I wholly agree on the critical nature of the needle valve setting Rog, but didn't figure I needed to included it as it had been well covered before. For the record I did all of my running at between 1/4 or just a little under, and 1/2 turns from closed, with most of the running done closest to the 1/4 turn mark. I did find that as it started to run out of fuel, with air showing in the fuel line, opening up toward the 1/2 turn mark seemed to help it drink just a little bit more out of the line.
I've only got about four hours on mine so far, as yesterday was the only day I have run it, so it is just getting broken in I'd guess. My best runs seemed to be giving me about 60 beats per minute, but only the very first run on Zippo was on a "quality" fuel, as both of my other fuels were old remnants and likely somewhat compromised.
I've only been using a few drops of the oil mixed in with my fuel as it seems to hang around pretty well, much like steam oil seems to linger in the cylinder for several runs.
Where are you sourcing the spare parts from (ie: sparkplug) as I'd like to order up some spares myself?