I thought about the transmission, but I don't think that it will help much. 1st gear for instance would speed the engine up in relation to the generator head, which isn't what I'd want. The 240 engine should have enough HP at 1800rpm to run any genset that I could find. Running the engine faster wouldn't really help me I don't think. 40hp at 1800rpm shouldn't be a problem.

-Tad