ORIGINAL: boat1779
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?
Nope this is perfectly normal for this engine.
While you may not be a complete beginner, it sounds like you have no experience with this particular engine.
The engine does not appear to be properly set to run, and your questions hint that this is the first time dealing with this type of engine.
Given the assumptions you've made, a little help from someone with a bit more experience will save you a boatload of time trying to figure it out yourself.
The engine sounds like any untuned and unbroken in engine I've run accross, from your description.
The instructions point you in the right direction, but I'll bet the engine is far too rich as is since it starts up for a few seconds and dies out over time.
ORIGINAL: boat1779
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!
It's doubtful that there is anything wrong with it. The original owner probably didn't know how to tune it up.