024 and 026 Stihl running

[joegio]

Hi Folks,

Im new to this site. Been doing my own firewood from time to time and ended up collecting,.fixin, hacking, scavenging Stihl 024, 024s and 026. They seem to hold up well and have great power to weight ratio, and lots of parts available. To be honest I've tried to do my best to beat these death but they just keep on running,

I see a lot of posts about big bore kits and porting and power curves for these monster big $$$ saws, does anyone care about these small saws, are the new ones better ?

Thanks
Joe

 

[ammoaddict]

The 026 is still a desirable saw. Lots of people still use them. I'm a Husqvarna guy but I would buy an 026 if a great deal came along.

 

[Bob Hedgecutter]

I have a nice example of an 024S from before the wall came down (made in WEST Germany) and its a neat wee saw.
Newer were usually nicer, but not by default "better" and sometimes they were emission controlled to be worse.
I will be honest and admit the only reason I really have it around is as an example of the smallest pro saws Stihl put together at the time and it does not see a whole lot of use these days as I mainly cut bigger stuff than the saw was designed to handle, but for cutting up limbs to firewood sizes for me its damn near perfect.

 

[thompsoncustom]

ya I like the 026/ms260 platform and their a lot more fun when you up the compression and port them.

I wouldn't trade them for a new one.

 

[sean donato]

The old 026 were good saws. I have/had one, gave it to my dad after going over it and giving it a mild port job. It's a good runner, but if I was to actually use a 50cc saw I'd rather a ms261. More power and better air filter. Can't say I ever saw the point of the 024/ms240. Just as heavy as the 026, not near the same power and darn near the same cost as the 026/261. This is pretty evident by stihl dropping them from the US market, but they have their fan boys.

 

[pioneerguy600]

Good strong Pro platform saws, easy to work on, easy to find parts for and easy to soup up and get good gains if that`s your thing. I have been through many dozens of them by now, porting and muffler mods really wake them up, they need better air filters as that is their main choke point if porting is what one wants.

 

[ZeroJunk]

Not sure how many 026's I have resurrected . More than a dozen I'm sure.
I always keep either an 026 or MS261, doesn't matter much to me.
They are a good size for anything under maybe 24 inches depending on your preference for how fast you want to cut something.

But, other than internet forums the bottleneck for getting work done mostly is not how fast your saw will cut.

 

[berrnard]

both are still great
just got a cheaper 024 cause it "wasnt running right", was just a carb tune issue
261 for me, 024 for the lady