Greetings from Tokyo,
I've been lurking around this forum for years, (soaking up the knowledge) but yesterday I came across my Cox .05 R/C new in the box, and I had to dive into the 1/2A threads once again. What luck to stumble in at just the right time to catch this thread. Sincere thanks to Dave for the answers and especially for the stories.

I taught myself to fly with a 2ch EZ Bee II. Spent four years bashing balsa before “moving up” to a .25 CG Eaglet (peer pressure at the field). All I have to say is what were you guys doing to those poor little engines?!?[X(] In my 17 years (minus a four year break), across at least 20 engines, I have never had a Cox fail for anything more serious than a glow plug. They never gave me any trouble, but that's probably because I didn't know they were supposed to...

Just the thought of some poor little motor giving it’s all (and then some if your talkin’ 50k rpm[X(])… Really brings a tear to your eyes.