More on KISS Engineering

There are a lot of comparisons to make between the financial world and the mechanical world. Machines often read like books. The tool marks, design, pressed metal parts, quality of work speaks volumes.

For those of us interested in mechanical things, we understand that machines produced MUST compete in the market place, and the intended market must have a motive to purchase the goods. 

 Small Stationary Engines are really a thing of the past. To best understand what made them run thousands of hours is an interesting study.  I think I have an advantage over a lot of folks in understanding these things and I know what causes trouble. The key to understanding  is historical data, personal observations, understanding sound engineering principles, and receiving real reports from people who actually operate these machines LONG hours. The later is a gift from my readers, friends, and associates, a wonderful gift it is. 

Here's what all of us should keep in mind, these are the basics for running a lot of hours and/or building a reliable power plant. People who want their standby emergency power plants to run when they need it will pay attention to the following advice as well.

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Companies Build Engines to sell, any changes in the design are either government mandated or they are done in an effort to increase sales.

Some engines WERE designed to run long hours, most of them are diesel (compression ignitions designs). The reason is they are more efficient, more durable, and the fuels they generally use contain far more energy per volume than other fuels. Why not start with the proven winner?

When DIYers select prime movers, they should be aware that many of these engines are sold as multi purpose and they may be a compromise. Furthermore, they may be designed to sell into a market with a well established and understood price point, the manufacturer quickly learns, to spend the money to make it better, OR design it for an all too small market segment will bankrupt them, what to do?

Real Engineers often have little appreciation for Marketing Types or Bean Counters, but they usually stayed employed thru their efforts and many  gave them little credit for the jobs they held long term, they are often seen as the roadblock that keeps Engineers from developing 'World Class' products.

So here's some things to keep in mind.

If you buy a Chinese Horizontal engine AND you want to run a lot of hours, there are a lot of things you can do to improve reliability, here's the short list. Some of the Chinese engines are reliable, and can give a good service life, many if not most of the troubles can be easily corrected with basic shop skills. 

If the engine has a built in radiator bolted to the top of the engine, it is likely designed to fail. There are multiple problems, cheap fan belts, poor idler bushings that quickly freezes up, poorly formulated plastic parts that get brittle and fly apart with a few hundred hours, or with a little UV, and more. Avoid these engines, >OR< equip them with auto shut down monitor, over temp and low oil pressure. If they were made better, they likely wouldn't sell into the market segment who buys them today. DIYers are often thrifty to a fault. 

 The typical Chinese horizontals have cousins that are better built, look at some of the Kubota, and Yammer designs, they are similar, more refined, more expensive. 

A water pump is a failure point. You can remove that from the list of potential failures by designing a proper thermo siphon system, this engine design is very compatible with KISS cooling systems.

You would not believe the number of reports I get about failures caused by ingesting small parts and bits of metal. Metal fatigue is real, it happens sooner or later, and in some of the smaller non counter weighted Chinese engines, this can happen in less than 100 hours, the metal gets brittle and cracks develop, a lot of different things happen then, some can turn your engine into a door stop in little time.

Stationary engines should NOT have inlet air taken in as they often do, the inlet air pipe should be pointed down, let gravity help to keep metal from going thru your engine.

Above: Custom Exhaust For the Redstone 

Above is an example of a easily made custom exhaust, if you look at the typical exhaust, you will see that it already makes two tight 90 degree bends, and it's usually not pointed in the direction you want! Why add onto it? The above example uses a piece of pipe larger than the original inlet, you can add 45 degree bends, and route it where you need it.

The intake is designed similar, get that thin sheet metal unit off your engine now, or expect part of the air cleaner to be ingested sooner or later.

What else is mounted to your engine that needs be pulled off and relocated?

The answer is everything that can be mounted off the engine. This includes the fuel tank, filter, radiator, and ?

What are some of the common things owners of these engines miss? What do the Chinese miss most often?

Rocker Arm alignment is a typical oversight of the Chinese, some rocker arms are poorly aligned, and cause a lot of side thrust on the valve stem which prematurely wears out the valve stem and or valve guide. This is usually easy to fix, but you must check it!

With this said, there's another problem that goes with it, many of the common 195's and others use a single stud to hold the valve cover on, if you don't tighten this properly, it will loosen, you'll lose your lube oil, and the engine will come to a programmed stop (your oil pressure shut down) or it will continue on until friction brings it to a stop.

One other basic on these engines, in order to save money, the Chinese OFTEN leave off any form of pressure relief in the lube oil system, this can generate pressures greater than 300 PSI when the engine is cold, it can also twist off the tang of the oil pump drive (not common) if you decide to over rev the engine during a cold start. A pressure relief for these engines is more than a good idea, and DIYers add them.

  Expect that most Dealers of Chinese Engines buy according to price.

You can apply the same modifications to other engines, I just received a report of a 12/2 ingesting some metal, it took about 6000 or more hours, but if you run it long enough, there's a good chance it will happen to you.

All the best

George