How long do your saws last?

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Forgive my extreme ignorance, i know woods ported are "less hot" than race saws, but what exactly do they do to woods port them? What does a woods port job entail?
 
I thought Raj had that standing order in place -- anything you want to send his way, just chuck it over the northern border wall in his direction.
We have 2 Kingpark Chinese knockoffs (take 25:1 mix), a Jonsered CS2255, a Poulan Pro 245, and a 200T sitting in our boneyard. Dunno if they're quite available just yet... see what happens when all the dust settles.
 
Tree09 said:
Forgive my extreme ignorance, i know woods ported are "less hot" than race saws, but what exactly do they do to woods port them? What does a woods port job entail?
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There are levels of woods porting. For example, Madsen's does no muffler opening, due to restrictions imposed the mfr's--(They're a huge company.) Woods Logging in Sedro Wooley does light porting--- I'm not sure of the details, but likely they charge less than $200.. and woould do no timing work, and only light port opening, probably no cylinder decking, which increases squish, and thus, compression. Same goes for Walker's in Nanaimo, BC.

The full meal deal, which I have had done on many saws over the years, does all of the above, but not too much compression increase, and no finger ports, which some do, I've heard... one porter who was or is a member here-- (MM??)has quite the reputation, but not among other porters, whose work is aimed toward longevity.

Many of my saws clearly have power increases in the order of 50%, based on reduction of cut times. Most impressive gains, typically are seen on Husqvarna saws.. 372, 346, 550, and 357.. personally.. plus, my 13.275910432 hp 3120 (LOLZZZZ), which was ported by Dennis Greffard way back in 2002. It's been reringed and had the cylinder honed, and still goes strong! Two reasons why it needed that... butt cuts and its less than optimum filtration design... The saw first hit the market circa 1996-8....Dolmar's typically see less gains, likely because they are so strong in stock form. I had the 2nd ever ported 5100S and still have one of the first ported 7900's...Built, the 346XP NE was faster than the 5100S, and a bit lighter. I still have a bone stock 5100S, don't use it a lot, but I doubt any other stock 3 cube saw can hang with it!

I run full syn mix, at 36 to 40-1

I'm not working all the time these days, being 5 months from the big 70.... but I still yearn for a fully ported Husky 390.
 
I use my 201T for about 80%-90% of the cutting I do on a daily basis. It gets rode hard and put up wet every day. I'll use it for about a year or so then it gets handed off to the ground guys and I get a new one. They'll typically last another 3-4 years after that. The mid-size saws like the 261 and 461 will last at least 5 or 6 years with regular use, then they'll be replaced and kept as backups. The big guns have been in the fleet for 10-20 years or more.
 
Thx Roger, learned some stuff there! Lol Merle, i dunno. I have a dolmar 7900 and 3410th, so i use my top handle for about everything, then whip out the big boy. I think a mid range saw around 50 cc would be a nice addition. I have an old dolmar 120 that needs some love, but since its all aluminum the 7900 is about the same weight it seems, and cuts wayyyyyyyyyy faster. A back up top handle would be a good idea too.
 
Mick! said:
I never change the spark plug.
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Spark plugs is not what they used to be. Nor are ignitions.
Many of the plugs I get today won't spark from box, most not very long. I get mostly champion as I have better luck with them but all of them are the same I guess as I use NGK and Bosch as well and see no difference to speak of.
The R plugs don't last very long. A year tops..
Many plug related issues the past 5 years.
Ignitions have stronger sparks, RPM's are higher and they run hotter...
 
I test all new plugs before I give them to customer or put them in a saw.
I look them over so bottom electrode, connection, isolator is OK too.

A dropped electrode is a new top end. A cost that is easily avoided as plugs are cheap in comparison.
I don't reuse plugs unless I must.
 
Magnus said:
Spark plugs is not what they used to be. Nor are ignitions.
Many of the plugs I get today won't spark from box, most not very long. I get mostly champion as I have better luck with them but all of them are the same I guess as I use NGK and Bosch as well and see no difference to speak of.
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I've always used Champion, Bosch or NKG. Usually Champion, but had a few failures with them.

Sold a really good saw on ebay a few years ago and put a new plug in it for him, never tested it. That didn't end up going too well, he took it away to his farm without the old plug.
 
I used to buy bosch and ngk in bulk. Ran bosch in the racesaws and woods ported saws. I quit using ngk for years due to a bad batch.
Put in saws and once up to op temps would misfire like a coil going out. So has took me many years to get over that BS.

But being some bosch are now being made in china instead of germany and brazil. My last order this year I went with some ngk again.
 
3120 race port by Cliff Helsel and had a muffler too, 3 cuts at a time. 3120 woods ported by Jason Egan work saw that pulls 60" 44" most times.

CH3120x.JPG h3120vst.jpg
 
Tree09 said:
I personally feel that my neglect of machinery and using old resurrected stuff has made me the mechanic i am today! After you do so many carbs, occasional head gasket and valves that water got in, etc you learn that engines aren't really some super magical thing, and that if it has fuel, spark, and compression then it has to run, it doesn't have a choice. I feel if you want to learn how to fix engines, the best way is to get an old lawn mower out of the garbage and get it running again. Slowly work your way up to more complicated stuff.
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Gotta say I love this post, it says a lot. But devil's advocate, I'd argue it takes some serious innate mechanical talent and ability to get good at wrenching, and especially to learn it on your own.

MasterBlaster said:
Love that wrench holder!
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Ditto!
 
Thx Cory, but it's nothing special, and I'm not that good yet. I feel Jim is great at it, as are just about everyone here. I started mowing at 12 years old, and then when stuff breaks, you have to fix it, you don't have a choice. I've got buddies that are actually good, one was doing complete rebuilds of mowers and chainsaws at 12, complete with cylinder honing and new bearings (no shit), and the other guy i watched get a car running again by shoving a string line in spark plug holes to free up valves by cycling the starter. What one man can do, another man can do. We're not talking about physical or mental feats, just clockwise and counter clockwise.
 
Really cool thread Page. I feel Stig, on the time is money argument, but I also feel Kyle on the, "take the dang thing apart, it's not rocket science, and it's good, clean fun." point.

It's all about what floats yer boat. I recently bought the Chinese 200t kit saw for $170.00. Trouble is... you gotta put every little nut, linkage, and gasket together. I had a blast, man... we literally had 30" of snow on the ground, and we couldn't get to any of the trees on houses for a number of days, so it worked out perfect; but, like Stig said, man, "Count the cost." My wife was ticked. She goes, "You've put like 40 hrs. into that thing." I was like, "Yeah right, that was a total of about 4.5hrs."
 
Time flies when you're having fun. :D

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Do high schools offer "shop" classes any more? I took electives in small engine repair, auto shop, and electronics. Even in grade school, we had wood shop and metal shop. Those basic classes and the skills acquired have served me well over the years.
 
flushcut said:
I use those scrench holders and they are are too loose so I took a SS screw and used it to close up the slit a bit to hold it a bit tighter.

Bailey's has them if anybody is looking.
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Local runs them on almost everything.
Mine is on my husqvarna combi

s088.jpg
 
I have always used 50:1, some of my saws sit for 9 months at a time a couple times recently they sat for almost two years. I run them dry at the end of every work visit, they get stored in a shed (one year they lived in dehumidified glory in a basement). When I get back, I gas them up and about five pulls later, off we go. Been doing this for 10 years, no problems.
 
2 stroke oil has stabilizers in it, worse case i would use sea foam, been around longer and is an awesome product. You can also use sea foam in diesel, so if you get a bad batch of fuel or condensation in it, add some sea foam and it will go from spitting and sputtering with no power to running smoother than it ever has in 5 min. The best would be use non ethanol, even if you gotta run across town after work to get it, or just use the prebottled stuff in the 880 only. Ethanol is hard on plastics (like your carb reeds) and attracts water like no other, so that's what actually is happening to it. If you dump and run it out of the saw when you are done for the day you shouldn't have problems, because your regular gas mix will be constantly fresh.
 
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