Horsepower

[Ricky1]

Possibly the lower HP recommendation was to stay in a less stringent emissions class ?
The EPA have pretty much left the under 25HP class alone . Although some bunch of fossil hating twits in the EPA . They Want to add the cost and complexity of a full on Tier IV system . The same as used on highway diesel vehicles .
The plan is to force the use of Electric equipment .

I just notice the market both new and used is flooded with all these smaller tractors. Hard to see giving 14k for a 36 horse when you can get some 70 horse for 10! You’re probably right though, I’m sure it’s government bs!

 

[Brendon-KS]

Up to a certain point torque is good. If you don’t have the weight and you loose traction anyway in tractor world it’s worthless to some degree. A good example of this is in my yard. The old 1938 b is sitting there. Rated at 18 hp. Quite modest by anyone’s measure. the Kawasaki in the lawn mower is rated at 26 hp. But if you hook both together the b would drag the little mower all over the place it might be able to tell it’s pulling something if the mower operator is making enough noise…horsepower is not the whole story by any means and has always been a fairly poor measure of how much actual work a tractor will do and why you compare the Nebraska test data with similar sized tractors. How much fuel they use, travel speed and gearing, intended task all were and are factors more than hp.

Nowadays the numbers are bumped to amazingly high levels with cvt transmissions eating power. More power is generally good but largest increase in farm machinery has been its weight. So generally the same customer in 1952 would be interested in a John Deere A as he would in 2015 be interested in a 8270r. The weight would have been around 3500 to 4000 for an A and 32000 for an 8270r hp would have been 34 at the drawbar vs 217. Engine power output increased by 6.4 times. Weight much closer to an increase of tenfold. So all the design and marketing of the highest hp tractor is it worth it when one can just add more deadweight iron? Only if it comes with a refrigerator and a heated and cooled seat. Then we have a winner

Check your data from the test reports. You'll find that the 8270R made over 6 times the drawbar power with less than 4 times more weight than the late model A. The A was ballasted to over 6500 lbs for the test while the 25,300 lb 8270R was run with no added weight.

 

[Fixingfarmer]

Whoops I did grab the B weight. And I did use the equipped weight from the factory instead of the testing weights since there is a wide range of what people would add to get that weight the numbers are skewed a bit. Even back then they knew that adding weight was the answer as evidenced in that gamesmanship in the test. The ops manual on the A limits the weight added per rear wheel to 660 lbs so they were maxing out the weight with the liquid ballast and the cast iron at 687 per. it’s more likely nowadays to pull an implement without added weight at least at first when the new tractor shows up because it’s likely the same implement the old one pulled and because there is all that weight. Often there’s a heavy plate rock box instead of a full weight rack. Although some still need the weight. It was much more common for them to need to add the max weight or more back then. They also will try to make the machine have a couple lighter numbers in the test nowadays since people are more scared of compaction.

5000 to 30000 would have been a more even comparison then you are correct it’s dead even with the increase in horsepower until you factor in the fact that they tested the big one without that 6 ton of weight they could have added. Interesting how the times change what people are watching for. There was also an interesting note that the 85 gpm flow rate claimed by Deere on the 8270r out the remotes was not achieved. That seems like an excessive number to start with even for 2 pumps.