Thanks for the testing videos. Now that you have a newly scored piston, do you think it would be possible to run the Opti 2 oil at 40 or 45 to one to see how it compares to the other oils?
Nope. Don't take that the wrong way, but it didn't burn that clean at 100:1 and that's a deal breaker for me. Opti2 actually recommends not mixing mixing it at 50:1 or 32:1. There's a picture on their website that has a 🚫over a couple of gas cans with those ratios. There's a lot of oils I have tested that outperform Opti2 and there are folks in the oil industry that have chimed in that agree.
Been using Saber for over a decade in all my two stroke equipment. Two saws, three trimmers, a backpack and handheld blowers. On non ethanol fuel and 80:1 mix I’ve had zero problems. The trimmers and blowers were built in 03 and have been used weekly for keeping up two school properties. I don’t know anything about high performance 2-stroke engines but Saber has been great for my stock equipment.
Hi Richard, It looks like the Stihl cylinder is in need of replacement for some reason. You could give the cylinder a couple strokes with a ball hone if their is enough coating on the cylinder walls to see if it could be salvaged just for giggles. I have saved a few with a ball hone. I do like the oil testing you do. I have converted over to Honda HP2 now. I was using Echo Red Armor(with great success) until I saw your testing of the HP2. I did my own testing and love the way the HP2 works in my saws. I'm running HP2 at 32:1 and see no carbon build up, in fact the HP2 started to clean carbon off of a couple of saws piston crowns.
Very common to see piston polish, especially on modern saws where they just aren’t made as consistently as the older saws where there were much higher standards - the 500i pistons are terrible from the factory. 661 cylinders and pistons too. My guess is that because the piston is coated, it’s far more obvious and shows what appears to be scuffing, but is actually just polish on a normal ally piston. Nothing you’ve done wrong here. It’s a combination of tolerances, modern manufacturer and a piston bedding in.
thanks for sharing all the info. switched to honda hp2 40:1 and really like it. saved one of my 661c"s the other day wile milling. i had an intake boot tear and lean out, luckily with the hp2 it had a great oil film and didnt score a piston and cylinder.
Looks like a classic cold seize. Always wonder about the magnesium as a piston material because of it's thermal characterizes vs. a good aluminum A sacrifice to the gods of "weight" I'm afraid. Might need a more sophisticated break in strategy.
Hello from Poland,,,the first mistake is synthetic oil during running-in is a mistake,,,the second is that you should run it in and not immediately max revs,,,,,
No it won’t fit, the 400.1 is a smaller displacement saw only 63cc vs 66.7. It’s still supposed to be based off the original 400 but has many updates to the saw. It won’t be in the states for awhile probably and did go back to aluminum piston and has a lightweight rotating assembly for fast acceleration.
Hey, this is a good discussion. After watching your videos on the testing of oil, I ordered up some saber. I’m planning to run at 45 to 1. Thanks for the recommendation on the eBay seller.
I've took a lot of mx bike engines apart over the years and never been impressed with scamsoil 😀 but it works for some. I've use little red barn pistons in those 400s and work fine for tree companies
Everyone loves Dominator, but it's a JASO FC oil, and in my experience it doesn't burn near as clean as Saber in small engines. That being said, I haven't tried Interceptor.
Hi Richard, always appreciate the work you do and information you provide to us. Damn, I feel almost as bad as you do after looking at that top end and piston skirt. I’ve got an old 034AV that has been beat up, put up and resurrected a few times and it does not look that scuffed. Yes, you know that I run Motul 800 2T in my saws, but I don’t think it’s the oil this time. Don’t get me wrong, I like the saber too at 40:1, but there is just something about that Motul smell. LOL. I’ve got a thought, and it’s not worth much as you know, but when you modified the piston itself you change the vibration dynamics of the system now and that whisker or two of weight reduction may be pushing you in a vibration characteristic that it was not designed to be in and that might be causing some additional movement of the piston on the cylinder wall. Since the saw is getting upwards of 14k in rpms. couple that with the customary M-Tronic unloaded 4-strokin and that might be just enough to be riding on a natural vibration peak mode of the crank making the amplitude of the vibrational movement of the piston worse. The Stihl engineers would have done the vibrational spectrum to see where the high points are and designed the components to stay well away from these peaks. It likely does not affect the system if you modify the cylinder port since that is not in motion like the piston, crank shaft and bearings. Other guys modify the hell out of the piston too, but maybe they just get lucky too. I think that saw will be fine with a polish and run your fancy Honda oil or Motul and see if the results are the same. Really enjoy your channel. 🤠
3:16 did the same thing with a 592 a few weeks ago. Had the airbox totally back together when i found the brass ring thats supposed to go in the carb boot🤦♂️
Port chamfers look fine, ceramic coating on the piston looks like it gave up. Large bore stationary engine tin coated pistons started doing this in the early 90’s. The tin process/finishing was the culprit. We started rubbing a flat file around the circumference of the pistons on the new skirts. I might suggest using a stone on the next piston. As soon as you showed the coating roughness, it was like a flashback.
Man i do have to say you know ive have a cheap ebay big bore kit with an added pop up piston and cabar solid rings in my ms660 i run the royal purple hp2 oil at 40:1 with 93 shell non ethanol fuel (sometimes mixed with some 112 leaded racing gas) and i have had some days out here on the farm and in other small situations where i have ran that thing all day long man and ran the literal piss out of it and it does great man. I also put a 64 jet in the carb with a velocity stack setup. Have the aussy oiler that turns all the way up for the bar. Id like to port the cylinder its 1 of them cheap nikasil or whatever cylinders tho but yeah. Ive had it for about 13 ish years like that so far. Does great! I also gutted the muffler baffles and made the exhaust hole about a penny size so it could breathe. Thanks for your vids!
My uncles dirt bike engine guy helped me rebuild my ski doo formula 3 snowmobile. I asked him how I should break it in. He said ride it around for a bit, go wide open check the plugs and if the jetting was good ride it like you stole it.
Hey Richard! Sorry about the saw but for whatever its worth I really enjoy your testing with coffee first thing in the morn. My buddy always told me that shit'L buff out!
I've been breaking in saws by running a tank full at fast idle for years some have given me grief that ya have to run em wide open and do heat cycles ect but if 4k rpm for 15-25 min won't break in the rings I guess they won't even get broken in...
Ouch that hurt's when you see that in your own saw, she hasn't been right since that last round of oil test's. Maybe it's time to take a break on being the oil test guy, if people by now haven't figured out that you should run a high grade oil they never will. I know these test's helped build your channel and many of us love watching to see what will happen, by the way thank you for taking the time to do these test's but at some point... well it takes a toll on the pocket book. I watch your channel for a lot of other great content you put out not just the oil test's anyways take care.
It's a process. Honestly, I didn't see that one coming. I do like doing these teardowns in real time. I think that it's a part of the video series being popular. One of these days It will make enough to cover some really fun stuff I'd like to do. In the grand scheme of things this is still a small budget repair. I get 1099'd for the income off of the videos. It's good for a write off......for now.
@@richardflagg3084 People always like seeing if these tests are a success or a big failure the failure part being probably the biggest draw, we all like a good train wreck lol! Important thing is if your having fun doing it that's what matter's otherwise RU-vid isn't so great if you feel you have to do it for someone else or the ratings.
@@mistersniffer6838 So what your saying is even though Richard has a lot of other great small engine repair content besides these oil test failure videos you'd rather not watch his channel? Jeez people really do only like total carnage trainwreck type videos I guess.
@@StuInTheSticks - I want to be around people that have a love of life and want to explore and share. if he is only doing it because he is out to make money, or its a burden, I will just go to the oil company pages, read the TDS data sheets and draw my own conclusions, thus bypassing the channel as it has no value to me. My time is important, I want to spend it doing what "I" like.
Get yourself some jb borecleaner, and a few gun cleaning mops,not paper swabs,but thicker mops.attache rod to cordless drill,be sure to remove any residue. It's basically a jewelers polish, will slick a gun bore right up,without being too aggressive.
I'm wondering if the scoring is because you threw the piston out of balance by grinding some off of one side making it tend to slap against the cylinder.
I've had mixed luck with saber in my 2 stroke lawn equipment. my Shindaiwa t262 does not like it. No matter what ratio I run it at it cokes the piston up bad and leaves hard deposits in the exhaust port even after tuning the carb. In Husky and Sthil trimmers the piston stays decently clean but still get those hard deposits in the ports. Grabbed a gallon of Red armor last winter online for $55 and been running it this season and it has cleaned the piston back up and is a nice red film every time I check around 44:1 and ports look cleaner. Smells better to me as well, Saber smells like burning plastic at times in my stuff
I’ve been running vp /50:1 and have had really good results, but next tank ima try the H1R , after seeing ur test , n that’s what I used to run in my dirt bike for years n years , so ima run it for myself n see how it does
Do you think possibly taking material off the piston to lower the intake port somehow caused more material to come away once the coating had been removed?
This started as two blown up saws that made one. No worries for you. Tim aka cotontop3 here on RU-vid has 3 or 4 and they are his favorite saws. I probably shouldn't have run the last oil at 100:1 for a test video. There's a little context that may help. I love the saw FWIW
thats what you get for running a thin mix for break in. would you run 0W-8 in a fresh rebuilt car engine? then run the pis out of it like you did with the saw? i have an old 041 farm boss and the manual for it and it says to mix your gas with extra oil for several tanks during the break in time and not to run it too hard, I think it said use 20:1 for break in and 32:1 for regular use after so many hours. I have also read other manuals that say to run engines easy during the first few hours of use so they break in properly. I have always mixed my gas at 20:1 for all my saws and never had any engine go bad and I have cut lots and lots of wood over the past 25 years with those saws. the govt tells them to use a 50:1 mix so there is less smoke, they dont care if your saw burns up. I have used all brands of 2 stroke oil and even used 40 weight diesel oil mixed at 20:1 when I was out of 2 stroke oil and never had a problem. rebuild it and break it in right with 20:1 mix then show us if its scratched up
Is no break in ratio or procedure on new saws, mix fresh gas at 50:1 start saw warm up a little and go cut normally. I use 40:1 but still heat cycles and cutting at part throttle ect aren’t necessary and actually can be bad. Saws are designed to be run wide open when cutting and need the rpm for cooling air movement off the flywheel.
I can’t believe how picky people are about the type of oil that is being used. If the oil is rated they will all prevent wear the same. What’s more important is how the premix last when it’s stored for a couple months. If the carb diaphragms get stiff or too soft that’s when real problems start happening. Some oils will make diaphragms stiff when stored. Others like red armor will keep them in good shape after sitting for years.
Believing an oil reseller label is like trusting a politician in my mind . If im spending money id like it to buy the highest quality available for the given budget
Ive got a bottle of redline 2 cycle racing oil... would that be worth using in my chainsaw and weedeater, hedge clippers, and blower? I plan to buy the honda hp2 next, or should i just go straight for the hp2?
once these cylinders have any scoring at all it will always be that way. u can doll them up, but once u run them all them lines will be visible again. need to start over with a new cylinder.
Lots of people have no issues saving cylinders, long as you get all the transfer off and plaiting is intact it I’ll be fine. It’s possible this just happens to be a bad cylinder in general maybe slightly out of round ect. Could also be on the small side of tolerance and the piston on the large side. Stihl used to letter mark compatible cylinders and pistons with letters by final dimensions. I do believe they got rid of this partly because of new alloys that move less and closer tolerances.
I would want to know wtf is going on with that cylinder. Or just blast it with emery cloth on a mandrel, soda blast the piston and see if the wear marks come back.
I know this is 2 months old video , but have you tested the amsoil interceptor in any of your passes videos ? I just got a good deal on a few gallons of it . Going to run 40:1 in all my chainsaws.
So it sounded poppy in the cut and you backed off the timing a bit. Is that on your flywheel timing advance? I have a 661 that acts like that a bit but I never advanced the timing. Any ideas?
If yours is a 661c with mtronic it’s probably just the mtronic running to the fat point and backing off a little in a cut for various loads. All the mtronic saws seem to do this to an extent and I’ve owned and worked on several. I personally wouldn’t worry about it and just use it.
I made a video on some VP Racing two stroke oil and they were just shy. A subscriber chimed in (who's in the business) and said the "filling process" has an industry standard that allows a slight variance plus or minus that's acceptable as an industry standard. It's based on a set percentage regardless of size of the container.
Lots of saw and other 2 cycles broken in on synthetic oil now. Husky and Stihl ultra are both full synthetic and get sold with new equipment to get an extended warranty. Yes I know Stihl ultra is a very disliked product overall though I do know some tree guys that have ran it in their saws with no major issues. Internals looked fine and i know because I tore them down for rebuilds. I personally like orange bottle Stihl if I’m running Stihl oils but that’s my preference.
Dremel out the oiler holes on bar..and tap tge oiler with a punch gently to allow it to open all the way..any saw over 50cc should have zero issues running 25 inch light bar. There not 25 have no idea why they call them 25 inch bars ..like marketing scam..ñ
@@fullthrottletimber8286 on the bottom of the saw..there should be a oiler like rest of stihl saws..and my 462 500i 661 all have them and needed to be tapped down it blocks you from turning up the oiler past factory settings....there's tons of video on this ...I dint have 400c only saw of stihl I dint have but all others have it. So the 400 has a oiler correct ..it has to be tapped with a punch or nail punch to open all the way but be gentle so not to break oiler
There is no roll pin on the 362 or 400 oiler, you can order a 461 oiler to install or modify the pump ramp. Factory oiler oils the 25” fine and opening the oil hole doesn’t really work because an oil pump only pumps so much oil per stroke and the hole in the bar is large enough to accept this amount.
In small engines, it really is one of the best options out there. The tree company I work for has used it almost a decade. I've seen the long term (commercial use) results and can say the above with conviction.
I wouldn't use amsoil if you gave me 2500 gallons of it , that shit cost me two brand new snowmobile engine failures , and when I took them to the dealership they took them apart they try blaming me, when the head engineer looked into it it was the oil, they took that oil and tested it on two others snowmobiles and they had engine failures as well so il stick to my klotz
Novice Lumberjack says he had egged out holes for the butterfly pins which were letting air in. I guess overtightened carb bolts can also cause an air leak as well. His saw ran like chit though.
I know that editing sometimes creates “false impressions” so take this with a grain of salt. When you were ready to use the saw to cut, it appeared you started it cold and just full rev cut with it at WOT from stone motherless cold. Maybe you had warmed it up before hand and it was already warm, but it didn’t look that way to me. I’ve read somewhere that cold start, full on WOT into a heavy cut is the worst possible thing for a 2 stroke saw. Heat shock or something they call it. Apparently that’s not a new cylinder? (First time watching any of your videos), you said you polished out the cylinder with scotchbrite? Shouldn’t a cylinder have cross hatching from the cylinder hone? Perhaps it’s a combination of polishing the cylinder with scotch brite & heat shock starting it - that’s causing your piston scuffing? Watching you assemble the piston into the cylinder, I could see some kind of debris (looked like an oil soaked wood chip) between the two top rings. Could that be what caused the scoring? Could it have migrated around and caused that wide scoring pattern? Occasionally you do get a dud saw straight from the factory. We have bought a LOT of Stihl saws starting back in 1982 & using them commercially in our logging & milling business over the last 40 odd years starting with my very first new saw a Stihl 034 AV. This year we got a dud 661C brand new that cut two rings of firewood off a hardwood log, before it jammed open throttle, wouldn’t shut off when throttle trigger was released, and even when the kill switch was shut off. Had to nose plunge it into the log to stall it out to stop it. Luckily my lads missus was filming the new saw start up, for his Instagram channel - so he could show Stihl what happened. They repaired it, new piston, rings & crank seal, sent it back. Filmed it again, this time it cut 4 rings before doing the exact same issue. Sent the video - they took the saw back & replaced it with new one, which has operated flawlessly since. It’s the first ever “warranty claim” with any Stihl saw in over 40 years. Stihl were good about it, BUT without his social media channel & video evidence of the two repeat malfunctions, would our treatment have been any different? 🤷♂️ Out of respect the two videos of the incident were only shared with Stihl & haven’t appeared online anywhere. What the “issue” was that caused it, we never heard. But it shows that occasionally a lemon saw comes off the assembly line even with Stihl.
So what's you thoughts on 40:1 causing your fuel to be leaner then 50:1. Stihl claims this happens when you start adding more oil. This was what i was told in Stihl Gold school. I think from your videos 40:1 looks way better. Most snowmobile injectors were set at 40:1. Years ago ran 20:1 in a Honda dirt bike and arctic cat snowmobile. Have you ever tried mystik jt4 full synthetic snowmobile oil ive read alot of good things about it. Have been running in my snowmobiles. Have run it in my saws and trimmers. Id be curious to see what you found or find if you try it. Its supposedly has some group 5 ester. Thanks for the videos! 10:06 10:10
The myth of leaner with more oil is for the flat earth folks. You'll never change their minds. 2T oil is formulated to burn during the combustion cycle, it's just not as flammable as gas. I know you've heard the company line of "if you're having issues with Ultra, you're not running the piece of equipment right". I'll admit under perfect conditions it will burn clean, but that doesn't seem to cover real world operation. Everyone in the world has reformulated their 2T oil to burn cleaner and meet JASO FD besides Stihl. The other curious tidbit of lore is that Ultra was formulated for the 4 Mix engines. You've probably torn down more BR600's than me. They are always coked up and dirty in the bottom end, but the the piston crown is clean. It's hard to argue with you're eyes and you're personal experience as a Tech. I don't think their is a better oil on the market than Honda HP2. That being said, I'd like to try Mystik. Everything else they make is very good.
@richardflagg3084 That's what I thought it never really made sense to me. Now some oils do burn different and will make it feel rich or lean at the same mix ratio just how it is. But their theory I thought was crazy lol. The ultra oil will plug spark arrestors even if your wot all the time. It seems like dirty oil. Don't really like the smell either. I have not done to many back pack blowers mostly trimmers and saws. I left that company for a better job. I repair stuff at my new job but only stuff we use. Some people bring me stuff at home and I'll repair it. 4 mix engines are sensitive and I think are easy to burn down. But I'd think an Fd oil would be better then FB ultra. Power valve engines need fd or you'll be clean valves constantly lol.
Hi Can you tell me what is correct ratio for Saber for Leaf Blowers? I use Fuchs Silikolene 2 pro what is perfect for Chainsaw. But in one of my Blowers Fuchs 1:50 is too much. I have a leakage from exhaust. Propably because max rev in Blowers are about 7thousands. What oil and what ratio would be The best for Blowers. Regards from Poland.
