Honda Select Drive

bertsmobile1 said:
Only gases can burn
Thus the contents of the cylinder can not go bang unless the fuel droplets created in the carburettor venturi have undergone a phase transformation to turn into gasses.
I don't really know what else you could be needing to know.
The longer wait times allows more heat from the engine to be transferred into the fuel\Do you want R values and 4th order quadratic equations .
I have no idea what the latient heat of vapourisation for fuel is as I have no idea exactly what is in it.
Neither Benzene nor Tollunene can vapourise at under 15 C and then the rate it will depend upon the rate head can be adsorbed and the partial pressure of the vapours and the equilibirum value between the gas & liquid state at cylinder compression.
Then it has to be adjusted to account for the film strength of the droplets and any surface tension modifiers present
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You have been agreeing with my original assumption of fuel vaporization. I was looking for possible answers other than fuel vaporization, if any, that I have overlooked. The engine would probably start on first pull every time if I would squirt a little fuel into the carburetor throat first. I am not planning on doing this ever with this mower. I have a larger Chinese made, Honda copycat, engine on my tiller that for now for whatever reason loves to be fed fuel directly before starting and the manual choke appears to be still working as it should since I have to fully open the choke fairly soon after the engine starts. Maybe the carburetor needs cleaning. The tiller only gets started once in the spring and once in the fall so for now I do not care to pursue it. Thank you for your input.
 
On cooler fall days my HRX217 would be hard to start. When I would stop to empty the bag full of leaves and restart I'd have to pull 5-7 times. My new Super Recycler has blade stop but I've also had much better luck starting and restarting it in cooler weather
 
gotomow said:
On cooler fall days my HRX217 would be hard to start. When I would stop to empty the bag full of leaves and restart I'd have to pull 5-7 times. My new Super Recycler has blade stop but I've also had much better luck starting and restarting it in cooler weather
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gotomow, did your HRX217 have the GCV190 or the GCV200 engine? My old Honda had the GCV160 engine that would crank 90% of the time on the first pull and in real cold weather you may have to add 1-2 pulls. After playing around a bit I think the trick in cold weather is to "prime" the engine with a couple of pulls, wait 1-2 minutes then pull again. At least it worked a few days ago when we still had pretty cold weather. Two days ago it reached 70F here and the mower started with 2 pulls.
 
oillogger said:
You have been agreeing with my original assumption of fuel vaporization. I was looking for possible answers other than fuel vaporization, if any, that I have overlooked. The engine would probably start on first pull every time if I would squirt a little fuel into the carburetor throat first. I am not planning on doing this ever with this mower. I have a larger Chinese made, Honda copycat, engine on my tiller that for now for whatever reason loves to be fed fuel directly before starting and the manual choke appears to be still working as it should since I have to fully open the choke fairly soon after the engine starts. Maybe the carburetor needs cleaning. The tiller only gets started once in the spring and once in the fall so for now I do not care to pursue it. Thank you for your input.
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Well if you are right then you are right, what more do you want ?
different carbs will make different size droplets of fuel to be created at different venturii flows .
It is generally matched to things like the length of the inlet tract, the material used in the manifold etc, etc, etc .
getting these exactly right is the dark art of performance tuning which is not bothered with on mower engines.
 
oillogger said:
Interesting, I had figured the GCV190 would have been easy to start just as my GCV160 is since they are both basically of the same prior design.
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At long as the temps were 60-90 degrees it was easily started.
The cold weather hard starting and the plastic bushings on the axle are why I moved on
 
I have completed two total yard cuttings(1st one mostly weeds, 2nd one light grass) and 2-3 pine straw pickups so far. In between time I played around cranking the mower every few days to see how many pulls it would take to start. With the warmer weather it only takes 1-2 pulls. In cold weather I believe you can reduce the number of pulls to start by waiting a 2-3 minutes after the first couple of pulls to try again. So far the mower handles well with only one issue so far. The top plastic handle sticks out to the side where it connects over the metal handle bar creating a squared off ridge of about 1/4". Perfect for catching a finger nail when cranking your mower. I know this from the experience of losing about 1/3 of my finger nail, bleeding like a stuck pig for a few minutes, and speaking in some unheard of language. :cry: Worst, afterwards I had to endure my wife, the super hero nurse, insisting on daily bandages with ointments instead of allowing it to just heal on its own. Because of the excessive level of care provided I always try to hide all wounds from my wife. Because I can see this perhaps happening again I may try to eliminate the squared off ridge somehow and I am open to any ideas others may have. Other than that there have been no issues with bagging, speed control, wheel adjustment, fuel tank size, etc. I did try cutting my lawn on the lowest setting and found parts of my yard were not level enough so the mower body would drag. I'll post again after a few more times at bat with the mower to provide anyone looking into purchasing a Honda HRX217 more info on my experience with my HRX217.
 
Today I now have mowed my yard a total of six times. Five of the six times were light cuttings. I lowered the mower one more notch today to the last one to try it out over the whole yard. The rear wheels were not hard to adjust as others have complained since I always lift the wheels corner slightly when adjusting the wheels. By cutting the grass this low there was thick older growth grass of 3+ weeks being cut so it worked the mower more. Not a problem for my HRX217, the engine only picked up speed a little bit and never came close to bogging down. The mower body would drag in a few places next to my 550' of fence, over a few of the roots under my pine tree, and very little in some spots in the middle of the yard. After today's experience it is best to cut my lawn one level higher and wish the lowest setting was 1" instead of 3/4". I am being too picky about the cutting height. Cranking today only took one pull when first starting the mower for the day and thank goodness I have not murdered my finger nail again as I did in early March. My HRX217 bags like a champ and packs a lot of grass in the bag. I find the shorter wheelbase of my old HRR216 was a little bit easier to move around in tight places. I still use the Honda Select Drive as a variable speed control without any issues. The Honda Select Drive cable is slowly starting to stretch out as fully expected and I may need to adjust the cable by the end of the summer. I am able to cut my lawn with one tank of gas and the new fuel tank is a breeze to fill compared to my old Honda and Toro mowers. Overall I am quite pleased with my HRX217 mower. At this time the only minor changes/improvements I would like to see at this point is a cutting height adjustment between the two lowest settings, shorter wheel base as the HRN216 has, and the fingernail murder spot addressed. I will report again later in the summer hoping any prospective HRX217 buyers will get some useful information.
 
Well the monsoon season has arrived and here to stay a while. It has rained for 6-7 days straight leaving a little standing water along my fence in the river slit soil my entire yard has. Usually my old Toro and old Honda 216 would sink down dragging the mowers to a stop every so often along the fence where their is 8" buffer of no grass. My new HRX217 did much better for whatever reason. The grass was taller than usual and the yard was wet enough to leave muddy mower wheel tracks. Bagging the wet grass and power was not an issue. Today and only one other time have I experienced my right hand tingling while cutting grass so a padded handle would be a suggested improvement.
 
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