Well I cleaned out the carb (20 min soaking), rinsed it off, blew it out with compressed air, put it all back together with the new parts. Cleaned the cylinder and valves, put that back together with a new gasket. Hooked it all up, and damned if I couldn't get it started. I tweaked, nudged for all I was worth, but could not keep it running for more than a few seconds. Eventually I, pulled off air element and sprayed in some engine starter. Finally got it running. Then tweaked some more until it seemed to be running solid.
Still tough to start. Should start on one or two pulls. In reality it takes me about 8-10 pulls and then it's real reluctant. I'm still having that issue when you bump into the machine, it splutters and makes noises about wanting to stall. Any demand on the motor (using hydraulics) and it starts to run rough. After it's warmed up (about 5+ minutes) and it smooths out and seems to run OK, as long as there are no bumps or vibrations. I split wood for about 15 minutes, just to see how it runs. Seems shaky, but OK. It didn't die on any of the wood, but I didn't have anything really rough to split on hand. I tried shutting it off, then starting it again. Still hard to start, even with a warm engine. Took 1/2 dozen pulls.
I did a quick check early on by pulling the spark plug out. No greasy black stuff. So that's good. Forgot to check when I was done with my 15 min test though.
The predator engine was on-sale, with today being the final day, so I decided to stop screwing around with the old engine and replace it with another for under $100. Now to do the work of pulling off the old and putting on the new.
For those of you who have gone through this process of replacing the motor, did you need to make any odd modifications, such as attaching that arm to the top of the new motor to cut down vibrations?