Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

I have a 1990 Echo lawn mower with 4.5 horse power at 2900 rpm, 140cc two cycle engine (I believe built by Suzuki).  It's been a great mower although has somewhat slow self propelled speed.  Lots of cutting power but slow.  This weekend, I gave the mower a bit of a make over.  Cleaned the bottom down to bare aluminum, painted it, greased wheels, lubed drive gears, pulled the carb, air filter and muffler to clean each.  Put it all back together with a bit of an adjustment to the governor.  No problem with speed now.  I can throttle the engine from 1800 idle right up to 6000 rpm.  Machine seems to be handling it very well.  No more vibration than running at 2900 rpm but much, much more power and speed.  It's has a clutch to engage the blade so I can set the machine to run at a specific rpm before engaging the blade.  I find it most comfortable to use between 4500 and 5000 rpm.  At 6000, I have to jog behind it.  Here's a clip of the engine running after the adjustments:

clint wrote:

I see your point Clint.  Today's products are optimized so close to the safety margins that I am cautious to stress a product beyond manufacturer's cautions and warnings.  Although I'm really fed up with all the safeguards that are on modern lawn mowers.  I'm going to get carpel tunnel trying to hold on to all these bails and levers so that the damn thing will cut grass.

Wasn't blade brake clutch introduced not too long after mandate that requires mowers to have flywheel brake and ignition shutoff when operator is not pulling on a lever?

clint wrote:

And your reasons for not sharing your vast store of knowledge and experience with the group is??????