I've got something really important to show you guys.
Apparently,
Wyvang has two different molds. The point of identification is in the feather designs, opposite the jaw on the wheel's edge:
As you can see, Mold 1 (right) has a thicker, more closely packed feather, whereas mold 2 (left) has a feather with thinner, more protrusive "lumps."
Here's a closer look:
As you can see, the larger "lump" on the right hand side of the feather design from Mold 1 is considerably wider at its top than the lump from Mold 2. I don't have any super accurate measuring devices, but with a ruler and a little bit of caution, I found the length to be about 3 mm to 4 mm, with Mold 1's lump 1mm wider.
On top of that, each mold's feather seems to protrude at different lengths:
Mold 1's feather seems to be more tightly merged with the rest of the Chrome Wheel, while Mold 2's seems to be much more protrusive.
I don't have the best camera, and unfortunately, I don't have weights to identify any potential mass difference, but from looking at the parts themselves and measuring them, I'm absolutely convinced that there is a mold difference present here.
Now, the question is: are there performance differences between molds, and, if so, how drastic are they? Well, as Wyvang wears very quickly (especially Mold 2 I've noticed), and the fact I lack time right now, I can't post any formal testing, but I have done plenty of informal testing in the past (I've suspected something was up for a long time, seeing different Wyvangs of more or less the same condition pull completely different numbers in immediate succession, but I wasn't absolutely convinced until a couple weeks ago when I got a second Mold 2 and began testing), so I'll share my experience/estimates.
Mold 2 is definitely more aggressive. Without a doubt. It's got higher smash, and higher recoil than Mold 1. Mold 1 is more passive (still a very aggressive wheel without a doubt, but certainly not as aggressive as Mold 2), and has noticeably lower recoil.
Wyvang Attack win rates can range anywhere From 60 - 80% against MSF-H Revizer Revizer BD145RDF between people with near identical Flash benchmarks, which has been observed in the past. I now believe this is due to said users testing with different molds (those numbers are actually typically representative of the results I get in testing - 60% or thereabouts with Mold 1, and around 80% with Mold 2).
Another thing this would explain, would be the testing of Wyvang Wyvang BD145RSF. Ingulit and I were having conflicting results regarding Wyvang's defensive capacity. Ingulit has always gotten better results with Wyvang attack types than me (well, at least he did prior to the point I obtained a Mold 2 Wyvang), which most likely means he was testing with Mold 2, rather than the more passive Mold 1. That would mean that his Wyvang on a Defense setup, would have higher recoil than my Wyvang on the same one, which totally explains his description of the custom when he said it could "Possibly be KOed by an aggressively launched Stamina type," when was getting around 50% against Flash.
If he was using Mold 2s, as opposed to the Mold 1's I was using, his would have higher recoil, which would explain his results against Attack.
So yah, in a nutshell, Mold 1 is more passive, and gives both lower smash and lower recoil than Mold 2. Mold 2 is stunningly powerful on an Attack setup (I didn't know what Wyvang was capable of until I really started testing with a Mold 2, haha), and has higher recoil than Mold 1.
Again, a good presentation of the net difference between molds would be around a 20% gap on a 145 height Attack setup against conventional BD145 Defense, with Mold 2 netting a higher win rate.
Another question would be, is one more common than the other? Well, I don't know. I own 6 Wyvangs, and out of all of them, 4 are Mold 1s, and 2 are Mold 2s, so I would guess that Mold 2 is slightly more uncommon, but it could very well be a fluke, as only 6 wheels with a close ratio isn't much to go on.
So yah. There ya go. Unfortunately, the mold difference is pretty subtle visually (it's incredibly obvious in testing if you know what you're looking for), so you have to look closely to determine which mold you have (it's especially difficult to determine if you don't have both, since the easiest way to figure it out is to hold them up against each other).
If you only have one mold, the best way to determine which one it is, is to measure the larger lump on the feather (the one to the right). If it's about 4 millimeters, you've got yourself a Mold 1. If you get 3 millimeters, you've got a Mold 2 (I'm not sure which was actually produced first (for all we know, they may have been produced simultaneously), so I just labeled them "1" and "2" according to which one was "new" to me, haha).
If anyone has both "molds," and has time to test, some formal comparisons between them would be really cool.