Originally Posted by
jester_s1
I knew the FX series had issues with liners peeling. I haven't heard about it nearly as much with the AX series. I'll agree with you that Novarossi is a top notch engine, definitely a step up from OS. Super Tigers were beasts, but a pain to tune. That's a moot point now though. I don't think of Jett as a competitor for OS given the much higher price. They are top of the line no doubt, but you can own 2 OS engines for the price of 1 Jett. It's a different type of customer.
FSR, SF, FX, FP, AX, and any other nickel plate (ABC “type”) engine they made is at risk of having OS’ cancer.
. Novarossi is on-par with price to Dub Jett - the difference between Dub Jett/Novarossi and OS - you get double the engine for the price. I call it value - the dollar is what you pay. The value is what you get.
Super Tigre a pain to tune? Only if you don’t read the instructions that tell you how to set the carburetor. Most people familiar with OS type carburetors will fail miserably tuning an ST carb. The two brands are not designed to be adjusted the same way. Only a select series of ST carbs were machined a little wonky - Pé Reviers had a write-up about how to fix this problem. But this problem was only evident on Early G2300 engines that I’m aware of.
OS knows they have a cult like following. They know they can manufacture on the edge of crap and people will still buy they’re stuff. Then when they (the end user) prematurely wear it out and are told they are at fault of the failure (liner peeling isn’t an operator error!) they need to spend $90-150 on a new piston/liner to get their $150 engine running again. So one OS AX II .46 made in China engine and a single replacement piston/liner set costs as much as a Dub Jett .46 engine that will last 10X longer than the OS and it will make 20% more power on the same fuel.
Buy an OS if you are okay with “good enough”. New bearings or piston and liner replacement in the first year of use is not “good enough” in my book. It’s closer to “rip-off”.
Now that the real Hobbico tanked, maybe Horizon will go down a better path with OS since the old Hobbico were real jewels when end users had problems - myself included. I wish I still had the emails from when I sent them a 2 gallon AX .46 (made in Japan no less) that peeled so bad there was more brass showing than nickel. Operator error/abuse was their story and they would replace the bad parts for 25% off their web store price. Yeah, okay.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.