Yes Randi, the clone carbs are dicey. Specifically, the needles on the floats do not seal well. If they do, they fail far sooner than the OEM carbs do.
I've had a couple of them with defective casting, one so bad that one of the float pivot axle holes was missing. There was no casting there, and the float was hanging my one end of the pivot axle.
Also, there is something going on with the pilot circuit. Air leak? I don't know. Most of them want to run with the pilot needle seated, or nearly seated. In all cases, take the bowl off and ensure the float is adjusted, and that it wasn't torqued so tight that the phenolic gasket on the main jet body wasn't ripped and distorted.
Note: I am not referring to engines I put on a shelf, but engines I placed in to immediate service on bikes and a kart. One of my karts, a Fox 2100 sporting an H35 just failed it's second $10 carb. What happens is that out of the blue when grandkids are riding it, it starts over filling the bowl, and pissing fuel out of the vent. So far, this has been due to failure of the float needle which seems to be some thin rubber coating over the tip. I will need to mitigate this for the third time before they come out again this summer. I plan to use a OEM carb, unless I can find more OEM parts in my carb box.
). Again, that was on an HS, so its not an apples to apples comparison. They have the same terrible float needle and seat that the smaller ones have so you'll probably get the same issues long term like Dave mentioned happens with them.
