Archive through January 31, 2005

[lstith]

<font size="+1">Are there any stock Garden Tractors Pulling Clubs in central Illinois, "Around Minonk"?

Any one interested in starting one?

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[tturner]

Well we scared ourselves something awful tonight. It is nothing short of a death trap. I think that we hit a good 30+ m.p.h. Tomarrow the g.p.s. will tell us for sure. I will post a picture this weekend. We are going to put a Harley stack on it and eventually put on a K & N. Right now the Uni filter off of my ATV will have to work. This machine isnt bad for $25.00 being invested in it.

 

[dvogt]

Theres got to be a ton of clubs in central IL. if you look around. Mississippi Vally is one that comes to mind along the west central area.

 

[tturner]

I am VERY imbarassed at my guesses of what speed I had accomplished. If you rode on that death trap you would swear that you were going 40 m.p.h. It turns out that I was going a hair over the 15 m.p.h. range. I have decided that the people going 40+ are <font size="+2">CRAZY </font> because I am scared of it going 15-20 right now. Well my buddy isn't impressed enough with 15 so we are going to make a HOT 11 horse b. & s. Does any body have any tips? We are going to:
Weld the cam lobes
Put a bigger & better carb on
cold air intake
mill the head
do some other crap to the intake and exaust ports
Let me know if I have missed anything. Thanks Tyler

 

[tturner]

I broke I mower...

My reverse has turned into a foward gear. I still have my other 3 foward gears though. Any thoughts? This think hauls a** like no tomarrow. It is great.

 

[dvogt]

sounds like you have a twist in your drive belt wrong

 

[tturner]

Nope- I still have my other 3 foward gears, also after a while it went back to a reverse gear. Thanks Tyler

 

[tturner]

Oh yeah; I forgot to mention that neutral is also another forward gear. How could this have possibly turned into a 5 speed?? It is almost funny.

 

[dvogt]

I've never dealt with the trannys in the 80's much but I'd say its time to open it up

 

[mcreswick]

way back when, before I could legally drive I did something like this

I used a 12 hp industrial vertical shaft engine, I put a briggs 14.5 hp rod in it, they are a lot stonger and the same size, I took an 11 hp carb and removed the venturi to bore it about 1/8" that gave it awesome throttle response, put an 11hp head on the 12 hp to raise the compression, and get ahold of a racing go cart flywheel key to advance the timing

make the front axle so it doesn't pivot, also when you are doing that. lean the top of the axle back this will give the front wheels some caster and the tractor will go much more straight and be more manageable, use good ball joints on the end of your tie rod and align the front wheels

move anything heavy as low as you can keeping things low keeps them stable

the tractor I put together way back when used a cub 1320 frame (really stiff), I used a murray 5 speed rearend, massey harris fenders and a sears front axle nothing stood more than 28" tall from the ground, I have no idea how fast it went, but in town I frequently caught up to cars when I wan't even pushing it, and a kid followed me going 40 mph in 4th gear once, so it could move, and I basically had a stock long block

I am not engouraging you, I crashed once and it was bad, and I had many close calls, wear a helmet when you drive it and don't go faster than you are comfortable with

 

[tturner]

Where is it now??? I have a feeling you had a little too much fun with that. It sounds like that was a really HOT motor; do you have any picures of it by any chance? Thanks Tyler

 

[mcreswick]

the engine wasn't really that hot, what you gotta rememeber is that the majority of the power in a lawn tractor goes to the deck, so whe you get rid of that you have excess power, I would just stick with basic stuff and don't wind the engine up much unless you have a steel flywheel

Its sitting in my collection of spare cubs under some cedar trees

it was fun, but try to use a little common sense when you are playing

 

[dkamp]

Tyler- don't go investing great money and effort into getting more 'power' out of the B&S- as Matt said, you're not using much of it to begin with. FWIW, it isn't 'going fast' that uses much power, it's GETTING up to speed. Even with a high wind resistance (WAG says your Cd is about 0.65), you're not moving fast enough to chew up much horsepower.

If you want higher SPEED, get higher ratios. If your B&S has a fairly short stroke, you could just disable the governor and spin it 'till it tosses parts, but you'd be very wise to install scatter-shielding around the motor, to protect you (and anyone/anything else) from shrapnel if it does grenade on you. I set a short-stroke Briggs up for a proof-of-concept demonstration on a 'special government project', only had to have the motor spin to about 5200rpm twice, and the engine I wound up survived both spins... the tests authenticated, we shut it down (now it's probably sitting in an archive building somewhere). If I remember correctly, we checked the stock governor, and it limited-out around 3900rpm. By yanking the gov, it'd spin as fast as the load (and rotating assembly) would allow.

I'd go with higher drive-ratio first, and make suspension/steering mods suggested... or possibly even fab a spring-IFS system... perhaps a mono-leaf, fixed in the center, with dual parallelogram arms on each side... a set of 245/60R15's on closest-match automotive rears (Jeep Cherokee?) or maybe even an IFS rear...

Oh... and put on some serious brakes....

 

[bmoore]

Dave,
All the circuits seem to be working, but you've got to get that intermittent short fixed....
You might want to look into some kind of serious fume ventilation system for the area around your computer. Something must have affected you between "I'd go with higher drive-ratio first, and make suspension/steering mods suggested..." and "Oh... and put on some serious brakes....", which were both great suggestions.


(Message edited by BMoore on February 26, 2005)

 

[tturner]

The boys across the street were really laughin' at these pictures so I thought that I would share them with you too. What do you think? I hope that you don't think that the Cadets are what I am into; if you look in my profile I don't even claim it.

 

[tturner]

As you can see I am quite the photographer.(refering to post at 8:24)
Matt took the good pics.

 

[rbneaveill]

does any one know any web sights for drag racing garden tractors thanks roger

 

[bstevens]

I want my 86 to run faster in 3rd. Any suggestions?
Bob

 

[wcompton]

Bob-
How much faster? There's a couple things to do, and all depend on how much work you want to go through. All the options are available from Midwest Super Cub, and maybe some sponsors as well. One of the easier things to do is to put in an overdrive kit, kits up to 23% don't require modifications, kits over 23% do. Your 3rd gear is a 26/26 gearset, it's possible to get a 27/25 gearset which would be a 25T lower gear and a 27/19 tooth cluster gear (assuming 2nd gear would stay the same). On top of that, you could get bigger rear tires and increase the governed engine speed.

 

[jingels]

Hey where'd everybody go? Surely we can find somethin' to talk about.....Joe