3000W Chinese Gensets Info.

Jlaustin wrote:
My gut feeling is that some of this is inter-related? Hate to say it, but I "think" it was starting much better with the Professor's trunk solenoid/lever depressing regulator primer button setup! However, apparently the bypass primer solenoid is commonly used and "should" be able to made to work consistently and correctly! Any ideas?

Now, John, why would you hate for my method to work better? :h
Just because another Web Site has something different doesn't mean it is better :W

The LPG valve is NOT suppose to get that hot. Unfortunately, some less expensive import solenoids are not truly continuous duty. You may need to trash it, chock it up to experience and purchase a nice commercial rated solenoid valve from US Carb that we know is CD rated.

What you can try, but it may be more difficult in the long run, is to drop the voltage to the solenoid. It should pull in at 8 VDC and hold. Of course the question is where do you get 8 VDC? Yet another heat generating resistor may be needed, but in a location open to more air flow. Measure your coil current and use Ohm's Law to determine resistor value and wattage needed, then double the wattage for your resistor. Lowering the solenoid voltage will reduce heat in the coil (again, good old Ohm's Law tells the tale) if it will indeed work off of a lower voltage -- which I suspect it will.

On the spark plug gap issue. Larger gaps will give a hotter spark on low compression engines running at a low RPM. But, as engine speed increases the wider gaps tend to misfire -- sort of like blowing out a candle. Thus, smaller gaps are needed at high RPM. Of course, high energy output coils, CD ignitions or CSD ignitions circumvent this on motorcycles, boats and cars. Unfortunately, we do not have that option on the little GX-200 type engines.

Bottom line -- You are going to be a lot better off just keeping the gap at the setting recommended in your owner's manual.

There is a spark plug made specifically for these small engines that operate on LPG. They are called a "green" plug. I have one in each of my LPG fueled engines. Personally, I cannot physically see a difference in the LPG spark plug and the gasoline spark plug. Tip length, insulator, etc. all look the same to me. So, truthfully, I cannot tell you they are better.

Mine came from Champion parts and are used in their LPG models. When I get home tomorrow I will look up the part number for you. One more but...... the plugs cost about 5x more than the OEM gasoline plug.