Yes I could imaging they could become finicky.
I have a question for you FBJ the Pegasus engine that was fitted to the stringbag was a nine cylinder supercharged air-cooled lump, I'm reading a book by a guy who flew the entire war in nothing but Swordfish he said that when coming into land on a carrier the pilot would look at the batsman through the gap between the 11o'clock and 12o'clock cylinders, but at night the glow from the cylinders made it hard to see him . In your experience FBJ do air cooled radials actually get hot enough to glow as I would have thought they would seize long before that temperature was reached.