A Tale of Three Saws

[blsnelling]

Piston

Case/Crank

 

[blsnelling]

And, last, but not least...the price I paid for getting a compression check. I hit my arm on the bottom edge of the counter top

 

[MCW]

OUCH! Hey quality of the castings from the photos looks good. What's your opinion by using your eyeballs?

 

[splitpost]

:jawdrop::jawdrop:those casting are very ordinary to say the least ,i got an after market 660 kit from taiwan that has cleaner ports than that,wish i had a good camera to take closeups

 

[blsnelling]

Now, for comparison, here's some shots of a 066 Mahle P&C that I just ported. This saw has seen a lot of wood.

Exhaust

Intake

 

[blsnelling]

Transfers

Combustion Chamber

 

[blsnelling]

Piston

 

[MCW]

:jawdrop::jawdrop:those casting are very ordinary to say the least ,i got an after market 660 kit from taiwan that has cleaner ports than that,wish i had a good camera to take closeups

Whoops. Maybe I don't really know what to look at I thought they looked OK.

I see what you mean now compared to the Mahle setup

 

[blsnelling]

OUCH! Hey quality of the castings from the photos looks good. What's your opinion by using your eyeballs?

The casting is functional, but certainly nothing like the old Mahle topends. Matter of fact, this one is cleaner than some. There is a lot more sand casting in the ports, that will affect performance. All of that will be cleaned up with the port work though.

 

[FATGUY]

they're far from horrible, but far from Mahle too....

 

[blsnelling]

they're far from horrible, but far from Mahle too....

Exactly.

 

[AUSSIE1]

Is there any reason for the mismatch with the case halves at the base?

 

[parrisw]

Is there any reason for the mismatch with the case halves at the base?

Ya, Stihl is cheaping out these days by the looks of it!

 

[AUSSIE1]

Ya, Stihl is cheaping out these days by the looks of it!

I'm not touching that Will, lol!

 

[blsnelling]

I'm hoping it's not a chrome cylinder. I ported a Stihl recently that was chrome, rather than NiSi. It may have been my new 440, but not positive. It wanted to chip. NiSi won't do that. Someone else noticed it by the color as well.

 

[the westspartan]

Ya, Stihl is cheaping out these days by the looks of it!

Not on everything though. My 441's cylinder looked pretty nice pre-port. It isn't a Mahle or a Stihl but a Giordani (the same make as the cylinder on my J-red 2095 interestingly). I am not sure what Stihl is putting on the other new pro-saws like the 362 and the forthcoming 261.

 

[AUSSIE1]

Cutting the area to be ported at the cyl with a diamond bit will reduce the risk of chipping.

 

[Andyshine77]

Not on everything though. My 441's cylinder looked pretty nice pre-port. It isn't a Mahle or a Stihl but a Gilardoni (the same make as the cylinder on my J-red 2095 interestingly). I am not sure what Stihl is putting on the other new pro-saws like the 362 and the forthcoming 261.

Dan my 362 has a Mahle topend and it's very nice looking from what I can see. The Gilardoni cylinders I've seen are also top of the line, in fact maybe the best of the bunch IMHO.

 

[the westspartan]

Dan my 362 has a Mahle topend and it's very nice looking from what I can see. The Giordani cylinders I've seen are also top of the line, in fact maybe the best of the bunch IMHO.

It's very interesting to me that the last of the older design, legendary Stihls being made and sold right now seem to all have these sub-par parts. I guess it is promising that the new strato stuff has the high end components, but it is frustrating to think that a company like Stihl would tarnish their reputation like this. I hadn't heard about some Stihl cylinders being chromed instead of NiSi coated until Brad's post, but that is unbelievable.

 

[Jacob J.]

Gilardoni used to make cylinders for a lot of the big saws- Pioneer P-62, Husky 2100, Partner P100, Olympyk 999. The cylinders they made back then were works of art- near to perfectly symmetrical ports, perfect plating that was rock hard, nicely finished combustion chambers with no casting lines, etc. I almost hated porting those older saws since the cylinders looked so good stock.