Total Motorcycle Community Forums

Gummiente wrote:

HYPERR wrote:Where did you hear this? Suzuki makes their own motors.

http://www.wonjanmoto.com/

Oh yes. However to say that they make motors for Suzuki is only half truth and somewhat misleading. Of course a company in a third world country is going to milk the "fact" that they "build" engines for a first rate motorcycle company in Japan.

The engines that are built are for small bikes that the majority of it are intended for sale in third world countries.

They are not building engines the way Rotax was building engines for BMW or Yamaha was building engines for MZ.
They are merely manufacturing Suzuki engines to Suzuki specs under Suzuki supervision for the lower end Suzukis.
This is done mostly to save money as the labor in an highly industrialized country like Japan is way too high compared to labors in third world countries.
Wonjan saying they build motors for Suzuki is equivalent to American Honda Motor Corp saying they build engines for Honda Limited. I'm sure the Chinese threw out tons of red tape preventing Suzuki from creating their own factory in China and mandating this set-up to be used if they want to sell bikes in China.

Rest assured Suzuki would never trust Wonjan to build an engine like the GSXR motors or pretty much any substantial bike slated for North America, Europe, Japan, and other industrialized markets.

This is a totallly different scenario from Lifan who basically outright steal engine blueprints from Honda, building vastly inferior unlicensed clones of their engines, and constantly getting sued by them.

Lovely little lesson there, Hyper, but you based it on an incorrect interpretation of what I said. I was referring to the motor in the Johnny Pag motorcycle only, not the whole freakin' Suzuki lineup. Give me some credit for spending the last 27 years around bikes.

Gummiente wrote:Lovely little lesson there, Hyper, but you based it on an incorrect interpretation of what I said. I was referring to the motor in the Johnny Pag motorcycle only, not the whole freakin' Suzuki lineup. Give me some credit for spending the last 27 years around bikes.

I know that you know what you are talking about bud.

I just wanted to clear it up for the less informed so they don't interpret this as meaning that Wonjan is actually a good engine builder.

High_Side wrote:Welcome back....it's been a while and it's great to hear that you are still riding. No more VFR?

I had to sell the VFR, the size of the bike got to me with the MS. The seat height was 32" and with my leg strength diminishing I couldn't push the bike back anymore

My Spyder's seat is at 20" and is half the weight at 360 lbs.

mswarrior wrote:

High_Side wrote:Welcome back....it's been a while and it's great to hear that you are still riding. No more VFR?

I had to sell the VFR, the size of the bike got to me with the MS. The seat height was 32" and with my leg strength diminishing I couldn't push the bike back anymore

My Spyder's seat is at 20" and is half the weight at 360 lbs.

I'm glad to hear that you are still riding.

Cheers,

High_Side

Ha, you got me interested so I went to their site. Immediately I noticed the bikes were all sporting radiators, so I was no longer interested.

Also, I noticed they tout" Liquid cooled engine (No overheating!!)" on every description of each of their models. Funny as helll. Of all the air-cooled bikes I've run I've never over-heated one, yet I've seen some fellows with their liquid cooled engines do just that when things were not operating as they should (pumps/fans). LOL.

Otherwise, their bikes are OK, I suppose... havn't any actual experience with that make.

There was a review in one of the Cycle rags not too long ago. I'll see if I can find it and tell you which issue it was. Basically they felt the frames were passable and the engines were ok. Rear shocks were a joke. Chinese bikes don't exactly conjure up images of fine craftsmanship and reliability. For that kind of money you are in striking distance of a new Rebel or any number of great used bikes on Craigslist, and still have money left for some gear.