The biggest question and I know Bryan has brought this up a few times. But, is Harbor Freight ACTUALLY paying to control the specs, and paying the extra to have the engines remain within those specs? Because everyone can talk about China and their poor Quality control all they want. But, what it comes down to is Cheap people that have China manufacture things and don't pay to have the specs quality controlled.
China is VERY capable of maintaining specs if they're paid to maintain them. But, that is where the issues arise. Once the molds and fixtures for items are worn the tolerances start to falter and no one checks the molds because they're not paid to. Because the bottom line is it's cheaper, and Quality control is skipped because no one is paying the extra they'd have to pay here in the states to control the quality. Then the molds and fixtures aren't changed out as often as they should to save money. THAT is the bottom line, if they don't. IT will be the new Predator and that's it. Another thing is comparing it to the clone, is it still 196cc, I don't race clones anymore and I don't know what the newest rules state. If it's 196cc, and a 212 is making as much HP, it makes sense to compare it more to the 206. Everyone moaning about comparing it to the other engines I don't see the point. They won't be racing against them, so just a broad generalization of running them on the same Dyno just for a relative idea means little if anything to anyone besides engines builders. So why the hell does it even matter?
That is besides all the facts that racers are racers and they WILL alter everything about the engine to get more out of it and push it's limits and it will be $1500 in the same amount of time. So will they keep one casting for the entire engine, I VERY highly doubt it.
I honestly can't understand why people just won't embrace the 206. It's everything they say they want, but just as Brian Carlson has said multiple times.... It's what they say they want, but don't actually want.