I'm not sure what crank stuffers are, but I don't think you would do wrong to go with a 359 even a Etech with a good muffler mod, and if it has the good carb. I dug up this out of the archives. Sounds like a good tuned and muffler modded 359 has more torque than a 357xp. And $200 cheaper. I don't think there is any difference in the bottom ends, other than crank stuffers what ever that is. To be honest I don't even know if you can still buy a new 359?
by eph
"the 359 is every bit as fast as a 357xp, I have shown that lots of times. You do not port the saws the same cause there is a lot of differences in them, that 359 that won the last GTG only turns 13900 rpm's out of the wood but holds that rpm pretty steady in the wood only loosing a couple hundred . That 357xp that got 2nd was turning 14500 rpm's so no higher that stock rpm out of the wood, As far as the 359 holding up , well I have built enough of them now that if there was going to be a problem it would of shown up by now and the Husky dealer here has blown up a few stock 359/357 saws and the saws I have done for him have never had any problems period, so I am getting lots of work from them also, I feel it is far better to make a saw cut fast using torque over rpm's because it will last a lot longer because you are not beating the crap out of the crank and piston, the 346's only turn 14250 rpm's as well , the 088's were set at 12800 rpm so you can see none of them are screamers but they hold there rpm in the wood very high and do not lay down in the cut unless you have them set to lean, now on the smaller stihl's like the 260 yes they do turn a pretty high rpm, 15000, to 16000 rpm's cause they needs to , and the 361 turns 14500 rpm's and cut very fast, I have built quiet a few 357's but for every 357 I have built 3 or 4 359's and some are being run as firewood saws which I feel is the hardest thing on a saw besides milling"
