Now my 2 cents for what it is worth.
First you will not get any better service than thru Ralph @ rcignitions. He will answer every question you could possibly ask. He always has for me. He is out-sourced to fix many other manufactures engines and has a racing history to boot. He probably has been fixing engines for longer than I have been alive. Not that he is that old or anything
Zenoahs are a durable engine, not expensive, but not cheap in the sense of a POS. They are piston ported but so are a lot of engines. (Brison's, Tarus', etc. and they are not considered cheap, infact some are very expensive)
I "believe" my converted g26 weighs 2lbs. 4oz. would have to double check though.
Now for the numbers I see on my new rcignition CONVERTED g26 that only weighs 2lbs+
Mezj-18x6-9100+ rpm with 17+ lbs thrust on a digital fish scale
various 16x8's- approx. 8500-8900 with 13-15 lbs thrust on fish scale
ORIGINAL: n001pa
I'm not saying anything bad about the Zenoah. On the contrary, I have not ruled it out yet. My problem is I don't know much about these engines and I have had other people tell me that the cheaper engines like the Zenoah, Fujis, and First Place Engines are just weedeater or chainsaw conversions. Maybe I have gotten bad advise. That's why I came here. As far as YW service goes, I have been talking to them and I have to say that they have better email communication and have been more willing to help me than anyone else has. Plus every complaint I have seen about them has been engines that were bought outside the US and then sent to Korea for service when they could have been sent to YW USA and gotten much better service.