Bilge Rat, I've been in Des Moines all day and had no time to reply to all this shop talk. Your post is exactly what I was going to say in less words. This is just an engine. I likely have one or two problems. We'll eliminate them one by one. Get my Mityvac pump tomorrow and picked up my impulse line at the dealer on the way to Iowa today. Have a new boot coming. Gonna redo all the rubber. Picked up a fuel filter yesterday at my Husky dealer of all places (they're cheaper on Stihl parts than the Stihl dealer - when they have them.). Will test the saw tomorrow. Have a used coil sittin around somewhere that I know works. We will eliminate this one step at a time, starting with new fuel fittings, testing, electrical, mechanical, and so forth. I'm determined to get this saw running and it's a good excuse to buy a few tools. Got to go to Harbor Freight and pick up a few things I wanted/needed while my mother shopped for furniture. Picked up a six pack for the head scratching moments I'm likely to encounter. Was a pleasant and productive trip, should yield good results. Sound like a plan guys? And btw, thanks for all the tips. Air filter choke closes fully. That had been suggested to me in an earlier thread but I'm gonna try to condense all my findings to this thread now. As for operator error, always possible but too many variables have been changed and I can reproduce a cranking saw with old carb in it and metering lever set to certain height, so let's look elsewhere for now. Thanks all. Peace and bar grease.