Malbeare,<br>
I'm glad you got some race time on it... However, I don't think slower piston velocity reduces wear... In fact, my experience has been quite the opposite. I have dismantled a couple engines that have been lugged (never revved), and saw some amazing hour-glass shaped wear on the cylinder. This is my best-guess as to why that happened: In a wet lubricating system, there is some minimum velocity between the parts that keeps them from physically touching at a particular force. If you increase the force, you must increase the velocity to keep the parts "flying". There is also some maximum velocity that prevents the lubricant from vaporizing. This is one of the reasons a high torque, low RPM engines need large journals and connecting rod bearings to keep the surface velocity high. Anyway, back to the hour glass thing... The piston moves slower at the ends of its travel, so the rings didn't have sufficient velocity to "fly". This greatly accellerated the wear at these points. In a piston, the rings exert a consistent outward pressure, so the only variable is the velocity between the parts. Your upper cylinder will probably wear quicker than a conventional 2-cycle during idle or low RPM. Just my opinion.