My father's Huskie has the 23 hp B&S "INTEK" V-twin engine. This may be a totally different engine than your "Commercial Turf" V-twin, I don't know what those differences might be.
However, the INTEK is an aluminum block, aluminum head engine. They tend to have a problem with the valve guides coming loose in the aluminum head which then causes an interference with the valves ending up with BENT pushrods which fall out of the rocker arms and leave the engine "dead in the grass" so to speak. His engine had one cylinder fail but it continued to run on the other cylinder for a while. By the time I found out about it and before I could get it into the shop, the other cylinder did the same thing and the engine was then of course completely dead.
The best theory I've heard to explain all the HUNDREDS of similar failures of this engine is that the cooling fins on the aluminum engine get plugged up with grass, oil, dirt, etc., over time and without regular maintenance (cleaning of the cooling fins) this creates a "HOT SPOT" in the head. When this happens, the expansion of the aluminum allows the VALVE GUIDE to come loose in the head and it pushes out toward the rocker. On the next opening of the valves, there is insufficient clearance between the guide and the valve retainer which results in the rocker arm being forced to stop too soon. This of course BENDS the pushrods and then that cylinder ceases to operate.
This is a WELL KNOWN problem with this B&S V-twin engine, there are videos all over youtube documenting this problem.
If this "hot spot" theory is indeed correct, then the probable root cause of the problem is due mainly to a "lack of regular maintenance". How many owners will actually take the time to periodically remove all the shrouds on the engine to blow out the debris and keep the engine cooling fins clean. Not very many.
So if your engine is also aluminum (chances are very good it is) I would suggest you clean the cooling fins at least once per year. And for the record, his engine has many more hours than your 200. Two hundred hours is just broken in, and not very old, so you MAY be headed for a similar engine failure in the future. Hard to say! But some of the people who have documented these failures are reporting some catastrophic failures including holes punched through the crankcase. Not good.
