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

well folks a tied up the briggs rep and made him fess up on the sno engines.

there are 3 real horsepower ranges.

the small one is fron 6 to 8.5 horse...actually 8 horse i beleive not positive on this

the 9 to 12 horse units ...actually 12 horse

last is 13 horse  and it is closer to 14 horse

and almost all of them are cast iron bore.

the snappers are all cast iron  bore according to the tech.

thare have been no service manuals on the inteck engines since april of 2002,and there is no info on them that is any newer than that.

this is why there is so much controversey on it.

briggs never thought that they would have the success with the engine that they did,things just worked out real well for them.

they plan to get the numbers RIGHT for next season...and you guessed it ...it will be cubic inches not horsepower.

later chris

Hi Nibbler,

I don't think it could have been any better stated than in your post  I also believe we should not be so quick to let the engine manufacturers off the hook and buy their ridiculous excuses, which is just a tap dance in my mind.  It sends the wrong message to them, and keeps the door open allowing them to continue to find different ways to deceive us. 

snowshoveler wrote:

Hi guys!

 No disrespect intended to Chris and sorry to be contrary but that just ain't so. The Snappers come with the 20G4140111E1 1which is most definitely an aluminum bore engine. Reference the "G" designation on the Briggs & Stratton web site where they tell you how to decipher spec #s.

One of the problems I suppose is that the Briggs tech. may not be familiar with each and every detail of each and every engine that each OPE builder is using. When I first got involved with researching this topic I got far more accurate information speaking with the OPE builders tech. Reference my first post in the thread " Conversation with Simplicity" and you will see that the Simplicity guy gave all the correct information during one phone call.

I believe it to be unfair to ask the engine manufacturer questions about an individual piece of OPE's power plant without supplying him with the spec #. There are simply to many variables in the manufacture of one displacement size engine.

Marc   

Don't know if I want to get into a "horsepower" debate as I feel like a boy scout selling cookies to a religious cult, and will end up with a handful of pencils, but I'll throw my $.02 in for fun.

Horsepower, by itself without the RPM at which that horsepower is made is prone to be played with. Engine makers should quote an RPM figure with it, and to be totally honest, with most of these small engines which are governed to run at a set max speed, they should quote HP at the governed running speed.

Ideally, I'd like to see a torque vs RPM curve for the engine, and they can put HP on there if they wish, but engines only produce torque and RPM. HP is a man-made concept to supposedly simplify comparison of engines. It appears that has been played with by the manufacturers.

Agreed Highwind.

The thing that bothers me is, you can go get HP and torque charts for these different labeled engines that are really the same and the damn charts are made to lie. They'll show the HP and torque at certain RPM's and it will show a curve right to 9HP or 10HP or 12HP with corresponding torue figures. It appears that the charts and graphs themselves are just bold face lies, if you will. 

Marshall,

When they do what you've noted and the mechanical parts of the intakes, exhausts, pistons, displacements, and carb are the same then I'd agree they are fudging the numbers. I'd like to see them forced to adhere to a standard certified dynamometer test by an independant body that would rate the engines and produce the graph for a model with a set configuration. I'd like to have it tested in the configuration the end user has it, not what the manufacturer wants tested.

Take an outboard motor for example. You can produce two different curves for it depending on how you test it. Take the power head, remove the alternator, fuel pump, water pump and connect the power head itself to external fuel, cooling water and electricity and run it on the dynamo. Let's say it makes 25 HP. Take the same outboard but in the configuration the consumer buys it in (fully kitted with fuel, water pumps, alternator, gear box, right angle drive) and measure its HP at the propellor shaft. Lets say it only makes 20 HP. Which would you rather have as a consumer? To me the second one is what delivers the useable power and I'd say rate it as a 20, but the manufacturer could rate it as a 25.

Highwind wrote:
I would like that as well. Rate all of them at the output shaft of the engine. Or, have them all rated the the other way, I don't care as long as all of them are done the same from every manufacturer on every engine.

The problem with rating them at the blade shaft, on lawn tractors for example, is the a lot that HP is used up in the hydro transmission, some LT's may only have gear tranny's. It wouldn't be a fair comparison of the engine rating itself. I don't see any way a engine manufacturer could rate them as usable HP after the transmissions, they would have to have every tranny made and test them that way or, have them tested after the machine was built and that aint gonna happen. In outboard engines I can see them rating at the prop shaft though, the engine is assembled at the same plant, that wouldn't be a problem.

as i reported when i started this thread...my information comes from a factory technician.not a salesman.

the most important part to note is that the engines are newer than any information that is published anywhere that is available to the public.

i can go to the briggs site on the web and key in my own code and get a whole network that you folks have no idea of.

so you see there is the public website and a service web site and they are not the same...and guess which one is up to date.. MINE.

that being said briggs isnt going to acknoledge any wrongdoing anywhere.

and as for fudging numbers ...well how about the automakers,ever wonder why you dont get the advertised mpg ha ha i gave up that one.

later chris

Marshall wrote: Yeah, Marshall, that's for sure.  I sure wasted a lot of my time researching all these engine HP performance charts for nothing.  Well, it looks like I should also verify visually if my Tecumseh powered Toro snowblower engine really has the cast iron cylinder sleeve it's supposed to.  Man, will it ever end.

snowshoveler wrote:

Chris,

The EPA is responsible for that one.  Believe me, people are really getting tired of it too.

EPA   i have a new dodge with the hemi and on my trip home from the update ,after refueling (101 dollars).i had the cruise on and going down hill the computer in the roof display had the nerve to tell me i was getting 89 mpg. if i had of had a gun i would have shot me or the computer right then.

i thing im gonna quit all this and just grow some vegtables.

later chris