Chinese Clones!

[bmxr123]

Below is a picture of a Qlink 250..Its a GZ250!!!!If they didn't purchase the blueprints for that motor from Suzuki, then they certainly stole them!! Jk..Same single-cylinder, four-valve, dual-header design..I saw one of these in person and freaked out..The dead giveaway in my opinion was the(identical to the GZ line) "cosmetic" valve cover caps on each side of the top end. To be specific, it is the plastic chrome you have to pull with an allen key to change your spark plug. On the other hand, the big difference was the mag wheels. But this "asian" suzuki seems to bridge that gap! Cool...but, scary: Japanese engineering making way to a much more profit-oriented, cost-cutting, business savvy China. I dig the "honda-vtx-style" headlight too.

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c20/BmXr123/qlink_zpsf6fd2637.jpg

I also have noticed that Honda sold their bulletproof 35-years-strong single-cylinder XR,XL, NX 100, 125, 150, 200 blueprints as i see them on EVERYTHING CHINESE OFF-ROAD. And if we Americans weren't so OBSESSED with big twins and SUV's then we would probably see more on the road.

I once built a Honda 1970 cb100 cafe racer in which the motor was experiencing blow-by. While the rebuild was taking place, i bought a Panterra(chinese)125 dirt bike off of craigslist for 150 and swapped the motor right onto the 1970 Cb100 frame with no modifications and she was breathing life again within the hour! That chinese motor ended up being pretty reliable, and once rebuilt, I mounted the fresh honda nx125(technically a 175 after the .50 over bore) onto the Panterra dirt bike. Both machines still scream to this day....aaand get oil changes frequently :)

below is the pudding:

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c20/BmXr123/20130307_182810_zps35275360.jpg
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c20/BmXr123/20130307_182837_zps6090db4d.jpg

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c20/BmXr123/20130114_160410.jpg
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c20/BmXr123/20130114_180507.jpg
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c20/BmXr123/20130114_180645.jpg

[jonathan180iq]

That is totally rad....


I'm just oggling it like a little kid. That's awesome.

[Water Warrior 2]

Many Chinese clones are built under license from the Japanese manufacturers. Also some Japanese designed components are built in China for Japanese bikes. It's all about money and keepng the economy running smoothly with a decent return in profits. It is the World Economy thing and any manufacturer who doesn't play well with others will likely fail in the long run.

[jonathan180iq]

That being said, that photo also looks pretty horribly photoshopped...

[bmxr123]

No photoshop..Just sub-par paint jobs and poor lighting..lol...Everything ELSE about that cafe build was pro though!..I SWEAR!!..lol...can you guess where the battery is?



Those pics were taken with a samsung epic 4g touch(that probably had a dirty lens)lol..Maybe that was a contributor as well..

[jonathan180iq]

No man... haha I know your bike is for real. I'm talking about the Chinese Clone photo... it's terrible.

[bmxr123]

oh yeah!..the front wheel is oblong!


LOL

And the flames and text box with characters: "legend" smacked on there by the company's secretary or something. ooh, cost-cutting at its finest!

[burkbuilds]

Even without the original designers selling their blueprint designs, it's fairly common to "reverse engineer" other people's products and it's done all the time and not just by foreign companies. I've worked in the aftermarket automotive industry reverse engineering parts from OEM products and as long as there isn't anything proprietary about it, that is to say, unique and copyrighted, everyone does it. The key here is that you can't just copy their plans, you have to buy the part and make your own plans based on that part, so everyone ends up with a slightly different, yet functionally compatible part. That's why you sometimes take in an old part to the auto parts store and the one they hand you to replace it might not look exactly the same, but the guy behind the counter is swearing that it's the right part and you are looking at it saying, "it can't be the right part, it doesn't look the same as this one". If the Engineer did his work well, it should work even though it might not look the same, but sometimes, as you probably have experienced, it does not fit or it interferes with something else on your vehicle. Part of that is because the same part may fit ten different models from a time period of 30 years, so it might work on 9 out of 10 of those without a hitch, but on your car, something else was different and it doesn't work.

It was interesting to do that type of work because I got to test and compare four or five different manufacturer's products with each other and the OEM product while making my own drawings. Some things could have a very wide tolerance and still work and other things often had to be fairly tight, although surprisingly not as tight of a tolerance as they implied in my Engineering classes in college in many instances. In general I found that the Germans and Japanese usually held to the tightest tolerances and the US followed next. Things made in China, Taiwan, Mexico, Argentina were pretty sloppy in tolerance by comparison, usually twice the US Tolerance and 2-3 times the German and Japanese tolerances I typically found.

When I changed jobs and started working with bearing surfaces on electric motors I was overwhelmed by how tight the tolerances in those applications had to be. Almost all the bearing surfaces I work with have to be +- 0.0003" or less. Nothing in the auto parts I worked on ever got close to that, although I never did any internal engine parts and some of those might be that tight. With electric motors our shafts can only have a max run out of 0.002" or less at 1/2" from the furthest end of the shaft after assembly. When I was working on things like brake drums for cars the Chinese were only willing to guarantee run out of 0.025" or less. Some German drums were a max TIR of 0.005" and that was about as good as it got.

[Water Warrior 2]

Very interesting. Thank you BB.

[Fawlty]

Here is a very similar bike. The make is Qingqi (never heard of it). On the face of it looks like a good deal at 1000 Euros.

http://motos.coches.net/ocasion/qingqi/ ... 435329.htm (http://motos.coches.net/ocasion/qingqi/california/2006-en-madrid-5435329.htm)

[alantf]

Just noticed..... There appears to be (in the first picture) a speedo like on the gz, and also a speedo on an instrument cluster on the tank. :??:

[bpdchief]

I think before replacing the tires on my GZ I'll try to find some Qlink wheels those are sharp :)

[Water Warrior 2]

I think before replacing the tires on my GZ I'll try to find some Qlink wheels those are sharp :)
With a little luck you may find a center stand too.

[Water Warrior 2]

Here is a very similar bike. The make is Qingqi (never heard of it). On the face of it looks like a good deal at 1000 Euros.

http://motos.coches.net/ocasion/qingqi/ ... 435329.htm (http://motos.coches.net/ocasion/qingqi/california/2006-en-madrid-5435329.htm)
There are a lot of add-ons on this bike. Crash bars front and rear, floorboards with a different brake pedal, bags, windshield, higher bars make a GZ look ill equiped but I'm willing to bet that it would all fit the GZ if a source could be found close to home.

[5th_bike]

That headlight though must be plastic, like the Honda's.

[bmxr123]

Burkbuilds,that's interesting! And i have definately experienced this "slight variation" with aftermarket parts, seeing as how i have owned a chevy silverado , s10, and an 04 chevy trailblazer that ALL featured the 4.3L V6 vortec motor. Duralast will often sell the same water pump for all of these vehicles, but YOU must provide your MODEL-SPECIFIC gasket set for the pump and thermostat housing..i have also installed a set of ceramic brake pads in my buddy's 01 accord that HAD to be modified to fit, but were sold for fitment on that vehicle. From a business perspective i can understand the need for universality when engineering a mass-produced product, but these companies have to take into consideration direct consequence. Forcing a mechanic to delve into the dark arts of "fabrication" is by some people's standards unacceptable. The next time that mechanic goes to change some brakes, he'll remember what a pain the ass the Everwear pads were to install and will steer himself and any wallet-wielding customers away, regardless of the year make and model of the vehicle. With mechanics, you sometimes only get ONE chance.

[Water Warrior 2]

And then we have the old scenario of modifying a regular tool instead of buying a specialized tool to do a simple job in a tight space.

[bmxr123]

yeah seriously!!!!!

I would start posting pictures of these "casualties" but its just gonna raise my blood pressure.

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

[burkbuilds]

bmxr123, I'm right there with you. I work on my own vehicles too. The automotive industry has a lot of quirks. Last Fall I toured a VW plant with a group from my Engineering school. Very interesting to watch them put the entire engine and drive train together on the chassis, then the entire body drops down from above and bolts into place. No wonder they never worry about how hard some of those parts are to replace, they didn't have any obstructions when they were assembling it.

You are also right in saying that most mechanics aren't going to give you a second chance if your aftermarket parts don't fit correctly. I worked for a division of NAPA, and they are primarily focused on selling to shops and mechanics directly not as much to the do it yourself type of mechanic like myself. NAPA was very aware of the position you stated and they took a lot of care to try and get it right. I am not saying the other copanies don't, but I only have first hand experience with NAPA. I've seen several occasions where we'd bring cars into the warehouse, put them up on the rack and the engineers would be out there installing the parts themselves and then they'd drive those cars themselves, sometimes for weeks to make sure there were no problems. I'm not saying they never had any issues, I'm just saying they took their work seriously, and a lot of those guys were not only engineers, they were big car buffs and they loved working on or restoring cars. They certainly were not just guys who got an education and then sat in an office all day and never got their hands dirty.

When I worked on reverse engineering a part, I did most of the work, but there were two other engineers that reviewed everything I did, and then they'd send it back to me for further "tweeking". It was a seriously reviewed process before those plans ever went out for manufacture. They took the safety and functionality of the part very seriously and they also were very concerned about how it was manufactured, what quality of materials went into the product etc. They had people that were at every manufacturing plant on a daily basis, checking parts, making sure quality controls were in place, making sure no one was trying to substitute inferior materials or workmanship. Then after the parts were made and shipped to the US, we randomly selected some of each parts and tested them again in our lab, sent the metal out for metalugical testing to insure compliance, etc.

Having said all of that, we still got parts returned from people who were not happy with them for one reason or another, and then we researched each and every return to see if we missed something or if it might have just been an installation error.

I'm sure most aftermarket companies have similar systems to try and reduce unhappy customers and insure compatible parts, but even doing all of that, when you sell millions of parts you will inevitably have some failures.

[northsidegz]

nice cafe racer there bmxr! :)

My butt would never fit in the seat though. LOL.

[bpdchief]

I looked into the Qlink wheels... won't be happening in my lifetime $200 for a front wheel :cry: :cry:

[Rookie Rider]

I have similar wheels. Check the pics thread :o)