Now for the timed cuts.
The muffler mod made a significant difference in this saw. In the vid, I'm showing you how it runs with light, medium, heavy, and very heavy loads. These are not all meant to be representative of the saws best cut times. When I throw out those cuts just made for demonstration, and take the best couple of times, the muffler mod was good for a 22% gain.
I then proceeded to advance the ignition timing. I had a strong hunch that this was a big piece of the puzzle. I was right. The saw picked up another 20% over the muffler mod alone. It is now nearly 38% faster than stock!
Of course, everyone wants to know how it compares to a 200T. With a muffler mod only, they're dead even. With the timing advanced on the 201T, it was 20% faster than a muffler modded 200T! Would the 200T pick up another 20% with some timing advance? I don't know. That wasn't part of this test.
Once both the muffler was modded and the timing advanced, throttle response seems as snappy as a 200T, IMHO.
As I figured, a lot of what we're hearing is less than dependable for those looking to purchase one of these. With proper tuning, they run well, even in stock form. Once modded, they are a phenominal saw, as I suspected it would be.