IH Cub Cadet Pulling and Hot Rodding

[fmorski]

Don:

That is what I though was the case. Thanks for confirmation.

You should be getting something in the mail.

Only need one for now.
Frank

 

[tmorrow]

This summer coming up i'm going to start pullig a cub cadet 122 tractor.and i was wonder what you have to do to the engine to get more power out of it. Could you please tell what to do.
Thnaks
Tyler

 

[kehrecke]

Tyler:
I think the quickest path to power is to send your engine with a blank check taped to it to Don Vogt. You'll be happy! He'll be happy!

On a more serious note, I think if you talk to these guys and stay tuned, you'll get a lot of information here. Good luck!

 

[dvogt]

I think the first thing to do is sit down and read the rules from the club or clubs you plan on pulling with to see what you can and cannot do. most time 2 clubs close together have rules very far apart.

 

[fmorski]

Don:

What is the diameter of the front spindle for the solid front wheels Julian sells?

 

[dvogt]

3/4

 

[fmorski]

Thanks Don.

 

[bmoore]

WARNING: This is my first post here, and it's pretty long.

I have a 12 hp to rebuild after about 11 zillion other projects around here, so it might not be real soon. It will go in my 109 chassis with a ported hydro and lift, in hopes of making it into a 129, 139, or 1?.?9. I'm just asking now in case somebody comes up with some obscure part I need to start scouring for. I have met Tedd, Tom, Bryan, Steve B, and Don V, picked part of their brains, and visited Steve's and Don's shops. All knowledgeable people. I have read David Kirk's article. I think he has done a fantastic job, and I intend to follow much of his advice. His comments, especially regarding the cooling system and other detail work, make a lot of sense. I'm thinking of a slightly modified approach. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. Both have happened before.

How much longevity benefit can be expected from polishing the stock connecting rod, crankshaft, and possibly the camshaft to get rid of stress risers and assorted other pimples?

What level of performance benefits are seen from things like polishing the exhaust port, matching the exhaust port to the exhaust tubing, removing casting bumps from the intake port, matching the carb/spacer/port, and polishing the valves? Larger valve sizes? Carb polishing and jetting?

Is there a practical limit for squaring the deck surface and milling the head to increase compression before running into starting and detonation problems with a stock replacement piston running pump gasoline? Regrinding the camshaft?

I'm not interested in building this engine for pulling. It's more for general use around the house (Really the yard. Sue would get ticked if I tried to vacuum the house with it.),such as mowing, snow removal, tilling, and some upcoming blade work for landscaping, maybe a plow day someday, but mostly for the enjoyment of doing it by maximizing the stock or replacement parts.

I intend to do the port matching and polishing myself, but a machine shop will need to handle the milling and boring work. I have built a few Chevy's, a Harley Panhead, and hot-rodded my lawn mower when I was in high school, but this will be my first attempt at a hopped-up Kohler.

It will be easier and cheaper to put a muffler on it than to get earplugs for all the neighbors, but I think the Kohler unit might be replaced because of the exhaust port modifications I have in mind. My main goal would be increased torque with some reasonable amount of longevity rather than high RPM. I'll probably stick around 3800.

I know that I have asked enough questions to have the answers fill several books, and many of the questions will probably have several good answers. If somebody knows of a book on the subject, please recommend it. I have the Kohler manual. I know I'm not looking for a "one size fits all" answer. Any ideas will be welcome.

If you'd rather email me than put suggestions here, please include "Kohler mods" in the subject line until I get to know your address. Since I'm not a big fan of viruses, I usually delete any messages with unfamiliar addresses.

Thanks for taking time to read this.

 

[kmcconaughey]

I for one would like to see the responses to Bruces questions posted here, as I have some of the same questions.

 

[cmccarty]

I am also interested in the answers to Bruce's questions. Thanks.

 

[dvogt]

polishing parts, once you increase hp to a certain point you may as well put good parts in. no matter how you polish a turd its still a . ..., stock rods are garbage. the 18 hp rod is a improvement. in stock moters you don't see cams break. regrounds are good if you know what you are looking for & get what you need. I have seen cast cranks break with as little as a 6 hp gain. I've never polished one , I have tried to cryo them. porting is a waste unless you spend time on valve angles & seats, putting a muffler on it wastes alot of the time you spent doing the work upstream of the muffler. kind of like taking a 1 in garden hose , making it a 2 in hose & then putting a 1 in reducer on the end. don't make much sense does it? milling the head is fine , decking the block a little is ok , but use caution , you will need to run a mid grade gas probaby . advance the ignition timing to 24 deg . , I would not exced 4000 unless you go with a steel flywheel. whan you look at the amount of time it takes to do things like a port job the gain should be worth a fair amount of horse or it does not pay to go through it.

I could go on but I don't have the time right now . maybe some one else has thoughts on this topic

 

[dfrisk]

Just speaking for the masses Here Don - Post more when You have time!

 

[fmorski]

Bruce:

Listen to what Don V. wrote. What he is saying is that when you improve one thing, you may actually loose since you did not improve something else that is related the first improvement. Porting is a good example. If you port you may actually reduce power since you must also address valves, intake, induction etc. Porting is a catchall. Many times porting wil allow air to flow much smoother and thus not mix with the fuel and result in a reduction in horsepower. In some cases, swirls in the polish were found to be better than a mirror slick surface. Matching ports at the block surface also requires additional matching internally and valve work. One thing to remember about naturally aspirated engines is that the fuel and air MUST be mixed properly and delivered smothly. Blowers are a mixer in and of themselves. Injection systems spray the fuel so it wil atomize quicker. That is why performace decreases when injectors become clogged. They do not mix the fuel properly. Engine building is a trial and error system. One rule of thumb in the racing industry is to only change ONE thing at a time and sneak up on the optimum setting. To do this you need to have some knowledge of a starting point. (I can't count the number of racers I have watched over the years struggle and struggle. They will come back to the pits and change a whole bunch of things and go out and not improve. The advent of onboard computer systems has taken some of the gess work out of tuning as we now can read exhaust gas temperatures, fuel flow, intake vacuum, igntion voltages/amperages, and other items with respect to RPM's and time. RPM and time are the benchmark or time line. Take a fuel dragster, I could go out on the track and mark the exact spot where a cylinder was dropper, stopped firing. I could go out and mark the exact spot where the clutch locked up or a timer kicked in. The top teams spend all the time between races on the dyno ar at another track testing each little change)

What Don is also saying is that you can get into trouble and become very frustrated.

There is an article on a modest build of a 12hp, I believe either here on a related site. You might read it as a starting point in your decision process.

Someone posted earlier to send it to Don with a check attached. That is a wise statement as guys like Don have already eliminated the frustration over the years with trial and error.

I will try and find the address of the redo or somebody else may know where it is.

 

[dkirk]

Bruce,

Thank you for the interesting post and nice compliments. The goal I had in building up my engine is, I think, very similar to yours. I wanted an engine that I knew what every part looked like inside, that I had prepared every part and component to the best of my ability, that it was assembled with utmost cleanliness and detail, all fasteners were torqued to proper values, made slightly better power than a production line-built version, reliability and durability were not sacrificed, and, in the end, brought me a lot of satisfaction.

I took most of one winter to tinker this engine together. I truly enjoyed every minute spent polishing that Alcoa forged aluminum connecting rod, polishing ports and grinding on the block, etc. The goal was to detail every part that I could, which I enjoyed doing. It was a hobby project, something I've wanted to do for many years.

The end result was well worth it to me. The performance increase is very noticeable, and now with 210 hours on the engine, has never failed to run perfectly. I like the sound of the exhaust note, the throttle response, and the general "feel" of the way it operates.

If this sounds kind of like the approach you'd take on a project of this nature, by all means do it. You won't regret it.

 

[fmorski]

David K:

I saw the post that you put together recently but can't remember where. It was on one of the pulling sites.

Maybe you can list it so Bruce can read it.


Don V.

Which is better, aluminum or iron axle housings?

I assume you got mail recently.

Frank

 

[dkirk]

Frank,

I think the link you are referring to is about 4 inches above this post. Click on "Building a Killer Kohler 301 For an IH Cub Cadet Garden Tractor".

 

[fmorski]

Thanks Dave. If it were a snake it would have bit me. See I knew it was somewhere. I fit the moniker of Dumb ******!

I always scroll down to the posts and never look on the way down.

Thanks
Frank

 

[dkirk]

Frank, think nothing of it. We all have it happen from time to time. I would never think of you as dumb! You obviously have a lot of good and valuable engine experience and I enjoy reading and learning from your posts.

 

[dvogt]

Frank for your axle housings they both work good , obviously the aluminum ones save you some weight.



To go into the engine discussion a little bit more. 14 hp kohler , put a cam in it , advanced it alot , stock ports ,10 hp head milled ,block decked. 16 hp carb . picked up a wooping 3/4 hp. made some changes to the seats & valves picked up 2.5 hp on top of that. so that right there tells you that unless you spend alot of time in the valves that porting would not help since your inproving upstream & downstream but have a pinch point in the middle in a basicly stock engine. I think if you were to start over on the Killer Kohler you could enhance it even more or find out what really is making the hp increase if it were done in steps. I think the raise in compression is probably the biggest gain. helps the torque out which in a user world is more important than all out hp. properly jetting the carb after making any changes is also very important. theres a certain point when you need to start drilling the carb emultion tube out because you have exceded the range that kohler has the carb tuned to. David did a great job on his engine. I'm not knocking it, I am pointing out what I know from seeing what we've done & seen as results on a dyno., dynos can't show you some things but they do point you in the right direction. on our 14 it gave us 2.5 hp , after finishing tuning it in it was close to 18 hp. alot of the things we tried before the vlave work did not help but after the valve work was done it worked. so the bottom line is some things may not be good for gains , it may be a loss. another 14 we dyno'd had a 16 hp carb on it , we ran it with the 16 then put a 14 carrb on , both were built the same way . the 14 carb was worth .5 ftlbs of torque over the 16. the 16 carb made more hp over 3800 ,hp under 3800 was the same. Whats more usable? I'd take the torque any day.

 

[tschweizer]

Anybody got any experience hot-rodding the Magnums? I'm starting with an M18 for my 4X4 project. I ordered in a 20hp crank and rods, and having the cam reground. Any other ideas?