Sure would, Thanks

tfacr;
I'm interested since I had your problem in the very beginning! I sent the motor back to DA and had them start it. Apparently sometimes when the carb is dry it has a prime problem.

Fuel draw was the real concern and since it ran on "the bench" a year ago and not in the the plane, either the setup or carb was the problem. Confirming everthing was setup OK, I took apart the carb and the "dimples" in the diaphragm suggested it needed replacement. It drew fuel better after this, but still didn't run.
Next I soldered a piece of real thin brass over the hole in the choke plate. Now, when the choke is set, there is zero air going thru and it draws real well. With full choke, I flip it about 10X to draw fuel, turn on ign, flip once or 2X, it fires and studders, I slowly open the choke and advance throttle. It runs great! And finally, it starts when I want it to. A minor mod but it worked for me.
Hope this helps others.
Darry

I have noticed a lot of guy have the same problem. Many solder the hole in the choke plate closed and many do not have to. It MUST be a setup issue. Tank placement and fuel line routing. Funny thing is I have seen a fuel draw problem on two of the same planes and with the tank in the same place on both. Odd. One drew fine and the other did after the solder fix. I am not convinced that the choke plate is getting a good seal when closed and that is what may be causing it.

Norman Ross

P.S. Thanks for passing it along. I LOVE the hear solutions. Don't hear alot of them on here[:@]

My DA50 was doing this. Every time the plane would land the engine would quit when I would turn the plane around to taxi back to the pitts, it also would stop at any sudden stoppage. We (a friend of mine with lots of DA experiance) constantly adjusted the low end needle and very often would end up starting over at the factory settings. I was running lawn boy ashless at 32:1 mix and I was using a Menz 22/10 prop.. Here is the trick that seemed to clear my problem. I put up with it until I swiched to the synthetic oil (after 4 galons of Lawn Boy). Now I am running Amsoil at around 90:1 and turning a Menz 24/8 prop at around 6400 rpm on the ground at full throttle. Now my engine just purrs along at idle and sudden stoppages do not seem to have any effect on the motor. Seems like patience an time can cure this problem.

DA recommends 50:1 yet you are using 90:1. Are there others DA50 owners ouot there using less than 50:1 to solve problems?
You also changed prop sizes; did you do this the same time as you changed oil mixtures? Why did you change prop sizes

I believe the instructions say to use 50:1 petroleum based or 100:1 Amsoil. I had talked to Dave at DA and all of their engines are running 100:1 amsoil. I prefer to give it a little more oil than that until I have more time on it. The prop change was the following weekend. I changed to the 24/8 since I like the way it flew my plane better thant the 22/10. the 10 pitch just made the plane fly too fast for me. I had run a 22/8 for a while while running the 32:1 mix and it was ok, but the vertical performance suffered. Again Dave gave me the tip to try the 24/8 and he is absolutly right. This pulls my 21lb. Edge vertical without any problems. You can even hear the tips poping. What a difference this all made.

DA has recommended either Amsoil 50:1 or 100:1 depending on which product. They also recommend 22x10 during breakin and 24x8 after that!

My DA-50 had problems with stopping when you turned, not idling down, and loading up while idling. They're gone now.

What I did was :

1) get the top-end needle set right
2) get the bottom-end needle set right
3) get a couple of hours of time on the engine in the air

The bottom-end needle setting was the hardest. It must be set so lean that the engine will DIE if you try to run it up when
cold. You must have to either let it idle for two minutes to warm up before it'll transition or set the choke up so that you
can run it up at half choke then reduce to 0 choke at 3/4 throttle for warm-up.


My starting procedure is :

1) prime if first start of the day, otherwise just go (I kill the engine with choke so it's primed after the first flight)
2) set the choke at about half
3) start the engine
4) run the engine up to about half throttle then slowly open the choke completely
5) let it warm up for about 10 seconds at half throttle
6) go fly!

The engine wouldn't idle down enough to taxi until I got a couple hours time on it. It would move on the ground fast
even uphill (our runway slopes a bit). Now it will idle down enough that the plane sits still even in the downward
sloping direction on our asphalt runway.

It seems each of these engines has their own starting quirks! Here is my starting procedure..starting from cold;
1) full choke, ign off
2) flip prop CCW about 10X
3) ign on, starts on first flip
4) as soon as it starts, slowly open the choke
5) advance throttle and see how it transitions...generally no problems.
6) good to go!

I found that it was hard to start the 2nd time if I killed it with choke, so now I kill it w/ ign and repeat the same procedure as above, except I flip the prop about 4-5X rather than 10.
Works for my engine

Idle trim set to a bit fast.
Ignition on, Choke closed, flip till it pop's.

Ignition on, Choke open, flip til it starts( usually 3-4 flips)


Next flight : Ignition on choke open, one flip and it starts.

Mine works the same as Jemo's
idle up, choke on, 3-4 flips and the engine pops.
choke off, flip till starts, usually 3-4 flips.

I started mine yesterday da 50 without a glitch had to do some tuning but other then that it runs great.

Dennis your just the lucky one arent you[8D]

Yep!!!!!

Cool!
Just maybe the one I have will be fine as well. The plane It"s going into is not in my hands yet, so I been thinking about bench running it.

Dennis
Is your engine mounted in a plane?

Yea it's mounted in my patty for now

Put another 5 flights on it so far this weekend. Since switching to Amsoil at 100:1 and running the Menz 24/8, I find that the motor is becoming very happy. I am really impressed by this little power house.

In response to the fuel drawing problem... mine did the same thing... the pump needs to be primed, or atleast get work and then it should work fine... to do this, I put the tank under pressure (a little bit by plugging the vent and pushing a little fuel in with my fuel pump) then crank the engine over a few times. The carb will only allow the fuel to flow when the engine draws a vaccum, so it will not just flow into the engine under pressure. once the fuel hits the carb, you should be ok... since I have done it once, I havent had to do it since.

Quitting on landing... had the same problem... as soon as it touched down, it would want to quit unless I throttle up... Figured out what it was on mine... Engine is inverted and therefore for the throttle linkage to close, it rotates downward.. what was happening was even a light landing was enough shock to make the throttle arm on the carb to oscillate a little bit downward, and shut the motor down... never would have though that was the problem but a better supported linkage and a slightly higher idle fixed... Probably wont work for all of you out there, but it may help a few.

Walbro carbs come from the factory with a grey coating on the end of the inlet needle, to keep the needle from sticking in the hole...Sometimes the coating doesn't work, but once the needle is unstuck it won't happen again...[8D]
It can take 15 or more lbs pressure to unseat the needle even when it's not stuck..You can take the top off the carb and gently push the lever down to get the needle to open....Don't bend it.....

Since I have posted in this forum and seem to have had the problem, I thought I would give an update.

Good news ... the problem goes away as some have stated ... after 5 to 6 gallons of fuel.

I have not changed a thing since my last post ( see post # 127), and the problem has disappeared, gone away, flew the coup ....

I even changed over to synthethic with the same settings, still runs fine.

Not changing the settings at all, the engine started idling better and lower after the 5th gallon, now after 6 gallons, it's ready for a final tuning.

The warm-up problem is also gone, and the engine transitions well.

I know there are those that didin't have the problem ... or didn't believe it ... but it's been
a long ordeal ... I'm glad it's over.

Well, I fired up my DA today on and mine does not seem to have the problem you guys are having. It never quit one time and never even attempted to. Lifting the tail does not affect it and grabbing the tail from a brisk walk does nothing. Idles down perfectly on landing and never hesitated after I landed to taxi back to me. Mine idles steady at 1400 and never hesitated or tried to die.

This is my first gas engine. Should I be getting a little oil out the muffler??? There is NOTHING on the plane it is squeaky clean. The engine runs perfect and the needles are factory set. I have not touched them. You can hold you hand at at idle underneath the exhaust and with it wide op and nothing but hot air comes out. Normal??? I am just to used to my gas engines puking all over EVERYTHING I guess. This is a Slimline Pitts. Don't think it is lean as it does not slow down on going vertical like it would if it was getting hot. If I knew gas was this good I would have went gas a LONG time ago. Nothing not to like.

Norman Ross Jr.

If you are useing Lawn Boy mixed at 32:1 you should get a few little oil droplets about the size of a ball point pen on the cowl and maybe the leading edges of the wing and horizontal stab. This went away on mine onece I switched to synthetic oil.

I forgot to mention the most importnt thing I guess. I am using Lawnboy at 32:1. I guess I don't know what to expect. My friends BME 50 pukes all over his plane. It has oil all down the belly. he is running Amsoil 50:1. His does girgle some in the air. Rich???

Norman Ross Jr.

P.S. I know running a gasser rich does it no favors.

Guys,
All you gotta do is richen up the low end a tad. I started tweeking my motor and stumbled upon this phenominon. As soon as I richened the low end up like 1/16 of a turn it went away.
RickP