I'm planning to use a 24kw Chinese generator; one of those cheapo 1800rpm ST jobs. I'm going to belt drive it and I'll run the engine 22-2300rpm.

I saw the OM617 genset on youtube...that's what got me to thinking about the Merc for my genset. I had been powering the set with a Listeroid, so I'm going from one quality extreme to the other!