Kubota Engines

[yooperdave]

Is Kubota the only major manufacturer of 4 or more cylinder
engines for low-end non compact size tractors (JD 5000 series, New Holland TN series, Kubota M series)?

Local farmers are telling me that 3 cylinder engines just do
not hold up as well as 4 cylinder engines when worked hard.

It appears that Kubota is the only major manufacturer which
produces a 45 pto hp to 60 pto hp full size frame tractor with a non-3 cylinder engine.

Can anyone else shed some light on this?

 

[TresCrows]

I do not understand your question but I think your "local" farmers are smoking something /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif .
Kubota engines are sized to the tractor and come in both 3 and 4 cylinder that I have seen and all are very heavy duty. A 3 cylinder engine is not built to be less strong than a 4 but obviously a larger tractor will not have to work as hard. Really, I thnk you should not listen to them---what kinda tractor are you needing--tell us about your place and what you plan to do.
Also, John Deere also has 4 cylinder engines and I am sure NH does also in the larger tractors. I am not sure on the bigger engines but they are probably all built by Yanamar for JD and I am not sure who builds the NH engines. All of these engines are very robust. Kubota, to my knowledge is the only one of the big three that builds their own engines and transmissions.
J

 

[Anonymous Poster]

<font color=blue>...John Deere also has 4 cylinder engines and I am sure NH does also in the larger tractors. I am not sure on the bigger engines but they are probably all built by Yanamar for JD and I am not sure who builds the NH engines...</font color=blue>

Other than Yanmar JD 4000 & compact series, John Deere manufacturers their own engines…

Fiat/New Holland Group(CNH) is slightly trickier with compact engines from Shibaura, utilities Iveco/New Holland & Iveco/Cummins & some Perkins, and will change some more with a joint effort with the Chinese and some smaller European mfrs…

 

[yooperdave]

The question is geared more towards why JD & CNH only
offer 3 cylinder engines for the smaller full-size frame
tractors in the 40 pto hp to 60 pto hp range, while Kubota
supplies 5 cylinder engines.

John Deere doesn't appear to provide a 4 cylinder engine in
their 5000 series tractors until you get to a 65 hp tractor.
New Holland appears to be similar to John Deere in this respect.

All other things being equal, wouldn't the Kubota be smoother,
quieter, and have more lugging capacity with a 5 cylinder
engine than a 3 cylinder JD or CNH in the 50hp range?

 

[JATO_RaT]

Dave, I have a 3 cylinder International 40 HP or so, a 4 cylinder Kubota 48 HP and use a Kubota L4850 with a 5 cylinder. I have to honestly say not only are all 3 great with the 5 cylinder Kubota being my favorite, but power wise there seems to little difference. The 3 cylinder has the deepest sound and sounds the most powerful and is easily as smooth running as the other two, it is a 1973 with no work done on it in its life except for the usual. My L48 has a very nice 4 cylinder that starts instantly and burns very clean, very little smell to it at all while the 3 cylinder International is by far the dirtiest burning and the biggest fuel consumer. All in all, I would say the number of cylinders is not nearly so important as many other things. Rat...

 

[Anonymous Poster]

<font color=blue>...The question is geared more towards why JD & CNH only offer 3 cylinder engines for the smaller full-size frame tractors in the 40 pto hp to 60 pto hp range, while Kubota supplies 5 cylinder engines...</font color=blue>

I believe it basically amounts to the manufacturers law of economics and inventory...

From the 50's through the 70's, just about every mfr. would have a wide inventory of engines, and every couple years change again... {you had multiple sized 3 and 4 cylinder engines}

ex. Today, it's more cost effective to have the same pistons and valves etc. used across the board in the 3 cylinders, and 4 cyl. units. Both John Deere and Iveco use their 179 cid diesels {and Perkins use 164 cid} across a wide range of horsepower/kw requirements say from 42-70 hp... all from the same unit... then step up to the 4 cylinder unit to cover say from 65-100 hp range...

Now this wide range is covered with basically 2 engines {one 3 cyl. and one 4 cyl} by John Deere, Iveco, and Perkins...

Kubota will use the basic 3 cylinder pistons and valves and now have a 5 cylinder unit {remember Kubota owns a majority of the compact market and that’s what’s in their inventory to choose from} to obtain a similar displacement to develop the higher horsepower.

You have a few automotive engineers on TBN that may chime in, but I always felt the “3” cyl. runs smoother than a “4” cyl without any harmonic engine balancer needed as the 4 cyl’s use {because of the physical design of the engine}... but never-the-less with today's technology at it's point, I think you'd be hard pressed to see a smoothness difference among most of the current units on the market [whether it’s 3,4,5 or 6 cylinders]...

One last thing, out of all the majors, Kubota develops most of their horsepower at the higher rpm ranges as 2600-2800 vs JD, NH, and Perkins as 2100-2500 rpm...

{and the poor little sub-compact BX is screaming at about 3200 rpm's, I believe}

 

[hayden]

I think Rat hit the nail on the head. If you rank all the things that matter when selecting a tractor, I'd put the number of cylinders pretty low on the list. If all other things were equal, I'd pick more cylinders over fewer.

 

[john_bud]

John,

<font color=blue>One last thing, out of all the majors, Kubota develops most of their horsepower at the higher rpm ranges as
2600-2800 vs. JD, NH, and Perkins as 2100-2500 rpm...</font color=blue>

Are you referring to the "Boomer" and 4000 series of compact tractors from HN and JD? Or to the larger series tractors? I thought that the equivalent Kubota's, Deere's and New Holland's all were about the same RPM for PTO speed. Do you have a spec book comparison for all three? (Hint hint /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif)

 

[Anonymous Poster]

<font color=blue>...engines for low-end non compact size tractors (JD 5000 series, New Holland TN series, Kubota M series)?...</font color=blue>

Hi John,

I'm talking utility size per his original question... the compacts JD, NH, and Kubota all run neck to neck {2600-2800}... /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Cub Cadet/Mitsubishi has a four cylinder 36 hp tractor (7360 SS 4WD) that runs at 2700 rpms. I own the largest 3cyl cc available to date and its been perfect for the last six years of use. If the four cyl is as smooth and flawless as the three I would highly recommend taking a look.