Red: Another Red Herring

I was sure that the starting issue was related to the very heavy kick, only because I knew there was a chance the piston was a bit too big for the cylinder, so maybe there were some binding issues.

Popped the top end, not sure of what to expect.  And found... nothing out of the ordinary.  Rings looked ok and I just redid the offset. 

So not knowing what else to look for, I reassembled everything.

Could the hard kick just be increased compression given that the rings had pushed out?  If so, how much compression was it creating now?

Answer to that was 120!  No wonder I was feeling it on the kick.  The compression had essentially doubled from when I measured it cold before the engine ever ran.

Then I thought it might be the needle height and I basically moved it to every single position to test, but nothing going.

Finally, I was staring at the kink in the fuel line and when I gave it a little nudge, gas suddenly poured down to fill the bowl.

Could I seriously just have RUN OUT OF GAS on the shakedown run?  If so, that would be the biggest red herring ever.

Seems like there was some weird vacuum lock happening, maybe a trapped air bubble?

After that she started and idled with zero issues.