Ecomod my wood chipper
 

I destroyed the engine on DR premier 300 wood chipper.
It's a Kohler 6.5hp 196cc. Looks like chipping dry sticks wasn't good for it.
The cutter head has 1 cutter.
It was kind of lame.
The Internet told me I should buy a $3,600 towable, 14hp machine. That's too much money. I'm going to rebuild this one.
I'm thinking make a shaft out of 4130, 1.25 inch for the pulley and bearings then turn it down to a fat 7/8 so it's press fits into the cutter head.
Repower it with my Honda gx390 for now. Maybe upgrade to a predator 459cc later.

Well it has been remade.
I replaced the engine with a 1.25 inch 4130 steel shafts with bearing bridge, turn down to 0.88 to make it press fit into the cutter head then welded it on. The cutter head is driven about 80% of engine speed.
I put my old Honda gx390 on there and it had plenty of power, but it was old, had been ran without a functional air filter for years before I got it so the rings were warn out and it was burning a ton of oil.
So I upgraded it to a predator 459cc.

oil pan - updated the thread title for you.

I have decided, next time I do maintenance on the wood chipper, I'm going to install a second cutter.
Mainly so I can run 2x as much wood through it before I need to stop and change blades.

Won't that double the power required? :confused:

Thhe only change I forsee is smaller chips, everything else stays pretty much the same including bit edge wear.

It had a 6.5hp 200cc class motor and was underpowered, now it's got the predator 459cc and is over powered.
If running 2 cutters on makes a problem I can always under drive the the cutter head. Now it runs about 87% of crank speed now, I could reduce that down to 75% easy.
Also I am going to get a little more power by advancing the timing and increasing the compression ratio by a half number.

There's also nitromethane. :)

Nitro methane is tempting but it's also expensive. I think my main application for nitro methane would be as a one step power adder in a road vehicle kind of like nitrous oxide without nearly as much danger of running lean and blowing up the engine or burning up the pistons.
Although I need to start somewhere. Not going to just start dumping nitro methane into $6,000 engine (made with 2016 dollars)

In the 1950s they called it 'tipping the can'. You can modulate on a per tank basis, no fancy plumbing required.