How many hours are they good for? We only get to boat 6 months out of the year so we only put on maybe 200 hours in a good year. Lots of years 150, some even a little less. How many hours do you guys put on where you have no snow? I am running Crusader 496 cu. in. Chevys and they are in a very large and heavy boat. I had my sights set on 2,500 hours before opening them up but it sees extremely heavy loads at over 4,000 rpms for most of the hours.
Most of the people at our marina say they rarely see an engine worn out but instead is lunched by bad manifolds or tulip a valve due to high rpm. Seems the rings and bearings are the very least of the concern. With the new coated pistons there is little to worry about in the cylinders.
We run our engines hard with heavy loads so we use synthetic oils and filters changing every 100 hours. I know our season is only half as long but we think this is pretty good use.