I just bought a brand new top flight p-51 60 size from a club member, he just finished building it, He put a saito fa-115 on it and never even started it.

I brought it home fueled it up and followed the start procedure and bam off it goes, sounds great and plenty of power, but when I pull the glow driver off, its a totally different engine, does not want to stay running, tried adjusting on the high end needle and its still just a fight to keep it running at low rpms. I am sure its rich becuase it is leaving spray of fuel on my garage floor, but the instructions say to keep it rich for the first 40mins of run.

I have a question about this engine, it is mounted inverted, one thing I see is that the fuel lines are higher than the carb. I have heard that this is a problem for saito inverted engines due to flooding?? is this true, what can be done to fix it, To relocate the tank, is going to take some cutting and building, I know about onboard glow systems, not sure IF I would be better off just selling this saito and putting in a dle-20.

I like the plane, and the engine looks and sounds terrific, I am just not too familiar with the saito engines, All my planes are gas. any help will be appreciated thanks

Ronnie

Without hearing it, it's difficult to say, but I know for a fact that Saito's are sent from the factory with a very rich idle setting, probably to help with break in. Once you have a half hour or so of running, you can probably lean out the idle quite a bit and should see better performance.
A glow driver covers up a lot of sins.

That is right.
First tank 10 min very very rich
Second tank 10-20 min turn hs a couple of clicks
Third tank 20-30 min very rich
Fourth tank 30-40 min very rich

Now you can adjust the hs needle to peek then the low speed needle for transition. Idle will be high, run a few more tanks through untill you have a solid idle and good transition, prop for around 10,000 on the ground

I run all my saitos inverted. Its not so much the level of the fuel line as it is the level of the carb spray bar in relation to the center of the fuel tank. Even then, I can usually have a difference of about 3/4" or so. Saito's have real good fuel draw. Being new, I run a tank through it. Then start adjusting the top end for max rpm, then the low end for idle. All of my saitos needed the idle adjusted to run perfectly. I prop my engines for about 8500 to 9500 rpm. They will last a long time that way. I have two 1.20's with over 200 hours run time on them. Others around 60 or 70 hours. I also run Power Master 10% 2-stroke fuel. The same fuel I run in my 2-strokes. I have found the YS/Saito 20/20 just to be expensive to run and the extra performance doesnt justify the extra cost. Been doing this for 15 years.
Edwin

One other thing, check the valves after about 1/2 gallon. At least a couple times to make sure they are not moving. After that, once every year or two is enough.