china girl engines

The first two questions are a matter of opinion. I think the China girl engines provide adequate reliability and power for the money.
China girls are not easily adapted to friction drive.
An engine with no gear reduction works well for friction drive. The China girl has 4:1 reduction built in.
China Girls have been used for friction drive before, but it didn't go well.
The weed eater/goped style engines are easier to friction mount and can be mounted at any angle.

They are as reliable if you know what you're doing.
They are not powerful
Not easy and kind of pointless since they have such low power

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I agree with Aleman.
Chinedolls are a GREAT introduction to motorizing bicycles. You will quickly learn about proper upkeep and like he said, if you ride her like she is meant to be ridden, you can have years of fun on the cheap.
95% of the issues I see are due entirely to the rider flogging her too hard or to poor upkeep. Generally, if a chine doll starts and runs for more than 30 minutes, it will last as long as the owner lets it last. I know of several chinadolls with over 10k miles. I sold one myself still running today. On a total POS Next crap frame no less. It's all about how you treat the motor.
Speed freaks seldom have much good to say of the chinadoll, but guys like me who just wanna ride cheap LOVE them. I will admit I'm prejudiced towards two strokes from years of open class MX racing, but these are really very well designed engines for the price. One of the simplest, most reliable motors ever built in my opinion. Given even half decent plating on the jug, there are only three moving parts: Piston, Crank, Rod.
You four stroke guys can talk all day about how much better they are for reliability but Very few four stroke designs would even start if built to the quality of a typical chinadoll
engine.
Given the proper love and care, I would pit a chinadoll against anything ever built for cheapest way to get from A to B.

What I really love about the china girls is the super simple design. They are kinda crude looking, low parts count, cheap to buy and cheap to replace or repair. They serve the intended purpose for what I buy them for and one thing I love that you probably won't see mentioned is that I actually love the sound of them with the long type exhaust I use! Quite honestly I am amazed that such a simple little engine does as well as it does and I find myself sometimes just sitting still watching and listening to the little engine run. Can't help it.....I luv em!

2door said:

Sort of the 'McCoy' of motorized bicycle technology

Tom

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LOL That's good Tom! I've had a few McCoys as well as Royal, Tiger Shark, GMS, SK, JSB. Irvine, O.S, Thunder Tiger, Super Tigre, Jett, K&B, Magnum, ASP, etc. etc. Actually you name a model airplane engine and I have probably owned it or tuned on it. The nice thing about a china girl is that if it goes dead stick you hopefully are not ending up in the tall grass at the end of the runway! he he

The thing you have to consider is your life. Is your life worth it?

Gotta love 2 door, his happy times never failed him. But they caused his fender to break which broke his leg. He still loves them. Good for him.

And then there's Bairdco. His happy time vibrated his front brake loose. locked up the wheel and put him in the hospital. He'll never ride them again. Good for him.

The things are all bootleg now. Nobody could come up with 20 grand to pass EPA. What does that say? So they are smuggled or shipped as parts and put together locally. Back in the "good ole days" when Grubee started, you had competition, Starfire and Skyhawk. At least they had incentive to "out do" each other. Now they don't even care. Parts is parts. Hey maniac, what was that you were saying about the rotors not being magnetized anymore?

It's gonna get worse.

Yeah I know cheap is cheap. And cheap will always sell. But what is pain worth? Or better yet, lack of same?

Really, think about it. No competition makes for no incentive.

I just got a Lifan (China) and it rocks! Who do they compete with? Honda.

Mike B said:

The thing you have to consider is your life. Is your life worth it.

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I would put the question more like "Is the risk worth it?" Everything comes with a percentage of risk and each individual will tolerate a different percentage of risk and decide if it is within his or her range of acceptable risk.

Racing go karts I have seen rods come up through the top of the block of genuine modified Honda engines as well as cheap clones with the shrapnel coming up right behind the driver. I have had serious burns on my shoulder from getting into a cherry red exhaust header. There are stories of stock flywheels going off like a grenade. Chains come apart, etc. etc. The safest thing to do would be just to stay home, but some folks just are not wired to sit at home.

No matter what engine you put on that bike it does not minimize the risk of a dog running out to try to tangle you up in your bike. It does not minimize the car that pulls out in front of you or runs you off the road. It does not minimize the risk of an unseen patch of loose gravel or hidden deep pothole. Sitting at home and leaving that thing in the garage is the only thing that is going to minimize those risk. However if you are not willing to sit at home and are willing to accept some risk...then you try to research the problem areas of the china girl and do what you can to try to minimize the risk associated with it and you also watch carefully for chasing dogs, careless drivers, potholes and loose gravel. Of course this is all just based on my own personal range of acceptable risk. If you feel the china girl is so unsafe and beyond your range of acceptable risk....then by all means don't use that thing!