I think you should run a good ported saw and see if you still feel the same way. Excelent point on keeping a sharp chain, but a sharp chain just compounds the gains of a ported saw.
I have showed up at a few wood cutting days with what I would call strong ported work saws and square ground work chain and been cutting easily 3 to 4 times faster than equal cc saws that were bone stock with hand filed round chain, the look on a guys face when even his 90 or 100 cc monster saw gets out cut bad by a little 50-60 cc ported saw is priceless.
It is easy for someone to have $10,000 plus tied up in tools to port saws, just a simple lathe, mill, decent welder, grinder and hand tools and unless they are just copycat or guess porting some design software.
At $90 a saw it would take over a 100 saws just to pay the tools not to mention any wage, hydro, taxes, consumables, repair or upgrades for the tools.
Sure it's possible to give a saw a little port work in a couple hours and get some decent gains, thats fine if a guy drops of a good running saw and comes back to pick it up later.
In the real world what goes into a good ported saw?
first off it gets shipped most times requiring trips to pick things up, time to unpack, refuel. A good 50% of the time saws have issues to start and work and adjustment just to get them running right in the first place. SOme times pistons, rings, carb kits or other parts need replacing.
Then there is the design, for basic work to get modest gains with a bit of experience yes there are things that can be done to get gains but to get the most out of each saw I don't see much option but to use some computer modeling. I guess the option is the try and see method and there have been many dust ups here on the net about it... a builder sends one good saw then one dog, why? because the builder is mostly guessing and trying different things on peoples saws. To model a saw it takes a couple hours work to do the measuring and a few more working out the design. Over time a data base of desings can be put together and it becomes easier to develop porting designs for simmilar saw models.
Then there is the work, grinders don't last forever and cutters, sanding drums and polishing wheels far less all costing money to replace. Making dozens of jigs for holding all sorts of pistons and cylinders takes time and lacking those jigs truing parts on a lathe takes more time yet.
I know many guys don't touch carbs in port jobs, but if the fuel and flow demmands of the engine are modified then the carb will not provide the ideal mixture. Plain and simple gains are had by doing work to the carb and intake tract. Add another hour or so to the job.
If some caluclations and computer work are done final compression can be worked out pretty close, if not most times the saw needs to go together and come back apart a few times to get the compression and squish in range.
Once it is all together then it needs to be set back up and to do a good job likely ran for a tank of fuel or two to settle the rings and make sure everything is right.
Drain it all out, purge the gas tank, clean the saw, pack it back up many times finding a new box to replace the original shipping box and a trip to the post office/shipper.
The time involved will easily eat up a full day plus. $20-$25 an hour for skilled labour in a shop is cheap, likely too cheap.
The menu is there for everybody to pick from, you can order a hamburger or a steak. Hamburgers are good sometimes, steaks are better but cost more... Just don't try to sell me a "hamburger" as "steak on a bun" at twice the price.
Great post that about sums it up.
