# HS55 engine speed under full load



## bosco659 (Feb 1, 2013)

I brought my "garage queen" HS55WA out of storage today and decided to give it a quick run. There was about 8 to 10" of old snow in the back yard (bottom layer two weeks old and the top one week old with some snow blown on top). Machine ran fine in fresh snow but once it got into the old snow the engine slowed down considerably. Didn't have a tach on it but it sounded like it dropped about 400 to 500 rpm. The engine never stalled - it just sounded like it was working hard. The machine was in 1st gear at wide open throttle (set to approx. 3600 rpm). 

Does this would normal? The snow was quite hard and the bottom layer was compacted. 

My HS55 has a 24" wide cut and is quite high when compared to the tracked version of this machine. 

Any thoughts or comments? I will probably hook my tach up to it to see exactly how much the engine is actually slowing down.


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## motorhead64 (Dec 15, 2013)

Bosch,
Your governor is working correctly. In the frozen pack under the new snow, your engine is lugging under load. Perfectly normal. Only with more horsepower will your engine be able to maintain a high rpm under similar load. My 8 hp blower barely blinks when my 5 hp model nearly stalls. MH


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## bosco659 (Feb 1, 2013)

Thanks. Even though this machine has only run a few times I thought it would be nice to transplant a GX200 engine onto it. Probably best to leave well enough alone. I will try it on a good dump of fresh snow to see if it performs well.


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## bosco659 (Feb 1, 2013)

motorhead64 said:


> Bosch,
> Your governor is working correctly. In the frozen pack under the new snow, your engine is lugging under load. Perfectly normal. Only with more horsepower will your engine be able to maintain a high rpm under similar load. My 8 hp blower barely blinks when my 5 hp model nearly stalls. MH


Hooked up a tach to the machine and ran it into the snow in the back yard again. With the freshly fallen snow the engine would run steadily at 3600 rpm. Once it got into the old stuff the engine slowed to 2800 rpm but didn't stall. Checked the governor it it appeared to working correctly but it was super cold out today and I decided to head back inside before I froze. 

Noticed that at the point where the engine would slow right down, there was a fairly large pike of snow building up in front of the chute. Snow didn't seem to be thrown as far as the last time I used it. Wonder if the auger belt is slipping and not pushing the snow out fast enough and part of the engine bogging down is due to the drive (tires) trying to push the snow, taking power away from the engine. The tires have an aggressive tread and the base isn't slippery so this may be a contributing factor. If I get it in the warm shop tomorrow I might put in a new belt.


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## motorhead64 (Dec 15, 2013)

Loss of rpms under snow load is normal. But if you take in large amounts of snow into your bucket, the problem compounds due to the slowing impeller's inability to clear itself fast enough. This is one of the most common causes of stripped belts and stalling. MH


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## bosco659 (Feb 1, 2013)

Well, I brought my machine indoors and took it apart to get to the governor assembly. This must have been done at the factory but the governor was not set up incorrectly. It turns out that the throttle plate wasn't fully open at WOT and the governor wasn't adjusted correctly.

Set everything up and took it out to about 12" of heavy snow and it barely slowed down. I am quite happy with the performance now.

This is an older machine but had never been taken apart since new. Just goes to show that factory settings may not be 100% and need to be checked if you are having performance issues.


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