Best small engine

[DJ]

I have a Toro Personal pace mower with a 6hp Briggs(built exclusively for Toro) was the father-in-laws before it became mine and he overfertalized his lawn so it was 2 cuttings a week and still tough at that. Now at my place it gets used late in the year because I refuse to rake and come fall just mulch the leaves in every couple days

. Was a good 5 years old before it began asking for a sparkplug change, 4-5pulls to start a fresh plug has it back to 1-2. Seems pretty fuel efficient, last year it got LC flushed, some 'brew, and a little 132, most of you should understand that.

 

[kc8adu]

all this talk of robin variants got me thinking.
a dealer got a wisconson-robin in with minor shipping damage.a chunk busted from a mounting flange.
no big deal.i was looking for a engine for a high current alternator based battery charger.told him what i was doing and he asked me to draw it out as he wanted to build one too.
he gave me the engine free.
now what is impressive is that when i pinned it down on the bench in my shop and pulled it once it ran perfectly smooth and quiet with nothing on the shaft!no vibration at all.that was several years ago.still starts first pull no matter what and never bogs down even with the ammeter hitting 125+ amps.
btw this is spinning a cs144 with a homebrewed 3 stage charging circut that can be set for gel,agm,or flooded batts.
so how many hands have robin been through?
i saw subaru robins at harbor freight.

 

[Master ACiD]

this is going WAYYYY off topic but i thought i would share.

i built one of those gas powered battery chargers one time for an electric golf cart. i needed more range on the electric golf cart so i had a friend of mine machine an adapter so i could couple a alternator to the lawnmower engine via belt and pulley.

i took off the alternators voltage regulator and hooked up a full wave 3 phase bridged diode so i could get more than 14 volts out of it, because an electric golf car has a 36v battery back and a 14v alternator does no good. sence the alternator now had no voltage regulator, the voltage was dependant on how fast you spun the thing. i used the gas engines built in mechanical rpm govenor to set the rpm's high enough that the alternator put out 42 volts. i used different pulleys to keep the gas engines rpm low enough that i didnt wreck the thing, but high enough to keep it in its power band. because i think i was getting around 20 amps when the alternator was loaded down trying to charge a 36v battery pack. 20 amps isnt enough to move a golf cart by its self, but if i left the engine running while i was inside or doing something else, or working on a piece of equipment then when i got back on the golf cart the batterys were charged enough to keep on going.

the system worked out great, untill the frame rusted and broke in half and i got a new golf cart that has better range.

 

[Jim 5]

kc8adu, I'm sure you've already seen this page, but I thought you might find it interesting.

http://theepicenter.com/tow02077.html