bought a used generator, 100 bucks, honda clone engine

[ad356]

i bought a used 4000W peak, 3500W running generator yesterday. its powered by one of those honda clone engines, chinese made. normally i stick to briggs or kohler k series cast iron, but this time i thought for 100 bucks what do i have to loose. generators hopefully will only get used a couple times a year. i live in the countryside, the power does go out and i will use it. anyways, how good are these engines? it seems to start right up and run decently. when i first got it, it wouldn't run right unless it was at half choke. i took the carburetor apart and blew out all of the passages. the carburetor was fairly clean, so i assumed it was just a little piece of debris. now it runs like it should, runs good but not the quietest generator in the world.

i was wondering, how good are these engines? i dont know too much about them.

by the way the generator head is good and it does produce power.

[HydroHarold]

Looks like you did real good!

runs good but not the quietest generator in the world

I haven't come across any portable gens that are actually "quiet". All of 'em are around 72db and up. You can go a long way towards sound reduction with some plywood baffling around the unit. Mine (3000w/Tecumseh OHV) sits just inside the garage door with it pulled down to 2'. Then I put a "V" of 4' high plywood in front of that just clamped together... works pretty good at killing the noise and it's easy to access the unit for gassing up.

[Mike Milburn]

I've got a 13HP on my woodsplitter that I built last year. It's only got...10 or so hours on it so far it works good. I don't intend to run it wide open and keep up on the oil changes so it'll hopefully last me awhile. Someone else (my apologies to the poseter, I forget who it was) posted here recently that a Honda coil will fit so keep that in mind incase you ever need one.....Mike

[DTLMG]

The Honda copy engines are fine and MOST honda parts will fit on them. I spent 2 years in China working with 3 of the largest engine companies there. There are like 5 main players in China. Every one else in china is a copycat of a copycat. If you have an engine from a city called CHONGQUING you most likely have a quality engine. Chongquing is the "detroit" of China..or as we engineers used to say the small engine capitol of the world.

You can get yourself into BIG problems trying to switch carbs between engines. The key here is if you do switch carbs from honda to honda copy engine make sure that you exchange cc for cc. EXAMPLE you can not put a carb on a 6.5hp engine that came off of a 5.5 hp engine., BUT you cant do this on a honda either...(for those of you who must know the bore of the 5.5 carb is 19mm, and the 6.5hp is 21mm-arent you glad you asked)

The key to seperating the good engine from the bad engine is all in quality control and the components that they put on them.

All the engine companies buy from the same suppliers. Some suppliers are not so hot however. One place i noticed major problems in testing engines from one engine company to another was the low oil shutdown switch. Some are good like the honda, some are not worth a hoot. If your Chinese Honda Copy engine (thats what the leagel team made me call it) doesnt start the first thing you should do is UNPLUG the yellow wire coming out of the crankcase and try restarting.

So to answer your question...The engines are fine...If you want to know more about the engine, please provide me the engine company info and CITY of manufacture which is located on the EPA tag which is most likely under the blower housing.

[kcraig51]

That's good to know about the location of manufacture. I thought they were all crap! lol About the post from Mike Milburn - you mention not running your engine at full throttle. That'll kill a air cooled engine 'bout as quick as anything except no oil. Reduces air flow. I've seen 'em get hot enough to pop a valve seat out.

[Mike Milburn]

....you mention not running your engine at full throttle. That'll kill a air cooled engine ..

Point taken, something I never really thought about. A bit of a clarifier, when I said not full throttle I don't mean idling but not rod banging wide open neither GBG. I do think I'll bump it up some from my normal speed, thanks.....Mike

[ad356]

the speed most small engines can normally rev is 3,600, i believe the kohler k series can rev to 4,000 but i always keep my k301 around 3,600. i want the engine to last 20 years like it should.

[DTLMG]

FWIW...optimal cooling is when engine is running at 3600 to 3800 RPM. If you have one of those cool laser thermometers that home depot sells do an experiment...

With your engine running and warmed up take a reading of the cylinder head near the spark plug.

Shut your engine off and immediately take another reading in the same spot.

You will see the engine gets hotter when you shut it off.

As one poster already said, running an engine at half throttle while putting it under load is a sure recipe for early engine death.