I have a Honda hrx217 with a gcv190 engine that is blown, the mower otherwise is in excellent shape I have seen gcv160 and gcv170 used engines on marketplace, can I replace the 190 with either of those?
I swapped a GCV-160 into an almost new mower that had a GCV-170 with a bent crankshaft. It bolted in very easily using the same bolt holes. The only change was that the pulley on the GCV-170 was a little bigger than the one on the 160. The belt on the 170 was almost new, so I swapped the pulley so as to use the better belt. The 160 has a little less power than the 170 but the owner has reported that he did not notice any difference in performance. The GCV-190 has a little more power than the 170. You can find the horse power ratings on the Honda site. FWIW, I have found that parts for 160’s are more plentiful and a lot cheaper than for 170’s. Ex: crankshafts: $35-45 for 160; $190-250 for 170’s.
Thanks for the reply, I’ll see if it will work
Well, I did it & it works fine. The GCV160 has enough power to move this heavy beast of a mower and the transmission turned out to be good. Had to sacrifice the throttle & blade stop clutch because the donor GCV160 is from a Husqvarna mower that had neither. The GCV190 crankcase that is original to this HRX217HMA was cast with threaded inserts to which the clutch & throttle are attached. Thus, my Husqvarna donor had no way to accept those parts. No worries though; most of us run our engines at full rpm anyway & the clutch is an okay feature but not critical by any means.
