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

I just picked up a 2012 Honda HS928K1WA. I just replaced my Yamaha YS828 and am clueless  on Honda's Hydro-static trans..

How do you use it?? If I put it is what would be speed 3 and engage the clutch it clunks and does an instant engagement. There is no slipping the clutch so to speak no matter how slow I engage it or how fast.  OR do I have to always have to have it in neutral and ease it up to speed every time I have to start out. If so, that would suck. HELP!!

The meager  snowfall in Minneapolis gave me some user time on my Honda, I did 3 driveways. Here is what I found out with that very very short time of use.  I found that I need to always be around  1/4 throttle to engage the trans. Going from fwd to rev is great and is fluid.   I am having a hard time relearning the right hand shoot turning handle. It seems just SO unnatural. Time will change that. With such little wet snow I have only that to go by on how this Honda is compared in performance  to my Yamaha. As it sits with this snowfall I feel the Yamaha can throw snow farther, and has more torque,  but it is a new tight motor, so I will have to give it time to break-in the motor.
I did do some heavy load runs on a bike path next to my house. I would throw snow directly in front of the snowblower so I could put a nice load on the motor to start the proper high load piston ring break-in procedure. If we have wimpy snowfalls and I can't get a good load on the machine I will keep doing the bike path runs so I can break the motor in right. I will be doing my first oil change today.

I did notice that the Honda has a very conservative governor system.  After about 5 hours of break-in time I think I will turn up the rpm another 200rpms. Depending on how the governor system is designed, this may help that issue out.

In order to be familiar with Janes publications you need to be a defense contractor or someone who watches news a lot. :D

Whoha wrote:
Whoha,
"high load piston ring break-in procedure" seems really interesting and exotic.  It would be great if you can take a CT scan pre and post of the procedure since intra-operative MRI maybe too dangerous.

:D That is how people in MN talk? All technical...

There are specific ways that are tried and true "in the real world " of engine building and are considered  "best practices". Believe  it or not, it gets to the common at large community and it is completely opposite of the best practices way of doing things because they think the manual is right and nothing can deviate from it.  It is because  people completely believe the manual and the service guy/manager as gospel.  I use to build engines for or car club and was going to become an engine machinist before I went down another fork in the road when I was younger.  When I was younger and before the internet, I had a 20 minute conversation on engine building and break-in procedure  with Mario Andretti's chief engine builder when Mario was just after his prime.  This  break-in procedure is time tested and is done by all high performance engine builders to date and works right down to your lawnmower, or should I say snowblower because you would have to fill the bag and get the mower deck full of grass mulch to load that machine.

Honda Marine had massive issues with badly broken in marine engines because of following the "baby a new motor" scenario.  They were getting a ton of engines "making oil" because the rings did not get seated from the "baby a new motor" procedure of breaking-in. They then told those people, change your oil,  go do a ton of zero to full throttle starts to load the rings to finally break the rings in right. They only do the babying way of break-in because if a motor is overly tight you could have an issue on their end for warranty on 5,000  to 30,000 units, it is an actuarial  issue to them.


Rod and crank bearings are broken in in about 10 to 15 minutes of running. Most of these small engines have no true bearings and use the actual material  of the rod itself as the bearing, except small rodend bearings at best. Then your break-in is all about seating piston rings and the ONLY way to do that is high load. When I built my motors I would let them run for 5 minutes before taking to the streets, then after 20 minutes of driving with some light loading at low rpm I would go to this large double hill in my area. I would be in second gear and go up the hill and be at WOT and keep the rpms at 4,000 with my foot in the brakes. I would do this about 6-8 times multiple times as not to piss off the home owners and even do it on flat areas to load the rings. That is what they do on the dyno when they break-in race motors.  Breaking-in a motor is all about seating the piston rings,  Period! Then you go home and dump the oil. Millions of very fine metal particals from the cylinder cross hatching that are getting worn off are  are smaller then 10 micron  are passing through your filter at this time. The most wear on a motor is in it's first hours of life. 

It is not a secret, but here is one of many who know the right way to do it. Example second link.


http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

http://www.helmethairblog.com/tips-and-tricks/how-to-break-in-your-engine-the-proper-way/


Another scenario are car and truck brake break-in or bedding.  The common person ( and some service managers)  think you have to baby brakes to brake them in.  Wrong, the way to do "best practices"  break-in procedure is run them for about 15 mins driving around town. Then you need to do hwy runs of 60 to 70 mph down to zero multiple times to smoke your brakes. You could  have a lot  of smoke coming off your brakes and the average person has to pick the right place and time to do this. ( that is why they don't tell you to do this, it could be dangerous for most people to do)  You must not stop after this and let the brake pads sit at a stop sign or park your car. You must then drive to cool down your brakes to a common driving temperature. As per link.

http://www.zeckhausen.com/bedding_in_brakes.htm



Things are not always as they seem, and what the manufacture tells you is not always right, EVEN if it is in the manual.  The right way can have safety issues and $$ issues for manufactures,  so the common guy gets the wrong procedure that is cast into folklore as the right way to do it. When it is not the best way to do it.

.

You sound like a true professional as I am totally out of your league on this.  Whatever you said sounds interesting and special; I just wish I had some serious CPU to understand it all.  Perhaps trouts or Borat can explain your statements for a common person to understand it.

Whoha wrote:
YOU, are one of those people who imagine that YOU have all the answers, so the real question is why are YOU here asking anybody anything, since YOU claim to know Far More than the Honda Engineers who built the Best Snowblower anyone in America can buy ?  That transmission is the best power control design on two stage snowblowers, and it is child like in its operation, requiring only the reading of the owners manual to grasp, or the simple use of it but one time.   Asinine would be buying a device you consider asinine in design, and then belly-aching about it in an effort to impress everyone about all you know about such machines. I bought the same machine after learning it was far and away the superior design for snowblowers, despite the added cost of that superior design.  I applaud the Honda engineers and design professionals for building a better mousetrap, and I love the machines ability and performance which seems to coincide with every owners review I've ever read, except for yours.

New_Yorker wrote:
That about sum it up.  The mousetrap is obviously flawed but Dr. Who will make it better with Formula 1 race proven practices. 

At least there is an evidence that Whoha actually owns a said snowblower and not like New_Yorkers and his friendly ghost friends with imaginary snowblowers.

aa335 wrote:
Better watch out Bernie Ecclestone might want to sue you for suggesting that someone else use his precious Formula One race proven practices. 

You might have figured I am not a big Bernie fan