"50ft of 3/8" off machine, bigger reservoir"? You mean 50' of 3/8" solution line first out the machine? Not really IMO on this machine (
370). Tried that way back. 50' of any diameter solution is both a delivery piece of hardware and a heat sink all at same time.
Sapphire must have thought out the following. There's a finite amount of BTU's coming out the exhaust ports on a 20hp kohler. It is what it is. They kept the exhaust manifold pretty darn short to begin with (fuc.. up choice of flex joint in my opinion) and the path from the suppressor inlet to first contact with the coils is as short I'm sure as is reasonably possible. For those that don't know, the water box of the
370 encompasses the heater coil cavity. I hope I'm describing that well enough. I'll skip the part where the box is pressurized cause for this spew it doesn't matter. The water box nicely heat soaks and after a good warm up period and starting to clean the whole darn assemble (silencer/suppressor, outer shell of water box and all the other heated parts that could effect the water) kind of develop and balance of heat buildup, transfer and loss all at the same time. Probably like every other heat exchanger machine.
In the past I've done a ton of flow/volume measurements with 2 different gas fired pressure washer heaters. I'm "ballparking" the 20hp kohler in the
370 at about 140k-160k BTU's, perhaps just a scosh less at or close to max RPM. So it's all about BTU management with gas engine heat/exchanger rigs which includes probably most everything but a rig powered with a chevy V-8.
Mikes management sytle of the
370 is spot on. Ya gotta learn yer machine (any machine) and maximize what it can and can't do. Recovery time/secs is
never wasted on dry stroking. Unless of course you're a franchise cleaner thinking of the days hopeless schedule or one of the many cheesedi.. endless supply of owner operators. The only thing I do slightly different is I don't use my
370 to prespray. I use a batt sprayer and at one particular point of setting up my hoses I fire up the machine and heat up at fully blocked off. Seems to work and I bust up my routine often so I don't go crazy on the job.
There's 5-8 degrees of additional solution temp I'll give you a hint about (with no engineering road maps so don't ask), and it's just being wasted on probably most every slide in machine. For those that turn their nose up at 5 degrees then walk on by. However, there's 5 degrees conservatively coming out the machines exhaust exit. I capture mine with a unique, long exchanger coil placed in my not-factory exhaust exit. Zero back pressure and with approx 40 ft. of 3/8 stainless tubing. And I know in my gut there's more then even 8 degrees but I can't afford (or justify) engineered copper finned coiling to stuff in place of my affordable stainless set up. For me the
370 is a darn good chose for a 1 cleaner operation even without my post heat exhanger.