moding a chainsaw...

[mrcaptainbob]

Neighbor friend asked if I knew of someone who mods a saw. Nothing fancy, just a 'bit more' than what it has...
I remember reading here a few years back that there was a fellow that did the porting/muffler/carb mod for people.
Who might this be?

[Spike60]

The modding craze has faded a bit and is concentrated on a couple of sites where that is  the primary focus. Couple folks here know the basics. One member who I think is the most knowledgeable on this topic lives in Canada, but I'll let him step in if he chooses. (Up to you Ed.)

When this took off about 10 years ago a lot of guys jumped in with plenty of enthusiasm, but not enough skill or experience. Plenty of saws got ruined. The focus became too fixated on winning cookie races vs a better performing work saw. Which can be an asset to a pro in a production environment. But for the firewood pile most of us cut on, it can add some fun, but not much else of substance. 

[TreefarmerNN]

Spike50 nailed it.

For most of us, the best mod is a danged sharp chain and good fresh gas.

[ehp]

Spike60, I'm taking a guess at this but am I the Ed your talking about ?,  

[ehp]

The biggest problem is these new saws are mtronic or autotune  so to see a big gain its going to be hard and I mean 40% gain cause to make power your going to need fuel , if your just looking at a small gain then your fine . But for big true gains not youtube used car sale men hype you pretty much need a carb saw, I'm porting a bunch of 365/372s right now . I'm sure the 500i would handle porting well as it runs fairly rich to start with , In small saws the stihl 261 with a carb is very hard to beat as it takes to porting very well , same with husky 395

[Tjsal]

Yippee! Looking forward to the EHP 365

[Spike60]

Yup, your the man Ed.  I have a lot of respect for your knowledge and expertise. 30+ years in the biz myself so I can tell the difference. 

[ehp]

Thanks Spike60, one thing I see over and over which drives me nuts is these dam stupid pipes guys are buying and mounting on chainsaws, not a real pipe just these dumb things that bolt to your ext port flange on your cylinder and go out about 4 to 6 inches , yep they will be loud, will it make more horsepower  most likely not in the real world but if it does it will be so little you will not feel it BUT what it will do is cause its out past the end of your crankcase even if its 1/8 of and inch is bust your ext port flange right out of your cylinder , if you just want to look at your saw then fine but it you plan on using it as a real worksaw do not do this , remember back in the day everybody but me  put 2 pipes on the mufflers , anybody that used the saw for real work busted those pipes out of the muffler real fast , I have always used  husky 288 deflectors , may not look as cool or sound as nice but it works and does not get busted out

[Spike60]

Some of those wild muffler jobs are prone to ingesting stuff out in the real world that ends up I the cylinder. 

True story: guy brought in a 390 that he drilled some holes in the muffler to open it up and let it breathe. Problem was he did that without taking it off the saw!  Muffler fragments ended up in the cylinder and tore it up. 

[ehp]

Oh I have seen some strange stuff, guy ported the ext port on a saw but never took the cylinder off , just put piston at BDC then went at it with his grinder , needless to say it didnot run once he got done