I was searching for something else and came across this post. I see it is from 2017 so a lot has changed since this engine first came out.
For all who are curious about this 912, 915, and 145HP water cooled clone (still in testing), I can say from personal experience and knowledge of who and where their parts are made that ZS is doing a very very nice job. I have personally walked the production line, inspected the machining center, dyno rooms, R&D center, instructed the workers on how to assemble the engines with care and FEEL the engine as they assem it. They have spent millions in making sure that this engine is top of the line and better than ROTAX. YES, I can say that after seeing how they do it. The assembly line is totally state of the art with computers double checking all measurement before, during, and after assembly. The workers are highly trained and all have college degrees in engineering and have worked on the assembly lines for the thousands of engines they produce for Piaggio, Triumph, Daytona, 80% of lawn and garden machines produced in the world.
The boss and I went to Oshkosh 2 years ago so I can show him how critical it is that they do it right and who his will be. Home builders and manufacturers stake their lives and reputations on the engines they put in their aircraft and ain't no one gonna put a POS Chinese engine in their plane unless you can prove that it is worthy. Even then if they did prove it is worthy they are fighting ROTAX with way more years of service, parts and reputation behind them. Not that the 912 is problem free (originally made for the German fire department as a light weight, portable, water pump engine) it does have the reputation.
I also took him there to have him understand that he cannot just show up with some clone engine and people will run and buy it. I showed him that he needs to PROVE that his engine is reliable by testing the hell out of it for thousands of hours and YEARS before he thinks about showing anyone a sample. To date the drones they are in have been flying for more that 5000 hours and still going. And the few people that are flying gyros and trikes have had no issues. The test engines are removed and torn down every 500 hours.
Cylinders are made in the same factory that makes Polaris, KTM, Triumph, Arctic Cat, Suzuki, EMAC and many many more. The SIC coating is an Italian formula mixed by one of the top chemists from Italy. We have used the same factory for our cylinders and coating for the last 5 years (HPR 180 and 225 paramotor engine), 3 months ago we set the world distance record of 15 hours and 1250km and have thousands of accumulative hours on thousands of our engines worldwide. Not one has ever failed due to a bad coating or material issue. I personally taught the workers how to properly grind the cylinder edges and inspect the cylinders for any minor defects before and after coating and honing. The test equipment in the QC department are some of the best equipment that is avail.
Crankshafts are made in a Taiwan factory (3rd largest in China with 5 factories). That factory produces Piaggio, KTM, Polairs, Yamaha, BMW, Harley, our cranks and many many many many more.
Cons: They are not ready to sell to the public nor have the staff to do it. The SERVICE end is horrible. I was starting to get parts diagrams, lists, and prices to build a website and bring all the parts and turbo conversion kits to the world..... man what a bitch to get any info from them and I was not going to spend all that money only to find out that getting any parts would take forever and piss my customers off. So I gave up.
Thanks for reading...
P.S Yes I can get parts but it will not be sure fast. I am currently slammed working on a 570 2 stroke that will compete with the 582.
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