Tractor HP ratings

[wkellen]

I have a John Deere 1010 RUS. I see the specs online with horsepower ratings at the 3pt hitch, drawbar, and PTO. It shows 30 hp. I know this old tractor doesn't give me this and I wouldn't expect to see it. However after some tuning, it has come to life. Especially when I got the RPM's up to between 2000 and 2500.

I can understand why the hp ratings are given from where they are. If this were a 115ci gas engine in a car, it would be rated at a lot higher hp.(maybe) I just wonder what this motor produces at say the flywheel... The old tractor is constantly having either a fuel problem or an ignition problem. I have rebuilt both numerous times. I always turn the gas off and let the tractor die before I turn the key off because of this. It seems to help. It may just be in my head that it helps. When it runs good, it really runs good.

I have a "donor" car... It is a 2005 chevy aveo. I already played with using the coil pack out if it for firing the plugs. It worked, but I eventually found a used distributor and put it in to keep the original parts on the tractor. Now I am back to it not starting so easily. I have the idea of building a plate to house 2 fuel injectors. The plate would mount to where the carb mounts now. Then I would steal the throttle body from the car with the throttle position sensor. I could time the injectors based on throttle position. I am thinking this would give me smooth start, smooth idle, and less working on the thing. I wouldn't make any changes that cant be reversed to original equipment though.

 

[2002sliverado]

There was an article in Green Magazine a few months ago about a man who is working on an electronic fuel injection kit for 3010/3020 and 4010/4020 John Deere gasoline powered tractors. If I remember correctly, he is obtaining parts from a company under the acronym of F.A.S.T. That company does have a website, but the last I looked, there was nothing on the retro-fit fuel injection systems. The claim in the magazine article, as I recall, was a 10 percent increase in horsepower and a 10 to 20 percent reduction in gasoline consumption. The issue of doggy, fuel sucking, hard starting, and poor running John Deere gas tractors seems to be brought up on the John Deere discussion forum every so often. I grew up around a 3010, 3020, and 4020 gasoline powered tractors. A gasoline powered tractor is my preference for a yard tractor and snow removal, but I was unable to find one that fit my desires, so I ended up with a diesel tractor. I am happy with it, but it needs to be plugged in for a few hours to ensure starting in cold weather.

 

[wkellen]

I grew up on a couple of 4020 Diesel tractors. A shot of ether and they would fire right off. I miss them now. They were never under powered. We put a front end loader on one of them and used it like a dozer. I would think this 1010 would be a lot more powerful and reliable if it were Diesel. However if it were, I wouldn't have a clue how to work on it.

 

[David G]

You can only get a certain small gain in HP by changing fuel delivery.

Remember HP = torque / 5,252

So, double RPM and double HP

 

[David G]

There is a lot more to it than that, but it is workable.

Read some of my posts, I have one running pretty good, but will probably never be done.

 

[wkellen]

"double RPM, double HP"... Funny you should mention this. I have an aftermarket Tach on this tractor. It works off of the wire from the coil. I had a lot of trouble getting the RPM's up a while back. I was shooting for 2500 MAX. I could only get just under 1500. After messing with timing and carb, I figured out it was the linkage from the governor to the carb. I would check rpms, kill the engine, adjust and repeat. I got tired of killing the engine and restarting, so I adjusted it on the fly.... That was a BAD idea. The linkage came off of the carb and the thing tacked 4000 before I could get to the kill switch. I am just thankful it is still running.

 

[David G]

You better consider this tractor disposable if you keep messing without a plan.

 

[David G]

I will give you a quick tutorial on how to calculate the fuel required, it NEEDS to be a about 1/14.7 the amount of air. The air flow can be directly read from a mass air flow (MAF) sensor, or calculated based off manifold air pressure (MAP). It needs to be compensated for RPM, load, barometric pressure, air temperature and engine temperature. The ONLY thing throttle position should be used for is to simulate an accelerator pump.

You will need to know crank position to control the spark, the timing will be adjusted based on RPM and load.

 

[wkellen]

Oh I had a plan. It just turned into a bad plan when I decided to adjust without killing it first.

 

[wkellen]

(quoted from post at 09:41:57 06/01/16) I will give you a quick tutorial on how to calculate the fuel required, it NEEDS to be a about 1/14.7 the amount of air. The air flow can be directly read from a mass air flow (MAF) sensor, or calculated based off manifold air pressure (MAP). It needs to be compensated for RPM, load, barometric pressure, air temperature and engine temperature. The ONLY thing throttle position should be used for is to simulate an accelerator pump.

You will need to know crank position to control the spark, the timing will be adjusted based on RPM and load.

I used the fuel usage numbers from the tractor specs and calculated that it is supposed to use about .1162121 cc/revolution. From this I calculated that using 2 of the donor injectors, they will have to be open 34.86 milliseconds total per revolution. Being a 4 cylinder and using 2 injectors, I figured I would open each one 2 times per cycle for 8.715 milliseconds each. I figured on opening them as a cylinder fired. This way when one is going down from firing the other is going down to intake fuel and air. I know it wont be exact, but I will have to add variables at the beginning of the program that I can adjust to fine tune it.

I have already figured out the positioning and timing of spark according to the rpm part. The coil pack works in wasted spark mode. basically 2 plugs fire at the same time. One at compression and one at exhaust. I took the hall effect sensor (Cam Position Sensor) from the car and used it. It reads either high or low depending on if there is steel close enough to change its state. I used my old distro and modified it to have a piece it it that looks like this... (X). This changes the state of the sensor every time it crosses a leg of the "X". If low state of sensor, it will fire 2 spark plugs and when in high state it will fire the other 2 spark plugs. I also accounted for RPM so the computer I am using knows how much to retard/advance the timing depending on how you look at it.

I know the donor car has either a MAF or MAP sensor that I could steal if I need to go this route. I was just trying to keep it as simple as possible by delivering fuel and spark as the original components did but in a more reliable way.

Start simple and then add more to it as I go along.

 

[wkellen]

(quoted from post at 20:47:16 05/31/16) There is a lot more to it than that, but it is workable.

Read some of my posts, I have one running pretty good, but will probably never be done.

I just read through some of your posts about the MH44 EFI. Looks like you started out about the same as I am. I wasn't going the mega/micro squirt route, but after seeing the tuner software hooked up to it while running, I am now thinking about the $300 module. I was trying to accomplish the same with an arduino. They are cheap.

 

[David G]

It is a lot more work with Arduino, but others have done it, good to see you are heading down the right path.

Read, read and read more on engine and combustion theory.

A lot of knowledge here too.

 

[wkellen]

There is a project I just found called Speeduino. It looks to be incomplete, but I havent read everything on it yet. I do plan to look into it though.
If by using all of these sensors, I have to build a circuit to interface to the arduino with each one, I may have the cost of the microsquirt into it by the time all is said and done.

I read in one of your posts about "looking at the heat of the muffler"... I am curious. My old muffler fell apart and I was a cheapskate and bought a glasspack from Advance Auto that would fit it. I just put my flap on top of that. It actually quietened the tractor down quite a bit. After a few runs though, I noticed all the powdercoat was gone in an area about half way up the muffler. This is where all the heat seems to be. What does that say about my current original distro and carb setup?

Thanks for all the info!!!
Wayne

 

[David G]

A muffler should get hot, but super hot is probably a sign of timing too slow.

 

[wkellen]

(quoted from post at 09:29:26 06/02/16) A muffler should get hot, but super hot is probably a sign of timing too slow.

I have checked it over and over. At full throttle it is 26 degrees BTDC just as the manual calls for. It does seem to jump around a lot. One time it will be dead on and the next the 26 line isnt even in the window. It doesnt sound like it has a miss or anything to make it jump around though and the tach stays pretty steady.

I just thought it was odd that the muffler got really hot in the very center of it and not the ends.

 

[David G]

Timing jumping around sounds like excessive end play in crank/cam or wear in distributor bushing.

 

[David G]

It is well worth the cost, they take care of a lot of the pre work for you.

There is plenty of other work, let them do that.