Does anyone know why Briggs made the L head engine 190cc engines and called them 6.50, 6.75, 7.00, 7.25 etc.?

[TylerFrankel1]

Always wondered why there are Briggs 650, 675, 700 series engines that seem identical. They're all 190cc engines with the same carburetors. Why do they have different torque specs? It's annoying when trying to find parts. I guess I can assume parts are compatible.
Does anyone know why this is?

 

[Hammermechanicman]

I know briggs makes engines to mower mfgr spec that are basically identical but have a different spec number unique to the mfgr. So you get 20hp, 20.5 hp, 22hp. Engines .There is no law demanding an engine manufacturer put a true measured hp rating on their engines. They can put anything they want. Numbers are usually optimistic. 6.75hp has to be better than 6.5hp. Right?

 

[bertsmobile1]

All engine makers do it for the above reason.
If last years model was perfect then this years model must have bigger engine to be better.
They did a variety of things like different governor springs choke gaskets on the intake and different main jets .
However if a 3 Hp sprint engine powered the mower quite fine what sort of difference is ,5Hp going to make on a 6 Hp engine .
I replace a lot of 20-24 Hp engines with 18 Hp because they are near $ 1000 cheaper and the only thing I get back is it uses less fuel than the old engine.

 

[ILENGINE]

This resulted from a 2010 lawsuit a couple of manufacturers got caught playing with the HP ratings. Sears would put 23 hp stickers on a rider with a Kohler CV22 or another mower manufacturer had a spring stock up order for a 42 inch 17.5 hp mower but when the dealer got them, they had 15 hp engines and when the dealer contacted his source they sent him 17.5 hp stickers to cover up the 15 hp stickers.

Now by law they have to be measured against a known standard, and also if they change the hp rating on an engine there has to be some change with the engine. A different jet in the carb, or a different camshaft, etc. So this whole thing resulted in Briggs doing away with the hp rating on consumer engines and go to torque ratings. Some companies did totally away with torque and would just post the cc rating of the engine. Honda had to downgrade their hp ratings So the GX390 was 13 hp become 11 hp.

 

[tom3]

A 190cc motor on a push mower is a good sized engine these days. I see OHV motors just a bit or 100cc. But those ratings are sort of like audio amp power ratings. Lots of those 1000 watt stereos out there. Maybe 40 watts RMS.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

I love the BS car stereo amp ratings. Not only do they use peak instead of RMS output and not continuous but instantaneous output and no mention of of distotion. Soooooo, yeah that 1000 watt amp is maybe like ya say 40 watts of something useable.
Same thing for Craftsman air compressor ratings. A 120v 15amp circuit can only provide just over 2 hp. But sears can get up to 6hp on a 120v 15A circuit. They measure instantaneous current draw with locked motor armature. Right before it melts down it drew enough amps to equal 6hp. The marketing wanks of the world are masters at BS. With terms like heavy duty, all natural, new and improved.

 

[TylerFrankel1]

This resulted from a 2010 lawsuit a couple of manufacturers got caught playing with the HP ratings. Sears would put 23 hp stickers on a rider with a Kohler CV22 or another mower manufacturer had a spring stock up order for a 42 inch 17.5 hp mower but when the dealer got them, they had 15 hp engines and when the dealer contacted his source they sent him 17.5 hp stickers to cover up the 15 hp stickers.

Now by law they have to be measured against a known standard, and also if they change the hp rating on an engine there has to be some change with the engine. A different jet in the carb, or a different camshaft, etc. So this whole thing resulted in Briggs doing away with the hp rating on consumer engines and go to torque ratings. Some companies did totally away with torque and would just post the cc rating of the engine. Honda had to downgrade their hp ratings So the GX390 was 13 hp become 11 hp.

I see, they must be making just tiny little changes then like you said, to the point where I don't notice. Silly, isn't it. They don't even make the L heads anymore, which is a shame. Much harder to break, valves never went out of adjustment for me. I miss the sprinter and quantum. The OHV ones seem so crappy compared to the L heads. They are easy to start though.

I have noticed that the new OHV ones are coming in at 125cc to replace the 140cc sprint, and the 190cc has been replaced by something like 150cc. Of course the power is allegedly equal because of improved efficiency with OHV. I don't care, though, flatheads all the way.

 

[ILENGINE]

Parts in the manufacturing stage are not the same parts that we get as replacement in most cases. They may use 6 different carbs for different hp ratings on the same size engine but will replace all those numbers with a single part number for replacement.Same with camshafts, or ignition modules.

 

[TylerFrankel1]

Parts in the manufacturing stage are not the same parts that we get as replacement in most cases. They may use 6 different carbs for different hp ratings on the same size engine but will replace all those numbers with a single part number for replacement.Same with camshafts, or ignition modules.

That's what I was thinking. Don't like that.

 

[bertsmobile1]

It is all about the logistics costs.
So you typically have 4 to 5 Hp ratings per capacity.
IF the difference is just a gasket or main jet then the logical thing to do is only supply the biggest one .
IT costs the same to make a 120 main jet as it does to make a 125, 130 135 145 but it costs 5 times that much to warehouse & distribute 5 different main jets and then you have all that slow moving dead stock sitting there , taking up 5 bins costing money , requiring stocktakes + the inevitable miss picks .
This is one of the very big reasons why Chinese stuff is so cheap, they do not supply spare parts for most of the stuff.
Whole engines or nothing .
BRiggs probably looses $ 10 on every main jet they distribute