I'm supposed to be picking up a raptor 660 engine complete with wiring harness carbs headers and radiator sunday. I took welding Class for one year and I have pretty good practice with the stick, and I'm okay with the mig. One of my problems first hand is I'm not going to have a 240 volt power outlet. Could I use a 120 volt outlet welder for my engine swap project? Will they penetrate and make enough heat. I know for sure it isn't pleasent stick welding with low heat. 2 plan on using 2 by 1 metal tubing. Would one of harbor freights 120 volt welders work for my project?
Thanks in advacne
Kingster

I would not use the harbor freight. I think the cycle time is way to short. I bought a Eastwood welder and I have been really happy with it. I believe that's the same company that's makes Lincoln welders

I have the Lincoln 180 mig from Lowes it is interchangeable 110 and 220 30amp. BEST 800.00 investment. Welds up to 1/2 steel

I'm often asked about the Harbor Freight flux wire welder and my typical answer is that when mine blew up after five years of hard use I bought another one. It is easily the best bang for the buck you can get and, if your expectations are in the right place (this is what people have a lot of trouble with), it can handle some really tough jobs.

I did my VFR800 swap using this welder and most of the brackets and mounts were .25" steel. I had plenty of penetration and heat...I'm often generating too much heat. As joemomma says, the duty cycle is pretty short, but it's not really uncharacteristic of a small, 115v AC welder. It's also not particularly convenient to have only two amperage settings...it's really good with 1/16" material and 1/4" material, but 1/8" metal is pretty tricky.

I have welded 1/2" mild plate with it and get "okay" penetration if I build up the heat a little, but it's pretty far outside of the machine's normal duty and I can only run about 1.5" of bead at a time. I've also done some stainless using some flux core stainless 030 wire I found on eBay (not pretty, but hasn't rusted or broken!). In a fit of despair I even used some aluminum wire from Harbor Freight and patched a whole in an engine side cover a couple weeks ago...went through a ton of argon doing it (just ran it through a tube taped to my welding tip and flooded the area with gas).

I'm about 10 spools and 2ish years into HF flux wire welder #2. I got 28 spools and 4+ years out of my first one. At $90 a pop, it's hard to do better. If I relied on my welder for my daily bread, though, I'd definitely go with something better. I think my biggest gripe, outside of the amperage settings, is that it's an AC welder. If it was DC, I think it'd be perfect for my projects.

dont get me wrong the harbor freight one would be awesome if you can find a meter to adjust the heat/amperage for your medium grade steel i work at an offroad shop and do exhaust on the side so i use my welder daily. Ive had my lincoln for ten years and ive only replaced the mig gun once and numerous amounts of wire. every now and then you have to wire brush the feed whell to clean the inner flux out of the grooves

I have a friend who has that welder, I'm going to go try it out today. I have been leaning towards it the whole time. If I like it then I'm going to get it. Another idea is to get a generator to power you 220 volt welder. Some people say the power isn't clean though
If you say you used it for your swap project makenzie, then I'm pretty sure it will work for mine.

Ive welded with a 4000 series generator which my friend had to hold the throttle because it was drawing to much but im sure if you get a 5500 or bigger it will do just fine

My Onan 5500 had two 25A output power phases allowing 208/220VAC at 50A. You want to look for a generator that has this type of output.

Yea if I can get a generator like that, then I'm going DC stick welder