Some good info on the previous posts. One of the key items is use good quality oil and mix per the manufacturer's recommendations. For many years on 2 strokes I had good luck with golden spectro. For the last 20 years I've used Amsoil exclusively. One of the things you won't hear is many 2 stroke oils are diluted so you end up buying more bottles of oil. For years and years I ran 100-1 oil and everyone used to tell me I'm not running enough oil and I'm going to burn up my motor. Well, that was 25 years ago and that engine is still together with the original piston and rings. Then I owned an oil injected bike and ordered a specific oil rated for use in oil injected bikes. Its premix ratio was 50-1. So what is the difference between the 2 oils? They were the exact same oil except the 100-1 was not diluted to the 50-1 ratio for the injected bike. The 100-1 mix had one unit of lubricating oil per 100 units of gas, the 50-1 oil required 2 units of lubricating oil per 100 units of gas. The difference was one unit was the oil, and the second unit was a filler. If you use a 25-1 oil it has one unit of lubricating oil and 3 units of filler. One more things for folks who think too much oil isn't doing any harm - too much oil will carbon up on the top of the piston, and that carbon buildup will migrate down toward the top ring. When that buildup gets into the top ring and makes it stick, that ring will score the cylinder and now you need to bore the cylinder and put in a new piston and rings. The synthetics do a better job of passing through the engine unburnt so the rings don't get stuck. Just some feedback from the probably 200-300 cylinders I've bored for top ends I've replaced over the last 30 years. I would, however, run too much oil than not enough. One ride without enough oil and the piston is toast. If anyone needs a source for Amsoil send me a PM. The racer's cylinders I've refreshed looked the cleanest over all the other big name oils. That's why I started using it, heck over 20 years ago at this point.