View Full Version : What's your favorite lawn mower engine?


Scott15
11-12-2004, 04:44 PM
I just what to know what engines everybody likes. Tell about which is the best. I know bugman's favorite engine. LOL

roperdude91
11-12-2004, 05:52 PM
briggs baby!
scott, why did you make a poll, and not vote yourself?

bbnissan
11-12-2004, 06:48 PM
I'll take Briggs & Stratton over all the others because they are dependable, easy to fix, and easy to find parts for.

Tecumsehs are too tempermental because the smallest things can make them run like crap. You get a valve 0.001 off of the spec and it will be hard as crap to turn over and you probably won't get it to run right. Do the same thing with a Briggs and it will run fine. Also, they are the hardest engines to get carbs set on. I don't know what it is, but I always spend 4x longer adjusting the carb out on a Tecumseh than I do on any other engine.

Honda use to be good, but have gone to crap in the past 5 years. It is bad enough that if you offered to give me a new Honda engine, I'd probably give it back to you. They use plastic in their engines at every chance they get and they use a tiny little timing belt to operate the valves on the OHV engines.

Kawasaki is good, but their parts are over priced and hard to find unless you go through a Kawasaki engine dealer or a John Deere dealer. BTW, some of the parts for a Kawasaki engine on a John Deere lawn mower can only be ordered through a John Deere dealer...you can't order the parts from someone who just deals with the engines alone.

bugman
11-12-2004, 07:46 PM
briggs nothing else will do

Scott15
11-12-2004, 09:45 PM
Okay! I voted. Now are you happy? LOL!!! I have a neighbor that has a honda masters and every weekend for years I see him out there cutting his grass. It has to be at least 5 years old or more. It has BBC and all that crap that comes on them. EVERY time his grass looks AWSOME!

roperdude91
11-12-2004, 10:08 PM
Okay! I voted. Now are you happy? LOL!!! I have a neighbor that has a honda masters and every weekend for years I see him out there cutting his grass. It has to be at least 5 years old or more. It has BBC and all that crap that comes on them. EVERY time his grass looks AWSOME!

thats because they have the gxv industrial commercial series engines on them, not the crap gc series
honda mowers are pretty good, one of the people that i cut grass with has a honda HRA214 with the gxv120 engine, i worked on it once!
and that was an oil change, plug change and airfilter precleaner change, it starts right up every time and runs great, uses a little bit of oil, but then again, its never been rebuilt and its a 1982 engine :rolleyes: lol
it doesnt foul plugs, they have a not enen gray/tan dusty appearence they are white, with a light gray spot on one side, indicating the idle is a little rich
i adjusted the carb to factory specs, and have only put a new plug in it once, thats cuz i wanted to try a platinum plug iinstead of the standard ngk bp5es
the thing has vbeen on a tree farm, a animal farm, and it sees about 20 aces a week, less than my mowers, but thats becuase he usually uses one of my mowers

bugman
11-12-2004, 11:57 PM
hey how about this, i've had a 20 inch 3.5 briggs. made when briggs used to stamp the front with there logo, white, 0ld alluminum carb never rebuilt for atleast the last 22 years. same plug everything. saw 3 foot high grass in the fields for ten year. 3 acre fields. i knew a man that had a eleven horse engine on a rider, never changed the plug nore the oil for ten years, used it as a field cutter/ weekend racer by his kid. briggs all the way

Scott15
11-14-2004, 02:30 PM
I think the older mowers and engines were built better. I think that a 7.0 briggs intek has no more power than a 4 hp briggs from the 70's.

bugman
11-14-2004, 03:43 PM
no they do its just that the bigger engines go through more abuse than the little ones. the bigger ones run more stuff but inteks back then weren't as good as they are now