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> How big can you go on a B engine, safely? What does 'safely' mean to you? Some pullers I know would be happy with 'survive the pulling season' (or at least this next class!) and no problem with mods to the block/head that are permanent (such as a 3-3/4" bore!!). > how much can you stroke these little machines?
> What carb and manifold system? 1- What rules does your local club have for antiques? The Cheapest/easiest mods will be to bolt on head and manifold from the later series of tractors (ie x30/x40, the manifold will not let your aircleaner line up and the C135/153 have bigger carbs but the mounting studs have wider spacing and again the aircleaners aren't going to work). But like Shaggy mentioned, the use of a later model head or manifold might DQ you from pulling with your club. You can usually get close to the same upgrades with custom work at a machine shop on your original head, but price goes up accordingly. ON the cranks, where there's a will there's a way. In my experience you can go somewhere around 1/3" to 1/2" before the inside of the block needs work for clearance. 2- What is your expected use? If the expected use is pulling only, then fine; but if some real use is expected(bush-hoging, driveway scraping, etc.), I would shy away from some of the more extreme mods that would hurt long term durability or require racing gas to run (such as stroker cranks, epoxied sleeves, some of the valve seat and rocker arm mods or 12 to 1 compression ratios). In my experience the guys that win the most have gone to the extremes, but the tractor is stripped of hydraulics & PTO so they don't plan to use it for anything but pulling (of course the B hasn't got hydraulics anyhow, so that may not be an issue). Probably want to just target the 2500-3000lb classes. It would be hard for the 24" tires to keep up with the 36 and 38" tires.
Stan(VA).
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