hdcruzer, a quick response to your questions:

a) My carb slide sticks. It is in a Losi and Ive done evrything that can be done to make it right. Shaved the housing cleaned the slide as per Rons instructions. Still sticks and pulls the servo tray just not as bad. Can anybody offer some more suggestions or does it sound like the carb is bad ?

* I think I explained what caused the slide to stick in the past, specifically your linkage set up. The easy and quick way to see if the slide is possibly now bent of if it is the linkage set up is still wrong is simply to pop the linkage off of the ball connector on the slide. If the carb slide moves back and forward freely by hand and is nice and smooth it's still your linkage. When you followed my earlier suggestion about cleaning up (any flashing in the idle stop groove on the slide that could have been caused by the servo pulling at an angle on the slide) the slide and re-assembled everything did it move freely by hand afterwards? If so again it's the linkage.

b) Next question, my LS needle is out 3.5 turns from bottom does this sound like its to fat still. If I lean it out much more I lose my smoke trail. Running about 220 like this. The reason I ask is because I know if I lean it out more I can back my idle screw out and that almost completely stops my slide problem. With the restrictor in you can barley see any gap at all on my slide.

* Your needle settings are going to vary depending on the specific set up (plug, fuel, pipe, length of fuel line, length of pressure line) and weather conditions (altitude, humidity, air density, temperature) that you are running at. So it's going to be really difficult for anyone to tell you that your settings are either too fat or too lean. Having said that though to me 3.5 turns our on the LS I would think would be on the leaner side which indicates to me that you are probably too rich on the top. 220 is not hot (unless you are running in some kind of extreme weather conditions i.e. 30 deg. F) and with any of the usual high oil content fuels i.e. Byrons, Sidewinder etc. you should be blowing a steady smoke stream.

As I'm writing this I'm sitting here playing with one of the new alloy carbs and I can get about a 2.5mm idle gap showing with the 7mm restrictor in without feeling any binding when moving the slide by hand. This is way more than you would ever need or want to run with a broken in engine. I just checked one of the composite carbs and can get a similar idle gap. So just curious where your HS needle is set at right now?

Also you stated "The reason I ask is because I know if I lean it out more I can back my idle screw out and that almost completely stops my slide problem. With the restrictor in you can barley see any gap at all on my slide". If you can barely see any gap on your slide at all then leaning it out (your LS) is not going to be the solution. When you lean your LS you are going to need to reduce your air gap as your idle speed will increase. Why do you state that backing out your idle screw is going to completely stop your slide problem?

c) Next question after only a gallon and a half of gas I can turn the motor over by hand from the flywheel. Does not seem to have much compression at all. Like I said earlier the motor runs great. My Losi 454 has 7 gallons through it and it still has tons of compression cant get it to turn buy hand . Is this normal ?

* This engine is designed for you to be able to race with it relatively quickly. The fact that you can turn the engine over by hand by the flywheel indicates that it is broken in. You do not want a performance engine (when it's performing at it's peak) to get stuck at TDC because it means that there is a huge amount of friction being generated as your piston basically starts to get stuck as it moves towards the top of the stroke. The only reason that there is metal pinch in new racing engines is because the pistons are initially machined to be slightly over sized. This is because our engines do not have rings so during what we call break in the piston is basically worn down to conform to the taper that is machined into the sleeve.

Once it reaches that point the engine seals optimally (again we don't have rings so it's the piston exactly taking on the shape of the sleeve plus a little oil that is creating that seal). When this happens the metal pinch (which again is bad) is gone, now and engine produces the most power and is what most would call at it's prime or is in a state where it will provide the maximum amount of power and also run time. This you want, a lot of friction and an engine getting stuck all the time you do not. That equals one thing and that is friction and friction is not good for our engines as it robs performance. Ideally if we could we would make racing engines that do not need to be broken in but honestly the precision necessary to do this is even beyond what the Italians can currently do. Not take a lower cost Asian and the easy way to make an engine is just make a large, over sized piston and stick it into a small sleeve. Your engine basically never breaks in. Ya it will last forever but in the interim it is never making the power that a comparable racing mill will make. Again we are talking about metal pinch. This is bad from a performance stand point, what is important is compression. When this is gone it is completely noticable right off the bat because you will no longer be able to get the engine to maintain a steady, proper idle.

Hope this helps clarify a couple of things. Please let me know what you find when you look at the slide.

Regards,

Ron