Hey Dennis,
I don`t mean to imply that you weren`t as consistent as possible or that you had any agenda to mislead or anything of that nature. Just that I`m not onboard with what you guys ultimately decided was fact.
Let me be the first to openly say that I don`t know jack about building a two stroke, so there`s no possible way that I can say that what you did to these saws was wrong, but I`ve got a few questions. If you don`t feel like answering them, that`s fine, someone will. And try not to take my queries as personal attacks, the way that someone else has. I am not trying to draw anyone into any kind of fray, but nothing beats being able to ask the guys who understand and build these engines, how they work.
Here`s the gig, so let me establish my baseline experience with these saws for reference. Everyone on this site pretty much consider Walkerized saws to be pretty mild compared to what the resident builders here produce. This opinion seems to be especially prevalent among people whom I believe have never compared a Walkerized saw to anything else, and of course those who have run properly and highly modified saws. MY modified 346 that I use as a baseline for all other 3 cube saws, especially those made by Husky or Jonsered was done by Walkers.
I`ve played all over the rpm range between 13,500 and 15,200 rpms with my Walkerized 346. It still 4 strokes at 15K and has the fastest cut times running between 14.5k and 14.7k. If I ran my 346 at 13,500 it would be way down on speed in the cut and I`ve proven this to myself. I haven`t even seen a stock 346 that wants to run best at 13.5k. So from my limited understanding of what you do when you alter the ports in a saw like this, you increase the degrees of duration. Doesn`t increased duration enhance high rpm operation by shifting the powerband to a higher rpm, and actually cause your max theoretical and real rpm where you are 4 stroking out of the cut to increase? Isn`t that the same reason that you could take your street beater truck with peak horsepower of 260 @ somewhere around 4,200 rpm, throw a cam with more duration in it and increase peak HP to 300 at 5,000 rpm? Of course this is a very simplistic description of how I understand things to work and I have omitted other aspects of operation that are affected. If increasing the degrees of duration isn`t meant to move the powerband higher, what is it done for? You can see where I`m headed with that thought. 13,500 is way too slow, hence rich for these saws.
Like I said earlier, I don`t know jack about two stroke tuning, but I do believe that a person could take a properly ported two stroke barrel and totally alter how the engine runs based on compression ratio and squish. Higher compression in a gas motor is generally speaking, a good thing, right? But what happens if you eliminate some of your squish clearance to obtain it, let`s say by eliminating the base gasket or milling the base without correcting the squish? Reasoning these things through my mind tells me that you could take away a significant portion of your top end punch. I`d sincerely like to be corrected if I`m wrong. I`ve never asked you or any other builder what his "numbers" are because I figure that`s proprietary information that you guys have earned. Consequently, I`m merely speculating and don`t mean in any way to be pointing a finger at anyone or any aspect of a build. Just thinking out loud so to speak and trying to rationalize my personal experiences.
There are other factors as well, many of which I`m sure that I have no inkling of understanding. If anyone wants to enlighten me, that would be welcome and I would also be grateful. I`m just trying to look at what I consider the most likely factors of two models of saw that are the same from the base of the cylinder on down but typically have distinctly different personalities.
This should be enough to get the discussion started, eh? It also gives all of you guys who want to prove that I`m a dumbfvck enough information to work with, LOL.
Russ
