Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

I was surprised to see that there are several different clones (presumably Chines) of the Honda GX200. Oddly, some seem to sell for about the same price as price as a replacement Honda, although others are much less - about half. The various folks selling them claim parts are interchangable with the Honda.

Are these any good? I don' think "You get what you pay or" has been suspended, but  China does have very low labor rates and we are talking small engines, not satellites. The one owner I talked to bought one for a generator - $160 delivered - and he said it started on the second pull and seems to perform fine. 

Here in our area they are called Lifan engines.  We sell them.  Sure enough all the parts are interchangable.  The starnge thing is we are a dealer for these and the Honda.

If Honda really and truly has no part in these engines, how come we get parts labeled made in China?  Having said that, a coil that retails over a $100 Canadian for a Honda, retails at $15 Canadian for a Lifan.

It does seem rather odd.  Some have said it was Hondas way of getting into the cheaper bracket, some have said that some company has bought the old molds from Honda.  Either way the knock offs are selling here for half or less then what a Honda does.

The generators here aren't "legal" because of safety reasons, so that maybe a good thing to check out in your area as well.  They have not safety badging on them.  Here they come in a variety of colors, red, orange, black, you get the point.

They run as well as the Honda, but as of yet they don't have any emission standards.

That's about what I know of them off the top of my head.

Sherri

Highwind wrote:
It is very unlikely that you are using an IBM PC? I worked for an American company that cloned the IBM "Winchester" hard drive and later tried to reverse engineer a Savin copier (which was made by Ricoh). Any area that had patent protection was designed around  so they weren't infringed upon. AMD makes chips compatible with the Intel instruction set but without using  the Intel design.

I'm not sure how much, if any, of a Honda GX200 is patented or otherwise protected by intillectual property rights. If there aren't any, and they don't claim it to be a Honda, they're probably free and clear.

Reverse-engneering of parts is relatively straightforwrd. The parts are put into an X-Y-Z coordinate measuring machine and the critical dimensions captured. Then 3D CAD models are constructed and prototypes are made and tested. Once everything works, production can begin. It is very common for manufacturers to design in extra features with no purpose just to determine if a product has been cloned.

I was curious because the GX200 seems to have as much as 3 ft lbs of torque more than  other  mid-frame engines. But t's for a snowblower application, and no no seems to have a handle on  what needs to be done to a GX200 for such use.

A box of the same parts are not an engine.

And the parts being designed the same on CAD don't necessarily have the same properties of material.

I'm curious, are these  clone engines as quiet running as a Honda?  If so, that would be enough for me to try one out if I needed to replace a Tecumseh engine on a piece of power equipment.

These engines are as quiet.  The boss has had one on his woodsplitter since last year.  No big deal, but we rent it out.  I've figured out that it has probably has split 500 - 700 cord of wood.  Everyone that has used it has said that they can't tell the difference other then the decal.

In the cold weather it would start on the first pull, were as the brand new Honda needed some coaxing.

I've seen them both tore sown to nothing a bench beside each other.  Took internals and placed them in both engines.  Fits are as good as any.

Sherri

 Material properties could be worse, or better. And the manufacturing toleances could be worse, or better. As the Japanese have very good in-process quality control, one could assume the clones are worse. The Chinese have also cloned a wide variety of U.S. firearms, from  old Winchester pump shotguns to the civilian version of the M14. In general, the steel used was pretty good, but some of the internal tolerances weren't optimal. But making small engines is easier than forged firearm receivers and there's a bigger market.....

Ironically,  Honda soesn't seem to have an electric start 6.5 hp, but you can buy a clone with one.

Looked on eBay and some are selling for $130 plus shipping.

Check this out everybody! Hongda!!! LOL!!!

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-06/03/content_336280.htm

Lifan is BIG when it comes to the small .49CC to the 110CC pocket bikes.!!! They sell like crazy and for cheap!

Highwind wrote:
Pretty good guess Highwind,

according to the article:

"Last year, the Beijing No 2 Intermediate People's Court heard a case filed by Honda against Lifan. In that case, Honda said Lifan used "Hongda" on its products, which Honda claims is very similar to Honda. The case is still pending."

There is also a model called trumaxxs on e-bay  which is a clone not 1but 40 or 50  of them  cheap .