Thanks for your input John. I don't profess to be an expert at any of this stuff, I am only reporting the way things work for me when I do them. I have two engines which have the cranks 90 degrees out of phase and thus are self starters. Although this engine is a brand new one, I have one that I built 3 years ago and has many, many hours on it. It will idle down to an almost stop, and run well there. However, if you stop it with your finger on the flywheel at that low, low speed, it will not self start again unless you turn up the air pressure.When these engines are running at a very low speed, they have the inertia of the flywheels to keep them ticking over at ridiculously low speeds. However once they are stopped and that inertia is no longer present they will not self start without turning up the air pressure. I agree with you, that a metered taper valve would probably give me much more finite control, however the original Donkey machines probably didn't need that fine of control. Another factor here is that these engines are all running under no-load conditions. Until I hooked the valve into my air line this morning, I really didn't know what to expect myself.---Brian
