Greetings all from a damp and drizzly Charente.

My Evo 60 turned up in the post a few days ago. I bought it from Randy , and as usual it was a hassle free , fast and efficient transaction. The box was beautifully packed as well !
The bad news was , for the very first time I had to pay Customs Charges to our friendly postman !
In these austere times here in Europe , I suspect governments are looking for any way of extracting extra revenue .

So first impressions :

You get plenty in the box , including two silencers [ including a tongue muffler ] , two venturis [ 5mm and 4.6mm ].
I don't like much the 'thin' guage steel needle though. The basic instruction are typically aimed at the 'beginner' with emphasis on 'safety'.

I mounted it to my test bench rig to start the running-in process. There are not any instructions regarding running-in , which I think is a mistake.The instructions detail only installing the engine into a model and no running-in prop' is mentioned.I prefer to run an engine in [ carefully] on the bench to get to know it better.

Anyway , we started with the larger venturi , which was installed as delivered. n.b In the instructions it does recommend starting off with the smaller venturi , but I didn't !

I installed an APC 12X5 prop' , the standard silencer and used the Evo plug which came with the engine.
As to fuel , I have a lot of straight castor mix [ 80/20] so I decided to use this for running-in.

The needle was set at the factory [?] at 2 turns open.Starting was achieved at a touch over 3 and a half turns open. At no time did I need an electric starter , although this was the recommended starting procedure in the instructions !

After choking and  a few flicks she would start and held a nice 8,800 / 9,000 for the first two 3 minute runs.

On the third run , she started to misbehave ! At first I thought she was running away ! Wouldn't hold the needle , erratic , so I changed the plug. One thing at a time thought I !
No better. The tank was fine , and no holes in the fuel tubing !

I then thought I'd check if the spray bar had moved and wasn't 'centred' towards the Venturi. I then thought , just follow the instructions and use the smaller venturi , so in it went.

From then on , no problems. Easy hand starts , followed the needle , and held a very leisurely 8,500 revs'  until the small tank drained giving around 3 minute runs.

Early conclusions ....... Nice docile engine , great value for the Sunday Sport flyer [ i.e me ] , seems plenty powerful enough , not too heavy.
Don't think I'll use the 5 mm venturi as it will need muffler pressure and I don't tend to use muffler pressure with Uniflow tanks when flying.

Well done Horizon , thanks for supporting us C/L guys and thanks Randy for smashing [ British term for really great !] service.

I've only done around seven 3 minute runs so far so I'll keep you posted fellas ,

Regards from France ,

Robin.

Is your tank a plastic clunker? Is the clunk one of those sintered bronze filtering units, by chance? It always seemed to me that they'd clog eventually. Also, I don't see how they could completely empty the tank without an extended period of lean running, because when some of the clunk is not covered with fuel, it would draw air.  Still, some folks like them.  Steve

I think Robin meant 80/20 in the FAI Fuel sense, 80% alcohol and 20% castor.  Reasonable enough for bench running in Europe to avoid using expensive nitro.   

IMO, long term, mostly synthetic oil would be better, but for the first few runs, I like to have a bunch of castor in there. The Magnum instructions used to specify breakin use of at least 20% castor, but newer Magnum instructions say (from memory) roughly "at least 20% oil, some of which should be castor". The EVO and Magnum/ASP are made in the same country (PRC) and probably the same alloys. I would not be too surprised to find that they come out of the same factory.  Steve   

Thanks both for the clarification. AMA is confusing enough, glad I don't have to deal with FAI/European terminology as well.