A buddy of mine just finished Service Station training at Lionel in Ohio. He learned how to fix Lionel’s early fan-driven smoke units to really boost performance. It involves doubling the size of the air intake hole on the top board of the unit. You must be careful not to cut through a trace. The second thing is to repack the wadding with the new Lionel wicking material, which is very much like Tikki Torch wick.
Here’s my LionMaster T-1 with the fixed unit:
http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/themes/trc/utility/
Jon [8D]