Moto MUSA Hoglet Mini V-twin Engine V2 Essence 4-temps avec Kickstarter

I saw this and had to have it. When it came there was tarnish on the exhaust but it cleaned up perfectly. Customer service was kind and offered to replace it if didn't. Stayed in contact with me until I was satisfied and I am . Great work and great product.

Being a long-time model engine collector and Harley Davidson owner, I found the Hoglet V-Twin very appealing. I watched and read some online reviews of the engine and ordered one. When it arrived, I was a bit disappointed to find the wood mount was unfinished. The images I had seen of the Hoglet, the wood mount appeared to have a protective finish. I immediately removed the engine and electronics from the mount and applied a durable finish. This required some desoldering of wires from the micro switch. Upon reassembly and resoldering of the wires, the microswitch literally fell apart. I was not using a high wattage soldering iron, but the plastic holding the switch together, melted and the switch was ruined. This required me to order a replacement switch. At the same time, I ordered a small 2S LiIon battery pack rather than using the included 2 cell battery tray. Once everything was back together I fueled up and started the engine using the included driver and an electric drill. It ran very briefly (20-30 seconds) and then would no longer start. The more I tried to rotate the engine, the tighter it became until I was afraid something would break! I removed the spark plugs to verify it was not a hydraulic lock and could find nothing obviously wrong. I contacted Stirling tech support and unfortunately, they were of little help as speaking "engine tech" in English is obviously not their forte. They kept asking me to send a video, but this was not possible due to file size restraints on my email server. I decided to remove the engine from the stand, remove the plugs again, and literally bathe it in WD-40, inside and out. This completely freed up the engine. After blowing it clean with compressed air, I remounted it, verified I had a good blue spark on both plugs, and proceeded to start it. Finding the sweet spots for carburetion high speed and low speed needles and timing, was challenging and the instructions are poorly written in this regard. The fuel tank is extremely small and rich running drains it in short order, requiring frequent refills. btw, I am using 95 octane, alcohol-free gasoline with Amsoil Dominator @ 20:1. I finally found the ideal settings for all 3 adjustments, also discovering that when the timing was fully advanced for the best high speed running, it resulted in one cylinder not firing at low throttle. Full throttle isn't what this engine is all about anyway and results in tremendous heat build-up, so prolonged full throttle should be avoided. With the needles properly adjusted and the timing set for reliable idle, the engine now starts easily with the very cool "bicycle pedal" kick starter and I am VERY pleased with it! While my challenges with the Hoglet may not reflect other's experiences, my overall impression of the quality of this engine is very positive. I am amazed at the attention to detail and feel very lucky that operational masterpieces like this are even available for "gearheads" like me to purchase! Now, I may have to buy one of their Harley Davidson engine replicas (like a Twin Cam :)