Not looking to start a brand name war but

Chipmaker,
I have mostly Tecumsah engines on my non-JD equipment and have found them pretty reliable. The only B&S engine I have is on my 8HP rototiller. It has become harder to start in the past year or so but it could be it needs a carburetor rebuild which I will have done next season. My only observation is that the carburetor on the B&S needs more adjustment than on any of my Tecumsah powered equipment to run smoothly. Other than that, both have been good engines for equipment that I don't use that often. I have an Ariens 6HP string trimmer mower with a Tecumsah that has been easy to start and performed very well with no maintenance for the 3 years I have had it. I will do a tune up over the winter or next spring but again this is a piece of equipment I use only once or twice per month.

Well now I am really confused. It seems to be the general conception that a vertical shaft engine needs a heavy flywheel to be able to run and start without a blade. So after a talk with a B & S tech at B & S he informed me its a myth and carry over from years past. He siad other than the crankshafts orientation the vertical shaft mower is no different than a horizontal in regards to it needing something heavier on a flywheel to make it start or run properly. He stated that a blade does add more mass and therefore more energy, but if its driving something that does not have a large rotating force that may be hard to get started such as a pressure washer pump or such no extra weight is needed, and the only purpose a heavy flywheel is made for is on compliance motors for a brake. He said any of B & S engnes should work fine if they have sufficient HP for the job.

I do remember as a kid fooling with old vertical shaft motors that they would not run right without a blade, but I also recall I have fooled with a ot of them since, all runing in the shop setting on top of an upside down plastic milk crate to hold them in place while running them, and all without a blade.

( I may have the heavy flywheel thing reversed, and that applications without the need for a brake use heavy etc, but the poiint he made is a heavy flywheel is not an indicator of the need to have on an engine without a blade)

I found a new 6.5hp B&S Intek OHV vertical shaft enigne that has a short crankshaft (long enough for my needs though) w/2 year warranty, for $80.00, so it was not a hard decsion to make on ordering it. The crank is only 1 3/16" (not 1 13/16") and is straight 7/8" in diam and has a 3/16" keyway. They were made fro driving pressure washers. I only need 1" of shaft so it will be perfect.

I have since made a "custom" set of pull back type handle bars and got rid of the old tiller handle bars which were about 3" too low, and added a tension spring for the idler pulley and got rid of the manual tensioner. In the pprocess of cleaning up the string trimmer, and hopefully I should have my new motor by mid part of next week.

Evidently I have internal problems somewhere in the motor that was on the trimmer. As I mounted a blade on it and installed it on an old mower frame and its still a real Bi%#% to get cranked, but when running it seems fine......I had previously swapped the alum flywheel to a cast iron one that I had laying around, and it did not make any difference. Then after talking to the B & S tech I finally seen I was in left field with what I was thinking.