How "feed dependent" are the 451 blowers?
 

Just got my new to me 451 mounted up to the 1864 yesterday (sorry, no pics yet) and had to find some snow to try it out. I was...less than impressed. I've got good belt tension, things are tight and spinning free but the snow just doesn't blow. There were times where I'd get a decent pile in front of me it'd go maybe 10 feet but most of the time it would just get past the edge of the blower. I've got a good amount of experience with the QA42A blower and know that those QA's are feed dependent on how far they throw, but I kind of expected these 2 stage units to be a little less picky. Thoughts anyone? :bigthink:

I have no experience with a 2stage blower but I would think it can't blow what isn't there, logic would tell me the fuller the blower is the more energy it can transfer to the snow which will throw it further.

Tim is right.

Single stage, 2 stage it doesn't matter. A snowblower isn't going to work unless it has snow to blow. You can't feed just a little into it. If there isn't at least 4" of snow it isn't going to blow it far. Wet, dry snow makes a difference too. It will work, just wait till you have a real amount to use it on.

They like snow. The more the better.

Tim and Jon are both correct. I only used my 450 once in about 6 inches of wet stuff. I worked but I wasn't impressed. For the 451, I added 2 paddles that I made out of roll plastic to the impeller. Hopefully I will get the chance to try it out this year.

Here is a site I found that sells them (not an endorsement, just found it on a search) but also explains the principle fairly well. :beerchug:

http://smllengns.tripod.com/id13.html

Awesome, just what I wanted to know; thanks guys! :beerchug:

Shrewcub; that's an interesting addition/modification to our blowers. I have some extra material laying around that should work for that, I may have consider that :bigthink:

Forgot to mention there are some guys on youtube that use the sidewalls of old tires for the paddles. :beerchug:

This time every year I see the snowblower impeller mods surface on the internet. I often have been tempted to try it but was wondering if anybody on the forum actually has an experience with this mod, positive or negative. The general concept seems sound but always wondered why the OEM's never incorporated it into their designs if it was such a good idea.

Personally I put about 80 hrs on snow moving machines in the winter on a "bad" year. I have no issues with them as they are stock, so I don't worry about it. I can blow snow around 30' on average with a 2-stage and farther if conditions are right. I've blown it over a parked full sized van, so that's pretty good. Once the housing is shined up, and the snow builds up where it is going to it feeds fine. No reason to modify in my opinion.

It seems like the videos I've seen (been looking around, curious now :biggrin2:) see the biggest difference when there is less than ideal amounts of snow. Translation; if you're blowing deep snow, stock is just fine. If you're blowing small amounts of snow, the paddles couldn't hurt. Just my :TwoCents: