The Chafga Chinese Engines

[T19]

Anyone have experiance with them?  I was thinking of getting one to drive a Seed cold press so I can harvest some clean veg oil to drive my Lister.

[rocket]

i ran a 10hp chinese changfa diesel in a genset i threw together for 10 days. it was during this time i made my mind up that i wanted a lister. the engine ran well enough, but my gut feeling was it was only good for a few thousand hours before i needed to learn how to fix it and expected i would need to do alot of fixing if i were to run it for years. the chinese engine is many times louder than the lister also. the only advantage i see in the changfa is the weight. my suggestion is to power the seed press with the lister

[hotater]

T-19---
I have a Lister, some mini-Petters and Changfas, but have only 'worked' the MPs and Lister.  My *impression* of the Chanfa is of a short-legged guy in gaudy shorts running a race, but he's not sure how long it is.  They're powerful and very 'urgent' in exhaust note.  They 'hammer' instead of 'thud'.
   The sheet metal is thin and won't last too long, but most everything about them could be re-done, re-placed or re-designed.....and RE-painted!
  I have a pump project that might benifit from a Changfa and I may put one to the test before committing a more sedate and elegant MP or Lister to the task.
  For horsepower they're certainly worthwhile.  For coolnes  they come up short, IMO.

[cujet]

I have one of those 3.3HP Changfa clone engines. Jiang Dong is the brand. It is the old "redlands" engine. What a pile of junk. It is so far out of balance it makes one wonder. The Chinese did not see fit to match the parts correctly. Kinda hard to believe. In any case, my plan is to disassemble the engine and balance it. Install quality bearings and do the best I can with the other low quality parts. It is likely this engine will never become reliable. However I expect to learn something about small diesel engines and whether or not it makes any sense.

I plan on driving an automotive alternator with it. Charge a 12V battery and run an inverter. Not sure why, other than I have the stuff to do it. I have become convinced of one thing. A hybrid system like this is really more capable, and, probably more efficient than a straight generator of equally low power.

Chris

[cujet]

Well the learning has started. Note: the engine has never had any sort of load, save a few minutes of 2X4 rubbing against the flywheel and just a few hours run time no load.

We took the engine apart today. There is one cam lobe that has serious wear on it. The crankshaft ball bearings are shot. The lifters are worn, the overall condition is crap. What is most interesting though is the crankshaft counterweight. It has nowhere enough weight. We did a quick and dirty static balance today (and I forgot to add in the big end weight), but nevertheless the counterweight on the crank is far short of the engines needs. I am not sure this can be made up. Adding lead or tungsten steel is probably not going to be enough!

The good news is that the engine seems to have decent fuel injection components.

NEVER purchase one of these, unless you understand the engine needs many, many hundreds of dollars work first!

Chris

[hotater]

Cujet---

Can we make it plain the engine you're talking about is NOT a Chanfa as the thread suggest?  I have Chanfas and they're Chinese, and it shows, but internally they're spot on.

I just want to guard against too broad a generic term that would tarnish a good engine. 

Dependable horsepower per dollaris a good way to judge work engines and these have a great ratio.

[cujet]

While the engine I have is a Jiang Dong brand, it is similar in design to a Changfa. That is why I brought it up.

Not sure Changfa could engineer out the flaws this engine has. Maybe George at Utterpower has a good point when he says that he prefers the engines with internal counterbalancers.

Chris

[hotater]

Chris--

I understand your point but we're talking about several different makes of COPY engines.  Copied from the Germans and Italians, mostly.

Tale of three guns--- In 1910 Smith & Wesson introduced what would later be called the Model 10 Military and Police revolver.  It sold for less than fifty dollars until about 1960....then S&W became part of a Brazilian sugar company, Bangor Punta Corp.  The new owner bought new equipment and tooling and sold the old to a scrap dealer in Brazil....who SUDDENLY became Taurus Firearms which in short order introduced the Taurus Model 10 on an order of crudeness similar to comparing a Triumph Dresden engine with a Changfa.  About 1995 Taurus sold all the old equipment and tooling to an outfit in the Phillipines who, evidently, didn't get the forging stuff because they're making parts out of diecast potmetal.  They call it the Model 10.  From ten feet away I'd probably identify the gun as a S&W M-10, but I'd be wrong.  The *design* is the same. Now a new company in Brazil (maybe the one that bought the drop forge and dies) has introduced a Model 10 that looks like it was machined with a chain saw and finished with a hatchet.

Quite frankly, its for the dealer's sake I'm trying to keep "Changfa" from becoming a generic term for "Chinese copy of something".  They are a specific make of engine that's proved their value.   Another *make* is another engine, so I guess if 'Listeroid' is generic for a Lister copy engine, maybe we can use 'Chinese Single' to denote the Oriental copies of the European engines.  Some are pretty good pieces of iron, but are covered with blue and red metalflake paint made for the Rickshaw trade, I'm sure.  It would be a shame for one of the best of the makers to be damaged by being too successful !!

 Wait til you see a couple done in dark hunter green with brass fittings and the sheetmetal redone....I have a horizonal 6HP single with a 2 inch copper exhaust stack.  I came around the canyon rim on the ATV when the R-175 engine was running down below and thought my old Matchless 500 Flat-tracker had been ressurrected and was just hooking up and lifting the front tire out of turn two!!!

My "Hammer handle Dyno" says the Chanfa's six horses are stronger than the six Indian ponies of the Listeroid.

[veitchy]

The trouble with Chinese engines is getting one made by a factory that knows what they are doing!
I went to the Canton trade fair in Guanzhou China in 2004 and there was literaly dozens of engine makers their making the same design engines. They weren't ripping off foreign designs, they were ripping off each other. One factory makes a successful design (usualy with some foreign input and sometimes licence), so another one will get one of these and copy it. Then someone else will get one of those and copy that. Somewhere in all the coppying things get cheapened to the point it wont work properly. They have done the same with the Honda petrol (er gas to you blokes I surpose) engines. You can by some of those out of China that are just as well made as the Japanese version, or you can buy them in any quality with matching price down to the cheapest rubbish you want. Unfortunatly for the Chinese westerners go their only looking for "cheap" and cheap is what they get.  There is no such thing as copright in China, if you can make money out of coppying it then it is OK to do what ever you want.

Its real interesting to see whats going on over there,
Graham

[veitchy]

Just to point to what a "GOOD" Chinese engine can do. When we were in Shenzen on the way back to Hong Kong we stayed next to a building site (the whole of China is a building site) and they had an engine (no idea of the make) working there driving a 3 cylinder compressor for air on the site (jack hammers ect). We were there for 4 days and because they work shifts and don't ever stop work on the site this engine was going day and night full power the entire time we were there. It looked like it was about 10 years old and I recon it would have done tens of thousands of hours of hard work. the problem for us is instead of getting this type of engine our western buyers are getting the cheapest they can find. These engines don't look a lot different but if they spent 20% more on buying a quality machine they would get a quality increase of 500%

[DirtbikePilot]

I have an actual "Changfa" 10 hp yanmar copy and another on my parents' generator that looks like the others that are for sale on ebay. That one is not a changfa. The quality on both seems every bit as good as the actual japanese engine. It LOOKS like it was made in japan. They both run far more smoothly than the cast iron engines with horizontal cylinders and sound much better too. I don't have any significant hours on either one, but I will this summer after I build the motorcycle for the changfa. I intend to put some serious miles on that sucker.

[rocket]

before i discovered listers, i built a genset from a the same 10hp changfa you are talking about. i ran my home on it for 10days straight to get and idea of what it would be like if the stuff hit the fan. it is noisey as heck. runs way fast and had a hard quick vibration i didnt care for. i admit i had no problems with it.. but my level of comfort was not high.. my estimate was 1000 hours before it would die. the lister is bigger, but quiter, smoother, more heavy duty and my comfort level is way high. no way i would run a chinese diesel stationary after running them both. for a motorcycle.. i think the changfa could be fun.. and if you get 1000 hours on a bike before having to pull it.. they are  cheap enough to replace.

[DirtbikePilot]

I have no problems with how it sounds at 1800 rpm. At 3600 rpm it is obnoxious. Mine sounds really quiet and smooth at 1800, but I still like the listers way better.

[oldnslow]

If you are talking about the Changfa made water cooled horizontal single with internal balancing, then IMHO it is a very nice engine. Built a genset with a ZS1115GM 20HP engine, direct coupled to a 10KW alternator all from George B. The engine is much much closer to what you would expect to buy in the US out-of-the-box. Clean, well built, just add oil fuel and water, check adjustments and for minor leaks, bleed the air and it pops off first time. Burns clean, lots of reserve torque. 300hrs so far. Of course it is louder than the Lister but the trade offs are, well you already know them. It's 195 cousin is smaller but almost identical. Depending on which seed press you are thinking of getting, you most likely would be happy with a 195. Hope that helps a little.

[trigzy]

They're talking about a 10HP aircooled, Vertical cylinder, direct injection ~400cc engine

http://61.132.92.53/p1-1-1.php?id=83&kind=air-cooled%20diesel%20engine