Stihl 500i and 462 prices

[mooleycow]

I stopped by the local small town Stihl dealer to get a trimmer.  I took note the 500i and 462 prices.  The 500i was $1550.00 and the 462 was $1350.00.  Is this about right?  This was in Galax Virginia.  His display did not have many saws, but he seemed to have a little bit of everything.  He had what is so lacking today, that is good product knowledge.

[DHansen]

About what I would expect to see here in MN.

[ehp]

Sense the 500i has come out here there is not much call for the 462 so not many being sold but when they do the 462 price is about $300 plus less than the 500i , I bought 2 462 arctics for that price as well, I ran a new 500i with bark box on it today , that saw cut very well and only needed a couple pumps with the primer ball to get going . If it gains much over the next couple days it will be a pretty strong saw , stronger than the others 

[charles mann]

Well, i just bought a 462 today at the local Kubota/stihl dealer. Their sticker price was $1400, i got it for $1360. I too was deliberating between the 500i and 462, and since they had a 462 (odd bc they didnt know they had it and the stihlusa site said "call for pricing") on the shelf to hold and see how it feels, but not a 500, so the purchase was a no brainer, get what i can feel, try out and take hm today. 
They could have ordered the 500 and it show up in a 7-10 days. 
I might have them order it later this yr just to another back up saw to my 661 and the 462. 

[Walnut Beast]

Ehp keep us posted on that bark box.

[ehp]

been running bark box on the 462 for I guess close to 6 months , my other buddy has bee running one of his 500i for a couple months , he has one on his 400c now , we all like how they work and I got another one for the other new 462 arctic that is sitting in its new box 

[teakwood]

what exactly is a bark box? it's moded muffler right? a screamer?

[Dave Shepard]

A barf box (that's what I call them) is an aftermarket add-on designed to make a noisy tool noisier. When someone fires one up and we're on comms, somebody will almost always declare "Bark Box Mountain!".

[ehp]

Bark box is a muffler mod so it does give you abit more power in torque but lowers the cylinder temp cause the ext can now get out alot easier  AND with the cylinder temp being a more stable temp the computer has a far easier job on jetting the carb or injector to keep the saw in the proper air fuel ratio , Is this box better than a standard muffle mod , No but its better than a stock muffler , it has the screen in the box so its legal in most places so not to start a fire , It's not cheap but its quite well made and built out of good stainless steel. Plus I donot have to spend time cutting and welding 

[Walnut Beast]

Nice explanation for everyone ehp. It's nice and appreciated to hear your feedback of you actually running one instead of talkers that never ran one

[ehp]

Walnut Beast, I have made alot of ported saws in my life time , lots of alcohol race saws , bikesaws  so I'm not just talking out of the side of my mouth . I still believe my way of porting a saw is better than most and forsure than what most do these days cause most do not understand how a engine works , if I change this port what does it do to the engine power band and why you should not do that change  or should you do that change . Everything has to work together so you changing the ext port timing but nothing else is a big No No , same as pulling the base gasket out and using silicon , yes you raised the compression abit but you raised the intake port degrees of timing but you also lowered the transfer and ext port timing so you lowered your power band  rpm , muffler mod just lets the engine breath better but helps get rid of engine heat which is what kills most engines , if engine is lean its the high temps that end up killing the engine 

[teakwood]

Ehp, can I modify the existing exhaust half and add a second exhaust hole or gut out the inside of the muffler to get the same result as a barkbox?

[cuznguido]

Pardon the interruption, but in your honest opinion, with both saws stock, is the 500i a 300 dollar better saw than the 462?

[ehp]

the 500i has more power that is forsure than a 462 , but at this point over here in NA we cannot buy the 500i arctic but we can buy the 462 arctic , the 500i is over priced here for what you get but they work very well and I have had zero problems with any of mine so that has to be worth something , I'm a very picky person when running a saw , if the saw doesnot do what I want the saw is either fixed to how I want it to run or I scrap it and I donot care if saw has 10 minutes on it , a 592 is about $200 less than a 500i but you will not see any more of those here with me . I bought 3 of the 592's , ran i 1 of them for I guess a couple days . I tried falling with it then cutting on the landing just to make sure what I felt was true , The autotune just would not keep up with the air conditions changing so much around Lake Erie , most times it was to rich for my liking then the odd time it would go lean  so I gave the 1 saw I ran to a friend that had all his saws stolen and sold the other 2 new in the box to someone else and 1 of those saws would not run brandnew when they tried to start it . It had to go to the dealer and get new parts so it would run.

Is the 500i worth that much more money than the 462 , well to me it depends on what I'm cutting . If I'm cutting normal hardwood thats a normal 500 feet in scale per tree I say not really but on the landing bucking up I say yes , 462 will cut about the same number per trees per day , a lot easier on the arms and shoulders and burn a fair bit less in fuel over the 500i , the 500i is a bit tougher saw in the mount system , now cutting I'm saying with 25 inch bar setup, any longer then the 500i , I bore cut everything from both sides so a 25 inch setup can cut a big tree, I cut a 54 inch hard maple the other day with a 20 inch bar setup cause that is what I had in the truck at the time as I was just at a friends house and I had took most of everything else out on my truck, Big notch and bore the center threw the notch . A couple more inches in diameter I would of had a problem  .  

[ehp]

Teakwood , always remember if your opening the stock hole in the muffler up only cut the part of the hole towards the piston , I see lots of guys just bore a big hole in that part of the muffler then they find out that was not thinking as they melted the chain brake  handle from the ext heat , . If you open that hole up , the saw will be quieter than a bark box , power will be very close thou. 

[ehp]

Also from what I have seen the bark box does not get any where as hot as a stock muffler , I have had my shirts try and catch fire with the stock muffler if they took them as the stock muffler runs very hot , I also do not see the moss on the trees try and catch fire like I do with stock muffler

[Walnut Beast]

If your wearing ear protection I'm assuming your fine ? I might have to get them for the 661 and 881 to help keep them cool 

[charles mann]

i too thought about buying either a bark box or egan strait shot. but instead, i built me something similar, and instead of a flat top plate, i took some 0.090" stainless (wanted 62 thou, but got what the machine shop had on hand.) heated it as i formed it over a piece of 2.5" pipe, then welded sides on it and welded it to a base plate to screw/bolt to the muffler box. did it cost me more $ than buying either, sure, but i got enough material to build 3-4 more. i was gonna build one for my ms660 and now for my 462. I wish i had a way to roll the stainless, but im not set up for that kind of work at home. i might bring it to work and use our acft sheet metal roller/brake to get a cleaner look with no hammer marks on it. 

[newoodguy78]

ehp how long are you typically getting out of a saw before you move on to the next? You noticed one saw or the other being more dependable long term?

[teakwood]

i too thought about buying either a bark box or egan strait shot. but instead, i built me something similar, and instead of a flat top plate, i took some 0.090" stainless (wanted 62 thou, but got what the machine shop had on hand.) heated it as i formed it over a piece of 2.5" pipe, then welded sides on it and welded it to a base plate to screw/bolt to the muffler box. did it cost me more $ than buying either, sure, but i got enough material to build 3-4 more. i was gonna build one for my ms660 and now for my 462. I wish i had a way to roll the stainless, but im not set up for that kind of work at home. i might bring it to work and use our acft sheet metal roller/brake to get a cleaner look with no hammer marks on it.

Do you have fotos? It would be interesting to see it in a pic

[charles mann]

i too thought about buying either a bark box or egan strait shot. but instead, i built me something similar, and instead of a flat top plate, i took some 0.090" stainless (wanted 62 thou, but got what the machine shop had on hand.) heated it as i formed it over a piece of 2.5" pipe, then welded sides on it and welded it to a base plate to screw/bolt to the muffler box. did it cost me more $ than buying either, sure, but i got enough material to build 3-4 more. i was gonna build one for my ms660 and now for my 462. I wish i had a way to roll the stainless, but im not set up for that kind of work at home. i might bring it to work and use our acft sheet metal roller/brake to get a cleaner look with no hammer marks on it.

Do you have fotos? It would be interesting to see it in a pic

Check you pm box

[ehp]

what I do is this , On most of the new style saw I run them about 1 year in most cases then send it down the road , reason I feel is first in one year of logging my saw still looks very good as I take very good care of my saws, next I got a waiting list of people just waiting to buy my used saws and they pay in most cases $300 less than I paid for the saw to start with and they are very happy to buy them, In some cases I go 2 or more years if I get a real good saw that I like , I do have saws here that are 10 plus years old that will not be sold cause they mean something to me , So with running a saw for a year ends up costing me $300  I feel that is pretty cheap use of a tool to do my jobs . My landing saw forsure gets changed out every year as I feel that is far harder on it than falling timber as far as time on the crank bearings

[ehp]

And in most cases I have more pro saws here than most of the dealers in my area , we have lost most of the real saw shops new so just bigger chain box stores that really have no idea on what they are doing or fixing .

Teakwood , the bark box opening could be bigger as its not as big as what the port area could handle , the hole in the box is closer to what you want but its got a fairly heavy screen covering the port hole so that takes a fair amount of port volume area away so on 500i I normally also open the stock hole in muffler up a fair bit and and add the bark box and they work quit well , with the muffler done right you do see a gain and its a fair bit , I know lots of guys think my other 500i are ported cause of how they cut but they are not , the ported saws stay here other than any that goes to my buddy a hour from me but he just got robbed of 28 ported saws so there is a bunch of them out there somewhere now and we hear they went up north to Northbay  so some should show up on some selling site , I would also think there should be some guys/dealers that fix saws are going to get their eyes opened up when they pull the cylinders off  like stihl 461s with 6 transfer ports , 365/372s with the fuel system completely changed on how fuel gets into the cylinder , stihl 462 using a same bore but different piston with wider skirts on it , stuff like that

[DHansen]

EHP, I enjoy reading your posts.  It is like you take the saws to a whole new level.  Lots of experience and real-world work.  Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge. Very interesting.

[ehp]

Things that seem to be lost in these days is people thinking for themselves, You see guys posting videos online of how they have made this saw so much more powerfull than it was and then show you their what they call porting and its just a basic clean up of the port or ports and yes that will give you a gain but forsure less than 10%cause you really did not change much , to make power you need to move the power band up 2000 or 3000 more rpms and a port clean up will not do that plain and simple , you can only raise the compression so much before you end up killing the crank bearing and making the cylinder temps so high you end up burning the saw up . If you see videos online in most cases they are trying to sell you something and in a lot of cases what your seeing is not the real truth but it sells engine work and makes them money . Lots of these so called builders have very little understanding on how a motor pumps volume , lots take what works in a 372 and use those numbers for everything which sure does not work and they cannot figure out why that does not work . The newer saws for sure are harder to make big power out of but it can be done but it just takes more time to build it and you have to pay a lot more to what your machining or porting as these new engines are built close to max port sizes to the piston shirt