at 20mph (measured with GPS). However, the way I had the prop on there (welding the nutt) didnt work out real well in the long run, the prop came loose and there was no way to tighten it [:@]. So... now I need a new shaft (and flywheel, I trimmed mine but now I dont have anything to ballance it with).

I did my conversion with pretty crude tools. I had an abrasive cutoff blade on a circular saw (the kind used for ripping wood), a jig saw, files, and a drill. I used the circular saw to cut away the large mounting flage on the crank case. All I left of it is where the mount for the magneto is (leave BOTH parts of that connected to the crank case). Then I made a mount for the engine out of aluminum (1/8"x3/4" flat stock). I attached the mounts to the back plate of the engine. The screws that hold that plate on are 10-24 threads, so I got some longer ones that would go all the way through the mount I made and into the engine. Note= get a bolt that is slightly longer than you need and then screw the nutt on all the way to the head before you put the bolt through the mount and into the engine. This way you can tighten the nutt down inside the crank case as FAR as it will go (the crank case is pretty soft compared to the bolts, if only a 1/4" of threads are in you can pull the bolt right out of the hole). Then back the nutt into the mount and use that to tighten everything up.

If you want to see some of the pictures I have, go here: [link=http://www.rccanada.ca/bb/viewtopic.php?t=22717&sid=c8c2a0860c205a20b450d7f2 01ad503f]Homelite leaf blower engine conversion[/link]

Steve