Thats just you personal opinion of what he said. More oil DOES help the motor last longer, which is what he meant

Wow! Ok. Seems that you are quite the supporter of Picco. I'm sorry if I caused offence.

Here in europe VERY few people run Picco engines because of very good reasons. I have run Piccos in the past and found (as did many) that whilst they run well initially after 5 litres of fuel they were done. Seems to me that as you are viciously supporting Picco engines then you maybe the fanboy here. (To be clear I am joking here my friend - cheap shot but I couldn't help it).

I am no way a fanboy at all I have just been racing (not bashing!) for over 25 years and have the desire to pass on my experience to others. If you don't agree with me then I have absolutely no problem with that at all. For the record currently I run a combination of Serpent and Capricorn cars mainly with one Awesomatix. I also run Ielasi Tuned Novarossi as well as ONE O.S. engines and would recommend all of those brands. I am not sponsored or supported by anyone and so I am within my rights to voice my opinion given that I pay 100% RRP for all my parts.

I hope that you have every success in you racing/bashing whatever it is that you do and whichever brand you choose for your own reasons and experience. Cheers

+ 1 for Piccos being very unpopular engines in onroad racing - especially here in Australia. But they seem to be super popular (Picco based) in the off road scene - lower revs means longer life i guess. Therefore, probably a good engine for bashing.

For anyone still keeping score at home: After thoroughly degreasing and re-oiling the internal pullstart bearing, the strange black goop turned into strange brown goop, but there was still strange goop accumulating on the top of the piston regardless of its color. Later, I increased the compression ratio by dropping the shim stack from the factory-set 0.55mm to 0.45mm, and the strange brown goop disappeared within a couple runs. I guess the higher compression ratio is causing the piston to get a little hotter, so the half-burned oil vapor left-over from combustion is no longer condensing on the piston. Mystery solved.

The engine continues to run excellently, except for an irritating tendency to instantly stall when revving-up after idling for a minute or so, but that problem was also apparent with the previous engine from a different manufacturer, so it can't be a problem with the engine itself. I'll figure it out someday.

Bottom end is rich...

Normally I'd agree, but even if I tune the LSN lean enough that I can watch the cylinder-head temperature climb while idling, it still instantly stalls if I rev-up the engine too fast after letting it idle. A hot glowplug solves the problem, but the engine burned-out one hot glowplug within a week, so that's not a viable solution. It's not a major problem, and it might well be related to the unusually cold spring we've had this year. I won't know for sure until I get to drive the car on an 80-90°F day.

switch to a colder plug and lean it in. Having a hotter plug is lying to you and masking how rich it is. It can idle better being so rich BECAUSE the plug is too hot.

This particular engine responds to an overly-lean LSN setting in a way I'm not accustomed to; rather than idling high, it stalls after a few seconds of idling. I ran into that multiple times while initially tuning the engine, which led me to err on the side of a slightly rich LSN setting. I dialed-in the HSN setting weeks ago, but I've had to fiddle with the LSN and idle-gap settings almost every run in an attempt to find the best balance between air and fuel when idling. It's just a very finicky carburetor compared to what I'm used to. But today the engine ran well; it seems to be happier with a slightly leaner LSN, a newer glowplug of the same medium heat range I was using before, and the warmer weather we had today. It chitters a little bit while coasting, though, which tells me the LSN setting is a little leaner than ideal when the engine is hot from a full-speed run -- but I suppose that's better than having the engine stall when accelerating after idling for a minute. Multivariate problems are always a pain to troubleshoot.

Its almost like someone took the engine apart and tampered with the internals, say changing the taper on the carb needles?

Tampering is modification with negative intent. The engine was misbehaving and I modified it to improve the misbehavior. Changing the taper on the LSN caused a moderate improvement in the stalling-after-idling problem, but it wasn't enough on its own. After I dialed-in the HSN setting and before I modified the taper on the LSN, the engine would idle happily for several minutes at a time, but even if I very carefully opened the throttle, the engine would cough-out huge puffs of oil smoke and be unable to rev-up. The obvious interpretation is the LSN was severely rich, but a severely rich LSN setting would not allow the engine to idle happily for several minutes at a time -- a severely rich LSN would cause the crankcase to load-up on unburned fuel and choke the engine, which is not what was happening. (yes, I did in fact open the back of the engine to check for excess unburned fuel after letting it idle for several minutes. There was no unburned fuel; only a few drops of oil.) The taper on the LSN wasn't progressive enough and it caused the fuel mixture to enrich suddenly when the LSN was pulled out of the fuel feed, quenching the glowplug and preventing proper ignition.

Im just having fun watching you argue with anyone and everyone how the obvious answer isnt what the issue is.

If it doesn't die but it wont rev up you have to lean the top, the bottom does nothing for high revs. Also, proper way to tune is, you get the car to launch nicely, then you tune the top to get RPMs. Then, once its running nicely and making good power, you fine tune the bottom and idle. Most people, in racing at least, tend to run the bottom too lean, I learned that the hard way. You want the car to be a bit sluggish on the bottom until the fuel clears, once the motor is up to temp it will make power, top AND bottom.

Some people talk about a 2 or 3 step idle as the right way to tune an engine. Also some like to have some smoke and a gargling engine when giving throttle. To me that is just something that happens or not but no no important things to tune on.

I'm not arguing, I'm telling you why you're wrong. I know the simple solution (leaning the LSN) isn't effective because I already tried it. I leaned the LSN bit by bit until the engine fuel-starved and stalled while idling, and the engine still exhibited the "rev-up-then-instantly-choke" problem when accelerating after idling for a minute. If you don't want to listen to what I'm telling you, that irritates me, but ultimately it is you who is deprived of opportunity to learn something.

I am starting to truly hate posting anything in the on-road subforums. Everything I say in one of these threads gets used as an excuse to berate me if I don't immediately bow-down and thank you for your overly-simplistic unhelpful advice. I'm done here. You may all return to your regularly-scheduled circlejerk.

Most of us here have been doing this for wayyyyyy longer than you have. It gets....exhausting to come here and give you an answer then have you explain your way out of why you think its wrong. Ive been a nitro guy for 20 years, racing for 15 of it, and worked at a hobby shop as a tech for another 3. Some guy who comes along who *surprise* is an engineer who thinks he's smarter than everyone else because he made a few runs up and back in a parking lot is exactly the type of person who was a troublesome customer. The issues you speak of are NOT special, theyre NOT unique, and theyre NOT hard to solve, youre just being difficult. So excuse me, its my turn in the circlejerk.