I tried working with Carr Precision, since they advertise the Featherlite conversion. It's extremely difficult to get anyone on the phone. I tried no less than 2 different email addy's on the site and both bounced back as undeliverable. Finally got somebody on the phone a week later (after about 20 attempts at calling during regular hours) and he says he doesn't have any parts in stock. It's an older engine and not much power. Not worth converting.

Screw it!! [>:]

Called CH and Terry answered the phone on my 1st attempt. Had the parts in stock. Sent them out that same week. I had the parts on Friday. $60. Thanks Terry!!!

I'm planning to run the engine in stock form first. It if turns a 14-6 or a 15-6 at any decent RPM, I'll just fly it. If it hasn't got enough power, I will run a couple different props to get some solid baseline numbers and then I'll tear it apart and port it. I've been reading threads on porting this engine.

I don't have a larger carb. I do have 24/64 and 30/64 carbs, but those are WAAAY too big. Stock carb is 18/64 and W8YE said I could probably use a 20/64. I might be able to dig one up somewhere, but for now it retains the stock carb venturi. I did swap out the factory carb with one that has a choke lever. Same size venturi, just a choke lever to make starting easier.

I found some thinner gasket material for the backplate. It's 1/2 as thick as the stock gasket and still leaves 1/16" between the crank pin and the backplate. That alone would probably stuff the case enough to show an improvement. I haven't bought it yet. I wanted to give the engine an honest chance at putting out good numbers before I started modifying it.

Thanks for the link Cogburn.

I just hope it runs. I'm not drilling my firewall until I know this is a solid runner.