cub cadet snow thrower

[kc8oye]

the engine in my newish cub cadet snow thrower seems really under powered.. it wants to bog down when I get into heavy snow..

my old craftsman snow thrower that was 20 years old with a 5hp tecumpseh was pretty much unstoppable.. not sure if it had been modified for not. .I do recall my dad had to replace the governor in it.. (was interesting trying to clear snow with an engine that was just free reving up and down on it's own lol)


can you guys point me towards some reading material on these engines? I'm not even sure what it would have.. Kohler maybe? not trying to Red-Green it lol.. but maybe a couple of tweaks to the govenor or something to help it power through the deep stuff..

on a side note.. I've noticed most small engines are like this now days..seem like they don't run fast enough and are under powered... is this courtesy of the EPA and emissions crap? also seems like when they stopped rating them by h.p they got kinda soggy...

---------- Post added at 11:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:55 PM ----------

found this after some googling...

PowerMore™ OHV Winterized Engines: This motor is usually labeled the same as the snow blower it is mounted on. In other words if you buy a Craftsman snow blower it will be labeled as a Craftsman engine. Cub Cadet, Troy-Bilt, and Yard Machines engines are PowerMore. All PowerMore engines are warrantied through the snow blower brand they are mounted on.

 

[DaRussian]

 

[Kartorbust]

Think I know why your new Snow Blower is uselessly slow. Have a Snapper Blower with a fixed speed Briggs and Stratton engine. Fixed speed meaning no throttle control and makes it a real pain to keep it going in the heavy snow. That's why your older Craftsman is so much better, it has a controllable throttle. All Craftmans, Yard Machines, Troy-Built, Cub Cadet are built now by MTD as of the last 10+ years or so.

All engines now at least from Honda, Kholer, Briggs, (major brands) I believe are now 50 State Compliant. Which means every last bleeding one is emission choked by CARB and the EPA. CARB is way more strict than the EPA emissions. Use to be that engines were mostly 49 state compliant unless specifically rated as CARB compliant. Which is a key factor of why flat head engines went away a few years back.

They stopped rating engines by horsepower rating about 7 years ago. There was a huge lawsuit filed against Tecumseh, Briggs, etc because similar engines within the same size had more HP than what some others had. Even though it could have been carburetor differences. After that lawsuit all engines were then rated by their displacement (CC) and amount of torque. SAE has a standard for Gross HP rating.

Here's an article from Milwaukee about the class action lawsuit; http://www.jsonline.com/business/85489322.html

 

[kc8oye]

I have a throttle control on it... i assume you are referring to like my craftsman push mower that has no "throttle" control... it pretty much has two speeds. "Off" and "on"

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[Kartorbust]

Then I'm at a loss why its underpowered other than to be 50 state Compliant.

 

[mindymogul]

What's the size cut on the snowblower? I have a MTD 33" w/ a 13HP and that seems to be a bit underpowered for that, but not drastically. If it's anywhere from 24"-28", I'd recommend either 8 or 10hp. If it's 30" or more I'd say go at LEAST 13hp. Also another thing I'd recommend is check the governor connection to the throttle linkage and make sure that isn't stuck.

 

[kc8oye]

well something is definitely wrong with it. it was hunting/surging under load pretty bad last night, it seemed better if I went to a faster gear and REALLY loaded the engine down,.

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[Kartorbust]

well something is definitely wrong with it. it was hunting/surging under load pretty bad last night, it seemed better if I went to a faster gear and REALLY loaded the engine down,.

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Try running SeaFoam into the fuel. That should help clean up carbon build up in the combustion chamber and piston. Just run it for about 10 minutes on straight SeaFoam and that may help. Sounds like you may need carb adjustments.

 

[kc8oye]

It only has a few hours on it.. and i run it dry at the end of the season...

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[Jrgunn5150]

Have you looked at the plug?

 

[Kartorbust]

What kind of gas are you using? Ethanol fuel likes to clog up carburetors a lot more. Supposedly 10% is safe but we've been running non-oxygenated for the better part of 10 years. More expensive but so worth it.

 

[kc8oye]

Haven't looked at it at all yet

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