Eco mod my predator 459cc times 2
 

I'm running 2 predator 459cc engines now.
The stump grinder and the wood chipper have predator 459cc engines.
First ecomod, the leaf, riding lawnmower, wood chipper, stump grinder and some day the pressure washer all use the U1 battery size. I have two U1 batteries of AGM construction and an old walmart flooded U1 that will probably last through this year. The newest AGM U1 battery goes in the leaf and stays there. The other 2 get passed around like a joint, all the machines have Anderson connectors so I can just plug and unplug the battery. When the flooded U1 battery dies it's final death I probably won't replace it.

The stump grinder eco mods are a 4 foot long straight pipe and the recommended #97 main jet for my 4,000ft elevation. With the straight pipe and ethanol free gas it doesn't seem to run very rich, doesn't sputter or die on start up.
The straight pipe blows the exhaust away with the debris off cutter head.
I'm going to try a #95 main jet and see if it it will run decent. If it sputters or has preignition I'll go back to a 97 or try a 96.

The wood chipper engine has the 6,000 to 8,000ft elevation #95 jet installed. Runs pretty good, wants to die on start up until the engine warms up a little.
I have ordered a go-kart pipe kit and it will get a 4 to 5 foot long pipe that blasts exhaust gas and noise straight up and away from people.
May not run satisfactory with the 95 jet and long straight pipe. I would like at least a 5 foot straight pipe because that will allow for negative super charging even at a pedestrian 3,600rpm.

I ran the wood chipper hard yesterday. Ran a full tank of gas through it and no sputtering with the 95 jet.
Still has the factory exhaust.

Ran about 2 gallons of gas through the woodchipper 459cc engine with the next size smaller jet for my elevation and pulled the spark plug. The ceramic is still white.
Started the straight pipe install.

Wood chipper:
Burned about 2 gallons with the 6,000 to 8,000ft jet but otherwise stock and about 1 gallon with the 75 inch straight pipe.
It's struggling a little more on start up.
https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1687745021

Probably got a free engine and is simping:
https://youtu.be/VpN-9ce0Uq0
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VpN-9c...ature=youtu.be
The video has been up for a year, has 60k views so he definitely sold a few engines.

Hemi head
Pretty tough looking rocker setup
Cast valve cover
Light weight race piston
Pressurized and splash oil system
Big 1.25 inch exhaust port
Electric start, because you ain't pull starting it
Big gas tank
Very simple wiring
You can clearly see it doesn't have roller bearings. RB doesn't try to hide it but also fails to note it.


Grumpy old man yelling at a piece of machinery:
https://youtu.be/w04p1BPJp-0
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w04p1B...ature=youtu.be

"Piston is 80 thousands down in the hole"
Mmmhem, aftermarket anyone?
Sounds like an opportunity to bring the piston further up in the hole, one way or another.

"Doesn't have roller bearings and the crank isn't cross drilled".
The only reason to give up roller bearings on the crank is so you can cross drill the crank and give the rod oil pressure. The crank isn't cross drilled.
Designed obsolescence or aftermarket opportunity?
Again no cross drill on the crank and the piston is 2mm down in the hole? Can I get an aftermarket +2mm stroke crank that's cross drilled with an appropriate rod?

Who's more correct?
I think red goat nailed it but grey beard had some good points too.
The predator 459cc is great for its intended application.
The performance parts availability kind of sucks, that doesn't really apply to me.
The kings of performance are still the Honda gx390 and predator 420cc.
But that could all change in 2 weeks like watching tucker Carson on Fox news with a budlite.

Hemi head, how about hemi piston for the 2mm? The harley guys stroke engines by welding the crank pin on one side. Do it wrong and you destroke.

Lawnmowers are known to be splash lubed successfully, mines 20 years old. My airplane engine was demonstrated and certified to run at least 30 minutes on reduced power with no oil pressure.

As far as I can tell little engines like these don't have a crank pin like a bike engine. It's all one solid piece.

If you put a +2mm stroker crank increased displacement to 471cc and that would reduce at the same time reduce chamber volume 6cc and would give you a compression ratio of about 10:1.
If they tried to fill the hole by moving metal to the too of the piston you can only move about 6cc of metal, that's about like making a little over 10:1 compression the piston 1mm do in in the hole with a little 3cc hemi ridge.
That's assuming the stock engine is 9:1 compression with 51cc of total chamber volume, that's down in the hole plus head gasket plus chamber volume.

The welding technique makes things offset by adding material on one side and re machining the part to standard when you cant remove it from whatever it's attached to, next best description is regrinding a cam shaft for more lift, but not quite the same.

In the late '60s Iskaderian would take your factory stock cam, weld onto the lobes and regrind it any way you wanted

I think the cranks on these are cast iron so welding them could be a bit tricky.

How much oil pressure does a predator 459cc make?
About 50psi cold 40psi hot at idle, idle bing 2000rpm as my 459cc engine is on a woodchipper.
At full speed 3,800rpm it's about 50 hot or cold.

It has an oil pump but the con rod isn't cross drilled?

Sounds like technology from the 1930's

Yeah and there's no roller bearing on the crank.
The only reason to give up rollers and go with flat bearings is if you are going to gain a cross drilled crank with a very tight fitting rod, like 2 thousands.

I tested the stock intake under full load at 4,000rpm. I barely get a vacuum reading. So the intake is fine.

The other reason for flat bearing is halving the cost of rollers in an engine not expected to make TBO before it rusts to death.

I rebuilt my completely worn out Honda gx390 and the rollers had no detectable wobble. So those rollers will last at least 2 or even 4 rebuilds.

New eco mod for the predator 459cc.
I'm going to add an oil filter that bleeds off a little oil volume, runs it through probably a PH8 style oil filter and back to the crank case. Might do an oil cooler too. Should at least double the life of the oil, maybe even quadruple it.

New mod for the 459cc. The predator 459cc will accept standard timing advance keys.
I put a 6 degree key in, which should give more like 8 or 9 degrees of advance.
I think tomorrow I'll see if I regret it.

Runs great, I think 4 to "6 degree" advance keys will be standard.

I sent off an oil sample to be tested after 3 hours of run time, no filter. Told blackstone labs this was the first one ever oil fill, they said the wear metals were a bit high, 20 iron and 13 aluminum but to run it for 10 to 15 more hoursand retest. I installed a mobil1 filter and ran the wood chipper for 20 minutes and pulled another sample. The number of shinny metal flakes have been reduced from possibly hundreds of shinny metal flakes reflecting in the sunlight to dozens.
The mobile1 filters are a bit loose, only stopping 99% of 30mu particles. I think I'm going to put on a BT259 hydraulic filter which stops 99% of 12mu particles.
Note I did not change the oil after that sample, I'm testing to see if adding an oil filter and maybe a cooler can increase oil life dramatically, like 5 to 10 times.

Did blackstone say what the flakes were? I would guess lousy machine process cleaning

I'm sure it's break in aluminum wear.

Not gonna buy break in wear. Had aluminum blocks before and sparklies in the oil means either something is going to fail by either comming apart or bearing failure. When? is the guess.

All new air cooled engines I have ever had do that.
These aren't chunks of aluminum, they are so tiny that even after sitting for 3 days they are still suspended in the oil and haven't started settling out on the bottom.

To get the most stuff that shouldn't be in the oil out of the oil I found a Baldwin 10 micron hydraulic filter that fits my filter head. Should be grabbing 10 microns at 99% efficiency and have an absolute of 20 micron.
A bt344-s filter.

Since I don't need a temp gauge or an oil cooler I figured I would install a psid indicator that I salvaged off some junked filter heads. Shop air testing shows the needle will start to move at about 5psid and are in the red at about 20psid. So what I'll do when I change the oil is if the filter indicator isn't in the red, I'll take the oil filter off, turn it upside down, drain it and put it back on. As the filter bypasses at about 22psid. Might as well get all of my $13 out of it.

Once you removed all the loose stuff, there shouldn't be any more in the oil unless something is self destroying. Look at your blackstone results on other motors: they don't indicate recurring particles.

I pulled the original mobil1 filter and cut it open looked like a new filter with maybe 2 hours on it.
It was Just break in metal dust.

The stump grinder 459cc has about 10 hours on its oil and on its first oil change.
The wood chipper with 3 hours I would say had dozens if not hundreds of metal flecks catching the light at any moment.
The stump grinder engine with 10 hours has hundreds if not thousands of metal flecks catching the light at any given moment.

Looks like there is a huge difference in small engine life between engines with and without oil filters.
Looks like engines with oil filters last about 8x longer.
https://www.machinerylubrication.com...ose-oil-filter
Searching lawn mower life expectancy for cheap consumer engines is around 400 to 800hrs.
Commercial engines with oil filters are looking at 5,000 to 7,000hours.

If the engine costs $500 and lasts 500hrs and oil costs $10 for one quart that gets changed ever 20 hours that's a cost of up to $1.50 an hour.
If the engine lasts 5,000hrs and change 2qts of oil and a filter for $35 every 100hrs that's 45 cents an hour.
Probably what I'll do is change the oil every 100 to 200hrs and change the filter when it gets close to 20psi filter delta p and who knows how long that will take.
If the engine puts a gram of dirt, soot, metal in the oil every 40hrs it's going to take at least 400hrs to start clogging up the filter.

From my Prius transaxle oil studies:

• < 1000 miles - early change to the left over manufacturing crap out.
• ~5,000 mi - dilutes the residual oil debris from what can's be drained out.
• follow manufacturers recommendation.

For an engine, I would divide all by a factor of 10 due to higher stress and heat.

Bob Wilson

I get a reading on my psid indicator. If I run the bypass valve wide open, when cold and take it up to about 2,800rpm and I get a slight reading. Yeah I think this filter is going to last a while.

I'm following this advice :thumbup:

The stump grinders predator 459cc has bad oil after 10 hours. High iron, high aluminum and high silicon.
The lab couldn't get particle count as the oil was too dirty.
I'm going to throw the filter on there, run it an hour or 2 and retest. The filter I'm using catches 95% of 2 micron particles and 99.9% of 27 micron particles the setup will filter the oil around once a minute. So even after a few minutes, or by the time the engine warms up the oil cleanliness should be greatly improved. Shouldn't be much in the oil bigger than 5 microns after 5 minutes.

Interesting info on the velocity stack oil pan.
Any pics?

I'd love to know what a tuned length exhaust into one of David Vizard's Pressure Wave Termination Boxes does for a 1 cylinder engine, that you want to be efficient AND quiet.
ie: Lots of (free flow?) mufflers; A glass pack for high frequencies and a resonator for low and/or Helholtz or Quarter Wave Resonators. (especially for constant rpm engines) and ???

He gets into them around here:
https://youtu.be/J4w9fmb41Wc?t=1179


Then; if/when one of these engines gets old n smokey and its time for a rebore etc; it'd be great if you experimented with Boric Acid on it so others here actually believe me! :)
I've spoken on it some around here recently:
https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...tml#post695278
And have done it (to unbelievable effect!) AFTER learning all the ins and outs.

If you want to filter really small particles out of the oil, the simple trick of sticking a decently strong magnet or 2 on the outside of the oil filter might be worth considering?

It wont do anything for non ferrous aluminum, but will catch the harder ferrous metal worn off of rings, bearings and gears that, being harder, do more damage.


But at the end of the day; a self renewing, chemically inert, layer with 85% the hardness of diamond and the lowest coefficient of friction known to man (in 2007) is what will make your engines outlive you.
https://www.anl.gov/article/nanobori...-more-slippery

But I now get the silence:
Far better to routinely replace engines and buy extra fuel and oil than be a... 'convert', cast out from the herd. :)
https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...-26602-14.html

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I have a test board installed for just this type of thing. I allready solved the Vault Mod by making it work properly. Maybe I can install these and see if we can get it to play nice as well, with PCP.

If so, Ill be back in abit with a answer for you.