(ot) lawn mowers.

I have a newer toro that also doesn't show the hp either. All it says is toro recycler. I was always wondering about this myself.

I looked it up.It all sounds like a load of bull to me.

I wonder how much torque my B & S 3.75 horsepower engine was rated at when it was new? I know there is a math formular for that, I think. cuhulin

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote in news:23159-4A417C03-42@storefull-

3171.bay.webtv.net:

It's not really bull unless you figure in the bullcrap that spews out the wrong end of lawyers.

An excerpt from that page: "The shift away from horsepower ratings came after a lawsuit in Illinois claimed that engine manufacturers were overstating the horsepower of lawn mower engines."

"Torque" is the raw (turning force) number indicated by the machine they use to test the engine to find out how powerful it is. "Torque" is a representation of how much actual "grunt" the engine has.

"Horsepower" is torque multiplied by time, so that's the one that requires some arithmetic.

America's wacky tort system aside, I can see some rationale for reporting torque ratings instead of horsepower: Most small engines spend all their time at one or two fixed RPMs, so it's their ability to "keep going no matter what" at that fixed speed which makes the difference in how well they do their jobs. This would mean that a torque number would tell you more about their ability than a horsepower figure. Mind you, even then you'd still need a uniform method of measuring and reporting torque before even that was of any real use to the consumer...

Auto manufacturers in the USA have perhaps used horsepower ratings somewhat loosely, as fitted their needs.

Surely they have overrated HP at times to impress the buyer.

Other cars were probably underrated to dodge insurance and legal issues.

My lawn tractor is rated for horsepower, but I have no idea how nearly correct it is, nor do I really care as long as it is adequate to the application.

It IS pretty loosey goosey

The US produces an impressive 650 FP (Frivolous Proceedings) at only 200 LPM (Litigations per Minute).

"HLS" wrote in news:X4o0m.8522$ snipped-for-privacy@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com:

If you read Hemmings on a regular basis, you encounter articles which discuss just this very thing (of course, on long-ago vehicles where reportage now couldn't hurt anyone...).

Not only were reported horsepower numbers adjusted up and down to suit buyers, insurance companies and regulatory agencies, but they were also tweaked to comply with company product hierarchies.

There have been cases where cheaper or less prestigious models were advertised as making less power than more expensive or prestigious models even though it appeared suspiciously as though the opposite was actually true.

But how do you tell when you're buying? It's not like retailers have a ten- acre patch of foot-high grass and brush you can mow though before you buy.

BHP = (T X RPM) / 5252

BHP = brake horsepower T= torque in ft-lbs.

Assuming 3600 RPM operation, that engine made about 5.5 foot-pounds of torque.

There are two torque ratings, the peak torque and the torque at peak rpm. They may well (usually are) be different, and happen at different rpm. So you need to know the rpm for any torque you are trying to compute from the HP number.

Power = torque x rpm x CONSTANT (the constant is related to which units you are using.

So torque = power/(rpm x constant).

I haven't seen it listed as a torque value, most of the engine listings I see have switched to listing the engine displacement, i.e. 150 cid. This would seem to make some sense give that the energy content of gasoline has gone down due to ethanol additions so a given displacement engine at factory tune will be producing less HP than it did when it was fed "real" gas.

A buddy has a Yard King (brand name) self propelled walk behind lawn mower.It has a Tecumseh 6.5 horsepower overhead valves engine.The lawn mower has a handle on it for three engine speed settings.

Sheesh, I am used to horsepower and cubic inches and side valves as far as lawn mower engines are concerned.Now, it has all gotten so confusing. Dang lawyers! cuhulin

Toyota MDT in MO wrote in news:TQo0m.8725$ snipped-for-privacy@nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com:

Wow, that's amazing. Truly, American efficiency at its best.

I read some of the replies and to me it's kinda all irrelevant. I've never encountered anything (within reason) that my POS B&S 3.5 HP lawnmower couldn't mow down without killing the engine. I don't see why anyone needs

6-8 HP to mow a lawn or some weeds. Does the grass somehow have a better appearance if mower is more impressive?

Your 3.5 HP mower probably has only an 18-inch or 20-inch blade. Get a mower deck that's three or four feet wide and you'll find that you need a lot more power to drive it, especially if the grass is wet.

That said, I mow my lot with a rotary push mower most of the time. It has zero horsepower and works just fine except when the ground is covered with spiky balls from the sweetgum tree.

--scott

People just want reasonable assurance that the product will cut the grass without bogging down and dying, I think. Most stores are not too good about letting you try them on your lawy for a week or two.

I got a 16 horsepower lawn tractor with 32 inch blade because I mow not only lawns at our house, but maintain the area around the farmhouse which would require a bushhog if I didnt keep it mowed regularly.

My first mower was a JC Penney unit ($50 NEW, some years ago) that ran for years and mowed my lawn quite well.

Many years ago, either Popular Science or Popular Mechanics magazine had an article about rotary blade lawn mowers and reel type lawn mowers.Reel type lawn mowers cut the grass similar to scissors.Rotary blade lawn mowers slash the grass, giving a rough uneven ''cut''.Ask This Old House program on the DIY channel recently had a program about that too.I guess that is why golf courses use reel type lawn mowers.If you cut a blade of grass with scissors and compare that with a blade of grass that was ''cut'' with a rotary blade lawn mower you can see the difference with a magnafying glass. cuhulin

Yes, reel mowers do cut better, however they get expensive very quickly if you want to just match the typical 40"-60" mower deck on a riding mower. This may not be an issue if you have a small city type lawn that you can mow with a push reel mower, but if you have an acre or two to mow, you aren't going to mow it that way.

We used to call them "prickly" balls. I guess we have now bastardized that into meaning something unspeakable about human attitudes such as my former boss.

Lugnut

Well, there are other factors too. For one thing, I've spent a lot of hours behind 3.5 horse 22" mowers and 6-horse 22" mowers. The 6-horse will cut heavy grass a *lot* better than a 3-horse... so in that regard I disagree with the OP. There's plenty (within reason and beyond reason- I sometimes use my mower as a redneck brush-hog) that the 6 horse will do better.

Secondly, the Briggs line up through 4-horse or so has always had the goobery pulsa-jet or vacu-jet carburetor and air-vane governor. The

6-horse has a real float-type carburetor with idle mixture control and min/max speed adjutment screws (Walbro), an internal fly-weight governor that responds 10 times quicker than the air-vane governor, an iron cylinder liner, and is just generally all-around better. When I bought my 6-horse in '94, it cost a little less than twice what a 3.5-horse cost at the same store. But it has now lasted about 3x longer than the last 3.5-horse mower I bought, too, so I'm actually dollars ahead and have spent less time mowing veeeery sloooowly to let the smaller engine work its way through heavy grass.