Thanks AVB, I might have a try with the bleed hole, getting a bit sick of these 2 Hondas, they must have sold a lot of these (maybe they didn't because they cost about $700 15 years ago and that was very expensive but I figured after all the years with an old 2 stroke Hurricane I would upgrade to a Victa with a Honda motor, best of both worlds, what a mistake) and they would have all had the same problem, real pieces of garbage.
Trev the plug gap was too close and this was causing backfiring and making it run on and off the governor. Opened it up and it now runs like it should, probably didn't need a new carby, because I had cleaned the old one which was badly varnished up so I figured I should replace it. Anyway with the new carby, it still won't give a sniff of a start without starter fluid, and it doesn't need much, and maybe that it the reason Honda made the air cleaner cover easy to replace
