Unfortunately, Dane, I don’t have access to a lathe. I’ve wanted my own mini-lathe for years, but the little amount of work I’d do on it doesn’t justify the expense of a good min-lathe. I'll just have to do things by hand. I turned down one spacer to replace the barrel and cross-drilled it for the venturi. The local Ace only has nylon screws in 10-24, so I tapped one end of the spacer for a 10-24 screw. On the other end I slid in another smaller spacer up to the venturi hole and profiled it to match the venturi edge. Then I drilled/beveled it to enclose the spray bar. I pressed the new barrel into the carb body and lined up the venturi hole. Next I drilled a small hole through the side of the spacer/barrel for the pin on the end of the carb barrel slide bolt to hold the new barrel in place. I surfaced the side of the new barrel to be flush with the carb body, and then screwed in my nylon screw. I didn't find a suitable o-ring at Ace, so I used a piece of fuel tube over the needle. Seals quite well. Voila! Only time will tell how the spacers hold up, but for the cost of a 32 cent spacer, as 36 cent spacer, and a 46 cent nylon screw, I have a quick and dirty Reeves conversion for the Magnum 30 XLS.
I didn’t know what RPM to set the engine for initially, so I set it to 8500RPM using a Zinger 9x6 prop. I have APC and Evo 9x6 props that I can try also. It’s pretty steady, or at least it was for the three ounces of fuel that I ran through it. I still can’t hand prop it, but I’m getting an idea of how to start it quickly. Pull it through about four cycles with my finger over the intake, flip it through a few times briskly, then choke it for the first second that the electric starter spins the prop and the engine starts right up. It runs much better than it did with the RC carb on it.
A very brief video of the engine running:
Not bad for $1.14 in parts and about four hours of work.
Mark