Thught this might be interesting. How old is your Zen? I know you might throw a new piston/ring/cylinder in every couple years, but I was just curious from some of you old schoolers out there, how long have you had a gas engine? And what has been some of your secrets to the longevity as far as maintenance.

With money being hard to come by in a difficult economy, things are not nearly as "Disposable" as they used to be.

I've had some for several years...to be honest, I've never really destroyed one...had 2 bent cranks from hydro-locking, 2 damaged cyls and pistons from overheating (no cooling) and one damaged cylinder and piston from a lost piston-pin C-clip lost (fell inside engine when rebuilding). That's it...and I've had many Zenoahs! Currently my oldest dates back to 2007. It is a motor CC Racing had done for me at the time and it's still running strong. It's been updated with the more recent mods, but still has all the same major parts with the exception of new ring. These little motors can last several years with very little maintenance if you don't have bad luck and do a little bit of basic maintenance.

The single most important thing to avoid in my opinion, maintenance-wise is storing the engine with water in it. In other words, after a flip for example...get water out of engine, start it back up and run several laps to get it back to temp and ensure all water is out of the engine before putting it away for the day. Not doing so can be very damaging to the engine.

Still running my original Zen 260 that was the test mule and R&D platform for many a modification post ... this 5 + years after the fact

Good oil, protection from water ingestion and keeping engine loaded with a prop that does not hop excessively unloading engine while at top rpm is the key IMO.

Hi,
I have run a Zenoah in an old hull for over 10 years, I don't mean racing it I mean running it (playing around). I know I have not thrashed it, but it is still running with the original rings and piston etc, the only thing that has been altered is a carby kit. All I have done is use Castrol A747 in a mix of 25 to 1.
I also use the same formula with my whipper snippers (weed wacker) but not thrashing it.
In my racing engines it is quite a different story I will get maybe one to two seasons without an engine teardown if I am lucky. Notice I said seasons not years.
Also these days I run other oil mixtures.
Hope this helps.

I should know better than to post a thread like this. I just binned my oldest Zen (3+ years)yesterday. The boat was getting sluggish as the day wore on. I didn't realize the water head bolt working its way out and eventually coming completely off. Overheated, bent the crank and toasted the piston and cylinder. Gave me an excuse to finally order a new RCMK Evo though. I have a Mod motor that I have saved, but I can't wait to try the new Evo.

I like to tear my motors down in the winter.I usually get two years and then bearings feal rough.Like to install new ring once a year but have run one engine three years without nothing being done.

I have an old Bruce Hanson 2 port that is 8 years old atleast. Ijust ran it as a sport boat. It is an AC hullbuilt by Andy. this hull is still running and in good condition. This year I changed the Zen over to 4 port so most of it is new now. The only thing I had done before was change the plug and replace the diaphram in the carb and the pull start.It has been a great rough water boat and I plan to keep it for that purpose.