Too late, Lifan has changed the angle (to 27 degrees) and the gas tank/air cleaner. The air cleaner change and notch in the tank is a joke, but the change in piston angle will prevent most of the parts from being interchangeable with the Honda GX. The word is that Lifan, the biggest of the clone assembly houses, was targeted by Honda since they have the deepest pockets. This has not prevented the other 50+ clone assembly houses from continueing to make the 196cc 25 degree angle beast.
From what I understand, and I have been investigating this for the last 8 months, is that there are only a handful of places manufacturing the actual engine components (all the AL parts, and the moving stuff), and then all the various assembly houses build them per Honda/Kohler/etc specs.
So far, I have investigated 5 different assembly houses. On paper, the Lifan is middle of the pack on torque and HP (converted from KW, and then rounded up). The Yellow engine (Ducar, Chongping Dajiang) looks to be second, and the Red and White (Sanding, Weimi) appears to be the best. I am building a twin engine Kart that will put these two engines I have head to head to see if there really is a difference.
Russ Barrow
Russell ATV