Liquid cooled Kawasaki twin's

[dkeav]

Surplus center has some 26hp Kawasaki liquid cooled twins for under 1k right now.  Might be decent project engine for CHP?  Not sure how they are on fuel.

[Henry W]

It's a nice running engine. They do use a fair amount of fuel. But, the ones I've seen running are loaded pretty good. Unfortunately Kawasaki parts and customer service is not the greatest. I've know some people that own lawn care companies and they had warrantee issues with Kawasaki. Kawasaki's support is not all that great in my area. In my area Kohler and Briggs has the best support. Most lawn care providers sold their Kawasaki powered equipment and went with Kohler. For power equipment over 27 hp most went with Briggs big block engines. Ive always recommended staying with equipment that have good support in your area. I used to be a Kawasaki fan but, once the support started getting bad I decided to switch to Briggs Vanguard.

If you are looking to build a CHP that you have to rely on I would suggest looking at the Kohler LH690. It's a current engine and Kohlers warrantee and support is known to be very good. I would rather pay a thousand dollars extra having a piece of mind knowing parts are available in a matter of days if not in stock. People with Kawasaki engines have waited for weeks for parts. In my book that is unacceptable.

Everything is a risk. If you want to build a CHP to experiment than I would say tha Kawasaki is ok. Just make sure your alternators or generator heads are able to handle running vertically. I believe most will run just fine but, I am guessing.

[dkeav]

After some more research seems it would be more economical to build an exhaust heat exchanger to run more common/cheaper engines in horizontal shaft.

[M61hops]

I hope to try and build something using a scrounged old 1.6 liter ford engine running at 1200 rpm.  Used small car engines can be had cheap, I've had few low mileage Nissan Sentra engines delivered to my door for $125 and they ran great.  That was some years back but I could buy a new Brigges and Stratton 5hp for the same price.  However the Nissan motors came with starters, alternators, AC compressors and power steering pumps included.

[dkeav]

What will you do for fixed speed governing?