Hi Jorge,
Regarding H&M planes (Miss Candace), stay tuned for the JR Gold Cup in Phoenix. There will be several H&M Candaces competing. You might be surprised......

You don't hear more about them because they are mfg'd in Canada and only beginning to become a serious rival to the Miss Ashley II, Dago, etc.

Regarding needling the Nelson 422 engine, everyone has their own procedure however I will share mine with you.
1) Ensure that you start out a little on the rich side so that the motor does not 'peak' right away. I always come up to near peak from the rich side of the band. I usually back off the needle 1/4 turn from the last flying setting.

2) Choke the engine while spinning with the starter. Choke either by plugging the venturi or the muffler exhaust hole. Remove choke when the engine begins to fire.

3) Let the motor warm up for 5 or 10 seconds while you clear away your starting gear. I walk around behind the motor and set up my tachometer.

4) Slowly turn the needle in about a 1/4 turn to obtain a nice smooth two cycle, "on the pipe", sound. With the APC 7.4 x 8 cf prop you should be somewhere around 23,000 rpm.

5) I NEVER peak the engine with the needle. At this point I pinch the PRESSURE line for about 1 or 2 seconds. This starves the tank for pressure and SLOWLY leans the engine. I prefer this over pinching the fuel line which immediately starves the engine for fuel.

While pinching the pressure line I watch my tach to see an increase of about 500 rpm up to peak (say 23,500). Release the pressure line and watch the tach fall back 500 rpm. If you get more or less than 500 rpm increase or decrease, adjust the needle accordingly and then pinch the pressure line again. Repeat until you get the amount of "off peak fall back" you like.

Go fly it. With this method I have never hurt a motor and I rarely damaged plugs. As you get to know your motor and airplane setup, you can experiment with the amount you back off from peak. If I get ambitious I will back off only 200 rpm or so. Now, a lot of this depends on the prop you are using the load / unload characteristics. This will vary greatly for wood props. From my experience, the method I described works well for the APC prop.

Good luck,

Randy S.