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A soft start is a viable option. I suggest looking around because you may be surprised that a VFD can be less costly than a soft start due to how ubiquitous VFDs have become.

Power output is a function of fuel quantity. The engines commonly found on these generators are not of a type that can alter timing on the fly. To be honest these constant speed engines will last longer than variable speed. Its not unheard of for the LP engines on the MEP802 and MEP803 to last...

Nope, doesn't matter. You can pull all single phase loads off of a 3 phase panel without a problem. In industry that is done all the time. Panels that are dedicated to lighting circuits are all single phase loads even though the panel itself is 3 phase. Don't overthink the balancing too much...

Have you tried the WD40 starting trick?

I have no connection or knowledge of this. https://columbia.craigslist.org/for/d/salisbury-military-30-kw-generator/7273516254.html

Excellent work!

There looks to be a couple of MEP-005s listed on Craigslist in South Carolina.

+1, you likely have a valve leak. If you can pull the injectors you can do a pseudo leak-down test by blowing air into the injector hole and see where the air comes out. Obvioulsy with the cylinder to TDC of the compression stroke.

Would it be better if we pick up where you left off in this thread?

I think more detail about what you've done to test everything would be helpful at this point.

Sounds like you need to start at the beginning and do some testing. Start with the MPU and speed controller. If that isn't working you'll not flash the field to make power.

I assume you've tried holding the switch in the START position after the engine starts? Do you get any voltage while you are in START?

Can you post a recap of what you've done so far? Do you have the TMs and have you reviewed the troublshooting in the TM?

You have to dig around and find them. Those engines are used in more than the MEP generators. Search for Lister LPW4 parts. I gave you a couple of examples of searching for parts on ebay in response to your PM.

Adding another phase in the mix isn't a big deal. You can look at your panel and see if you have any loads that it makes sense to split off into another panel for your third phase. For the house I'm going to build soon it will have AC and DC power distribution. Anything that can run directly...

Totally get that. My wife gave me SOOOO much grief for all the time and effort I was putting into the MEPs THEN we had a serious power outage and all was forgiven. Now she doesn't blink when I'm doing these projects.

You may can reach out to a company such as this to see if they make a generator head that will fit the engine. https://centralgagenerator.com/product/164d-16-5-kw-single-bearing/ I can't image this is going to be easy or less expensive than selling/trading the MEP804 for a more suitable machine.

The way to think about it is like this, Using 2 legs means you paid for a 15kw generator but GOT a 10kw usable generator. Anything you put on that third leg gets you closer to what you paid for from a load capacity standpoint. I think your chances of converting it to single phase is 70/30 in...

These things have a generous engineering overhead. You can run them unbalanced no problem. You won't be able to get full nameplate out of it but if you keep your demand down around 8-9kw then its not really a problem. Its not ideal but people worry about it far more than they need to (assuming...

Roger that. 0.27 gph sounds closer to what I would expect. Maybe a little higher but not so bad.