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I've seen it mentioned that the drivetrain of the Aristocraft Dolphin is compatible with the Samurai. Since I am currently rebuilding a Samurai and needed a few things I ordered a Dolphin gear set and front diff.

I'll keep the Dolphin parts on the right and Samurai on the left

First thing I found is that the idlers seem to be totally compatible.
The Dolphin lacks a center diff, but I believe the cluster gear would be a perfect substitute if you were desperate or wanted to lock it up
The diff in the bag I bought is from the later upgraded dolphin, and is substantially wider than the samurai. I do not know if the older version was the same or not. So this part is incompatible at least with the reinforcement plates installed.
Next up is the sprocket and adapter, and these are identical
Lastly, the front diff. The long output shaft is longer on the Dolphin by a couple mm. The short one appears to be the same. The plastics are usable but you will need to shim up the long side approx 1mm and shave off the flange on the short side. I needed this as my front diff had some issues and it worked very well.

I had some NIP packs of Marui and Aristocraft parts...
You may add the small bevel gears are technically identical. The color slightly differs, but you can drop in the bevel gears from Aristocraft in a Samurai diff (of Ninja/Shogun/Coors except the two later ones were metal ones) and vice versa.
I've never seen a diff mounted, but the NIP I got are including a Diff gear which is similar to the Samurai rear diff (maybe first version).

Looking at the parts next to each other does it look like they came from the same molds ?

I'd say no, while very similar there are some differences including where the sprues attach. They are very well copied though, just adjusting for their own design like the offset of the front diff.

Well... They may have used the original Marui design. Likely modify the original parts and build a mould for it. As long as you have working design, conical bevel gears are defined by 3 things mainly : Number of teeth input, numer of teeth output and the mod. Everything else is defined from there. You could argue the pressure angle is part of the equation, but most of the times the default pressure angle is used.

But here it is very clear when you look at the parts that the design was done using the Marui design as a basis (too much similarities between the parts to be a coincidence...

The design of the whole Dolphin leans very heavily on the Samurai , the modular layout of components is the same , even the mounting of the bumper is the same design , the rear gearbox (disregarding quality control) may actually be better .
I think the question that's been most often asked is was there any cooperation or purchase of rights involved or was it just design theft ?

The design of the whole Dolphin leans very heavily on the Samurai , the modular layout of components is the same , even the mounting of the bumper is the same design , the rear gearbox (disregarding quality control) may actually be better ?
I think the question that's been most often asked is was there any cooperation or purchase of rights involved or was it just design theft ?