by bdiedenhofen » Fri Apr 01, 2005 2:31 pm
I called Dapco a while back and got the same story. It's a whole lot of cash for one person to fork out in the hopes that some others may be interested. Personally, I've had to tear my engines down three times due to decompression valve falure. I checked them prior to each flight and even though the punched portion looked ok, they still failed in flight.
I tried to put a drop of weld on the top as many have suggested, and two valves failed this way too. It's impossible to inspect the weld, you just have to hope it's on right.
For the past twenty hours, my engines have been running with the valve holes plugged. No sign of any stress, damage, wear anywhere. I squirt a little gas into the intake from a spray bottle, turn it over by hand a couple of times and it fires up on the first pull every time.
Some guys have stated that they had signs of stress fatigue showing up on engine mounts, starters etc., without the valves. So far, I've had none of this. I think I would prefer to replace a mount down the road rather than deal with another in flight failure and possible ring/piston damage again.
I'm told that other small engine manufacturers used the same valve and some guys have found it at the local small engine supplier. So far, I've had no such luck, but for those looking, small engine and motorcycle shops apparently sometimes do have them.
On the topic of the electronic ignition, I am looking forward to hearing how they work out over the long term. I've had no trouble with my points so far, but the electronic set up has been way better on any other engine that I've retrofitted.
Brian D.