I'm not a complete beginner. I used to fly quite a bit of control line years ago and had at least two stints in RC trainers. I'm reasonably familiar with tuning a glow motor. As I mentioned in the first post, the things that stand out to me are the relative lack of compression when manually turning over the prop, and the fact that this motor will barely pull fuel into the carb with a finger over it. Don't those two things point to something?

Anyway, emailed back and forth several times with the original owner today and combined with the fact that all of this looks new, believe that indeed he did only run it a couple of times (not in the air). He suggested that I call Hobbico and tell them how it was operating. I did and also told of the history and the lack of a receipt and they said to compose a letter describing the symptoms and they would repair it under warranty. So don't worry, I won't tear the engine apart!

Thanks for the comments!