I just thought how damn funny would it be to have a China copy of a China copy. Think about that.

Not all China/Taiwan motors are junk or are copies. Alpha makes some damn good motors and Go motors are stout. I have a $80 Go .25 sport and its pretty damn impressive especially when you consider that a 5 year old got paid 2, maybe 3 bowls of rice to put about 30 of them together.

When an Italian manufacturer made for all, nobody will say this is a copy but if it's an Asian manufacturer, it's automaticaly a copy... except OS

Every manufacturers can made a copy or specific engine !

WEIKEN Racing works on this engine since one year, some people of ATOM come from GO and ARROW and it's not a secret that ARROW engines are made by GO and the ATOM too, but if you look the VORTEX, you can see there is lots of specific parts, the piston, sleeve, conrod, crankshaft, crankcase ( internal mould ), cooling head, needles of carburator, no suitable for other engines...

This is actually pretty common... look at Hobby King. They have lots of [poor] copies of Chinese-manufactured stuff.

Another great example is HobbyWing... a Chinese company that has a bunch of other Chinese companies making knock-offs, so much so that HobbyWing needed to even employ a genuine security label system for consumers to verify they've bought the real deal.

Definitely more than cosmetic changes.
The weak point of the Arrow engine was the crank case. It would split down the middle of the bottom of it, and basicly it was just an awful crankcase. I think that was some sort of knockoff of an old Picco case.
Go engines seem to be the manufacturer of Arrow engines.
They might have picked up on the fact that the Arrow engines had a reputation of crankcase failure. Then they would want to "start afresh".
When I ran the Arrow engine I put all of it into an old Ninja JX crankcase (OS). I was happy with that, it ran pretty good.

The Go GX crankcase is a very solid crankcase, and I've never seen one fail.
So it makes sense to make this engine with an improved crankcase.

Furthermore all the new engines now seem to come with low CG heads. They've put a low CG head on this as well. I think that's a good idea.
So basicly they've gone with their concept, and improved it technically to be better quality/reliability and lower CG.

In terms of what it is, it's a nice engine, if you ask me.
Basicly a knockoff of OS VZ-B, an engine that people liked. I'd be tempted to get one if I found one at a good price.
The porting won't be the same and the crank is a bit more basic, but it has similar timing.

1. That's the nature of doing business.
2. Those distributors are likely to be the same ones that pick up this line of engine

...but this isn't a copy of a china copy.
This is the same company, Go, making an improved version of the same engine, under a different brand, so that people will give it another chance.

I'm quite convinced that with this crankcase the engine will last 2x longer, because that's the part that was breaking.
The crankshaft also looks to be improved, and the low CG head will be something that people want.

I actually have one of the trackstar .28 (which is a .25) which is sold by HobbyKing and made by Go. Its essentially a Go sport .25 with turbo head. Honestly I would be hard pressed to believe you would find a better option for twice the cost. Compared to some of the other motors this thing has motor bottom end and mid range. Not nearly as much as my Alpha .23 but it is definitely more powerful then dynamite .24xp and even my O'donnell .21 but does not have the top end of the .21. It starts easy and tunes easy and holds a tune. I am not saying it could be race motor but using for some club races it should be competitive.

My point is that some of those knock offs are pretty good. In some cases maybe as good as what they are knocking off. I know some of the OS motors have crank issues and the Arrow crank would fix those issues. Kind of funny.

El Vind you realize the company that makes this motor is the same company you said you would never buy a product from?

If Arrow had a case problem, fix it. Do not forget when you put a engine in the market, some poor soul would spend a portion of their salary buying it. HOPEFULLY, IT IS A GOOD MOTOR. By changing to another brand, simply a fact of denial. That's what I call cheating.

Go Engine may simply try to dump it's crap to consumers and did some cosmetically change to it. Hey. New name. Brand new. No problem anymore. I find it ridiculous.

...but they did fix it.. and changes are not cosmetic.. new crankcase, new crankshaft.. new low CG head.. that's not cosmetic.. that's technical, structural changes.. so what's the problem you see in that?

Also, did you think that perhaps this might be an OEM product?
Much like other companies like Bullitt, LRP or RB order their engines made by Novarossi, Picco or OS, this might be a case of a company having ordered an engine manufactured for them under their name. These people might not have anything to do with Arrow at all.
They might have said: "we want an engine of such and such stroke, with a low CG head, and a better crank case"

I don't think any of us know anything about this company and as such can't say for sure what it is.
If you look at their pipe, the EFRA 2106, it says on the EFRA document:
http://news.efra.ws/fileadmin/docume...nov%202013.pdf
"EFRA 2106 HsiChia Co. Ltd / Weiken"

That would appear to be the "Weiken" that people are listing as the company behind the Atom engines.

I am with Eivind, just because Go makes it doesnt mean it is a Go product. Same thing with Rb and Nova, Rb has Nova make them to their specs. Go did have the Cera which was a short stroke but they decided for some reason to not sell them.

Rex

The engine market is so saturated unless someone releases an engine on par with Nova and OS for $100 I just don't see any of these new companies selling enough product to stay afloat.

ATOM is the engine brand of WEIKEN Racing as JS Racing is the engine brand of Global Hobbies.

The VORTEX is not a assembly of GO parts but the assembly of parts manufactured by GO with the ATOM specifications.

The engine market is saturated by rebadged engines but there are also some people who realy work to offer new engines as ATOM, PRECIROTATE, ARGUS, SOAR, etc... let them a chance !!!

I was not trying to stop them from having their chance. If they can succeed than more power to them. I'm just saying there are allot of great engines on the market right now that are not selling and it's strictly because there are allot of great engines on the market right now. There is only 2 ways that I see to crack into the market with an engine brand. 1. Make it better than anything else out there like FX is doing or 2. Make it decent but so cheap that people will at least try it. A good running engine that gets ample runtime, is easy to tune and lasts 4-5 gallons for $100 would fly off the shelves.

I agree with Jaz240 in some of the points he brought up. These company simply don't stay afloat for long. We are wiling to give a chance to anyone. We are consumers. I did have a couple of Arrows it ran great for that price. I have no problems so far. Now this. Atom have better engine than Arrow. Arrow had problems. So why didn't Arrow notify it's distributor and give out replacement. That's what I call good customer service.

when Jaz240 mention about FX. I would have no doubt buying one. Xray have great customer service. I am sure if we had a problem, XRAY would do anything to replace it or whatsoever. Just like what they did with their cars.

So all these companies. OEM for different company ?. All based in the same area. Not from different countries. I doubt it. I bet they are from the same company. Well today Arrow, tomorrow Atom, what's next ? Alibaba. If all these belongs to Go. Give the consumers a break. Please make great motor, great price and please be responsible over what you put in market. When there's problems. Be responsible and provide after sales services.

I am buying a OS XZB 2 engine next.

I find it odd that people keep hammering GO for producing rebranded engines, yet make no mention of Novarossi, Picco, OS, etc. that do the same thing. There's probably 30 different "brands" that are made by Novarossi, and most of those are nothing but rebranded Novarossi products, usually based on the P5.

Or an aggressive marketing campaign and a large fan base.

Imbue, we are not hammering. OEM is just fine. From Fusion, Bullit or else.
It just this thread admit there's a problem and now rebrand which I find it ridiculous. It is better now !

So everyone with a Arrow had a problem goes back to VP Pro USA now. I presume they still have engine in stock. I wonder how they react now ? One to one exchange to Atom. What if VP Pro isn't the distributor of Atom ? What if tomorrow Atom had issues again. Then Alibaba new OEM again. Come on.

EG Toyota and Lexus had a problem. They rename it ? To Toyoda No. Toyota came back stronger. Recall, repair, guarantee else.
Apple had great customer service though Samsung took a chunk of the market.

That's what consumer like to see now. It's dollars and cents. It is not free. I just don't see OEM is a way out of doing things better. Go or it's distributor should admit the problem and remedy the issue.