Teardown: Harbor Freight Storm Cat or Tailgator generator review 

I'm always amazed at the number of parts and processes that go into a product like this for $89.

The voltage on generators is set high intenionally. It's assumed no one will be running these inside with devices plugged directly into it. They expect people to use extension cords. So generator's I have to they are set high to compensate for voltage drop.

I read all the things that this generator was suppose to run on the box under 900 watts so I bought one and found out it was all a lie.. When I opened the box the first thing I saw was in big letters "6 AMPS MAX" People you can't run anything on 6 amps max except a couple of light bulbs and a box fan. All modern drills, skill saws, battery chargers you name it is 10 to 15 amps or more. The writing on the box is sucker bait.

You "reviewed" this but didn't run it?

Changed spark plug and put a fuel filter on it when I got mine 3 years ago I have put thousands and thousands of hours of run time and then some on it and is still going today great compression runs like a champ and also have always ran it Rich from day on well worth the money

Can you imagine how many generators are made like this in one year? Say what you want about these generators but for around 100 bucks, it's pretty clear that the quality is nice for the price point.

Generators like these have been made for about 4 decades in about 50 to 100 ? ? 200? ? models and brands The design came from a Yamaha ET650 AND ET950 of about 10 years ago, before that the Yamaha ET600. The Yamaha specs for a ET650 are output 0.8 KvA Rated and 0.96KvA max. and often with a 12 volt DC 8.3 amp out to charge car and motorcycle batteries. The grandfather of all these was a Yamaha ET500 back in 1979 that was 0.5kVa rated, brushless too. It has a tank that looks slightly different, the later Yamaha's tank looks similar to todays clones. My Homier unit from about 2006 has the 12 volts 8.3 amp DC extra plug and wire/clamps to charge batteries, plus an AC voltmeter, came with an extra plug that I still have not used yet. The original Yamaha units had specs that were valid, todays clones are often marketing BS, the peak often fibbed. What the generator cares about is Volt Amperes, not watts. Thus a folks often wonder why these often may or may not run a 5000 BTUH AC unit. The amps running are often 4.5 to 6 amps but the locked rotor amps on the compressor is typically 25 amps. It is marginal. An AC unit that is undercharged with refrigerant draws less amps, plus cool ambient drops the amps too.

They put in a 20 amp plug because they got a good price on them

That carb was made by the same company that made the jug on the piston your welcome and that company makes carburetors for everything especially bike motor kits

Best deal around for 89 bucks, I've had one for about 8 years now and all I've done is cleaned a little bit of metal out of the carburetor and replaced the spark plug.

We have used the

Thanks for taking the time to tear that down and show us.

I have 3 of the blue version of this one. They are great. I changed the spark plug and run a good synthetic oil. I mix the oil somewhere between 50:1 and 40:1. My oldest one had 300+ hrs on it when I stopped keeping track. The scoring you saw is likely contaminants from the machining process. Adding oil before you start it won't do anything. Plus being a 2 stroke it gets oil as soon as it starts.

Great review. Just subscribed to your channel. I like the honest reviews and tear down videos. Good stuff man.

I was waiting for you to put it back together and start it. AVE style 😁

Thanks for the video, I'll keep running my little 1500 watt Coleman that I bought in 1995, no telling how many 100s of hours it's been used, oil changes and stabil has been a plus.

The bearing is not ONO, instead of that read aside OZO

Thanks for the video. I bought one 3 years back, added an hour meter to it; just crested 200+ hours and still going. Clearly not a commercial unit but doesn’t hurt to give it maintenance every once in a while. Wear a beer hat next time. 😏

I have a pair of these and to be honest, I am not real nice to them as far as service goes. I would go as far as to say the reason I got a 2 cycle generator is because there is essentially no service involved with them. I run them on the same premix I run my chain saws on, which is ethanol free premium gas and I think the premix bottles are 32:1. When I am done with them for the day I unplug the load and turn off the petcock and run the carb out of gas. I have never changed or cleaned the plugs. I have never had an issue with the fuel line. One of them sits in the shed behind the house, and I have a 10 ga extension cord running into the house that terminates next to the outlet strip the living room runs off of. If the power fails, and we live in a rural area so the power does fail on a pretty regular basis, it is easy to unplug the outlet strip from the wall and plug it into the extension cord. BTW, the reason they use a 20A outlet on the generator is twofold. One is so any extension cord will fit into it. You really don't wanna be stuck with an extension cord that will not plug into your generator. And second, you want to use a heavy extension cord because you don't have a lot of power so you want to get it to where you use it and not heat up the wire along the way. The one in the shed fires up the cable modem, the router, the big TV, the ROKU stick, the stereo, our notebooks, and a couple lamps with 9W LED's in them. The other one of these I have I have used for many back woods building projects, running alternately a small air compressor and chop and table saw. You need to give the saws a few seconds to spin up before using them, and you get so you have a good feel for how hard you can push them before the breaker on the generator will pop. I also do display fireworks and in the past have used this generator to run a pair of 500W portable halogen lights to illuminate the field when we tear down after a show. The generator will run a pair of these if you turn one on, and than the other. I have a

Very detailed video, and interesting to see a tiny generator as opposed to the larger ones that I see often. Thanks for taking the time to share it with us!