For a good many decades, the styling of small gasoline engine appearance appeared to me to remain pretty static. I seem to remember old Clinton, Briggs and Stratton and other engines with stamped steel covers that looked pretty much the same. Then in the later 1990s or so, my impression is that Honda came on the scene with it's plastic top that looked kind of aerodynamic, or at least had a different and distinctive appearance. Other engine makers adopted that style and now that seems to be very widespread, if not universal. Honda seems to have entered the market and leads it in terms of perception of quality over Briggs, Tecumseh and such. I see other small engine manufacturers like Kawasaki that seem to have a good reputation as well. From reading various threads, a lot of people are down on Tecumseh as an engine. Briggs seems to have a good reputation among you small engine guys. Where do Honda, Kawasaki and others fit in? And what about "Chinese engines" I am hearing about but haven't seen? Perhaps someone can explain some of these issues to me.

Hi. I have a model EC-10 saw that I found at the dump 10 years ago, and I've been using all these years. I know they have been out of business probably 20 or 30 years, but sometimes there are people or places that might have some parts or better yet, an oweners, or a parts list or diagram. It is a great saw, but I need to rebuild part of the friction/slip drive assembly, and I need to see how it origenaly looked like as it was pretty beat up when I found it. I thank you in advance. Sid