some advice before I go to my local dealer in the morning.

[Andyshine77]

If you look closely you can see a small spot of brown carbon below the piston ring, this is a strong indication that the saw has been running on the edge for sometime. I say it's your dealers fault for not tuning the saw before it left his shop. The old gas thing is often times just an easy way to blame the costumer, and I highly doubt it was the cause of this failure, the saw was simply running too lean.

 

[Mac_Muz]

Andyshine77 I agree, and don't see this as bad gas, but too lean and it needs attention NOW, not later, which will just tear up the bottle caps and kill the cylinder.

If this is in warrenty I would be all over the shop for a new bottle cap and jug.. These days it is hard to find a good tech and a good shop.

 

[Dale.Z]

WOW so much input and awesome information can’t thank you all enough!
Yea with that said I forgot to mention the dealer is over an hour away. No ones fault just a fact I think he’s the only one with in 300 miles?
Was there this morning when he opened and yes he’s not a saw shop but a lawn mower shop.
When I reminded them that I was in the shop two months ago after I broke in the saw, because I was disappointed with it performance. I felt that with all the hoopla about this 50 cc saw on steroids it seemed to me to be an under performer. It seemed that it really didn’t have any nut at the top end. I requested they put a tac on it and lo and behold it was way un the max rpm. They adjusted the same and I was a happy camper I now had the little saw on steroids and I felt that my money was well spent!
Two trees later (one oak and one ash) and one attempted firewood re-size job the saw malfunctioned.
I was told by the dealer that in the six years as a dealer he has never had a problem with any Dolmar saws except for a couple of coil packs he had to change and my reply was yea………that’s what you told me hence that’s why I bought one from you.

Anyways the morning ended with my four month old saw sick because of old fuel, my worries were over and all I had to deal with was my guilt of operator error but all was good.
It took the likes of all of you on this forum to encourage me to pull the muffler and look for myself. I know it’s hard to trouble shoot from a computer screen and keyboard but damm if you guys didn’t nail it!
My frustration is I received more support from this forum then I did from the company representative /dealer and they charged me ten bucks for a tool that was still under warranty, I was surprised at the labor charge but wrote it off because I felt it was worth every penny of it because the saw was inspected and found worthy by the professionals.
I am now convinced that there are more professionals on this board then with in three hundred miles of my little five acre plot in east Tennessee.

Thanks for all your support Dale

 

[Fish]

If you look closely you can see a small spot of brown carbon below the piston ring, this is a strong indication that the saw has been running on the edge for sometime. I say it's your dealers fault for not tuning the saw before it left his shop. The old gas thing is often times just an easy way to blame the costumer, and I highly doubt it was the cause of this failure, the saw was simply running too lean.

Where did this pic come from?

 

[matt9923]

WOW so much input and awesome information can’t thank you all enough!
Yea with that said I forgot to mention the dealer is over an hour away. No ones fault just a fact I think he’s the only one with in 300 miles?
Was there this morning when he opened and yes he’s not a saw shop but a lawn mower shop.
When I reminded them that I was in the shop two months ago after I broke in the saw, because I was disappointed with it performance. I felt that with all the hoopla about this 50 cc saw on steroids it seemed to me to be an under performer. It seemed that it really didn’t have any nut at the top end. I requested they put a tac on it and lo and behold it was way un the max rpm. They adjusted the same and I was a happy camper I now had the little saw on steroids and I felt that my money was well spent!
Two trees later (one oak and one ash) and one attempted firewood re-size job the saw malfunctioned.
I was told by the dealer that in the six years as a dealer he has never had a problem with any Dolmar saws except for a couple of coil packs he had to change and my reply was yea………that’s what you told me hence that’s why I bought one from you.

Anyways the morning ended with my four month old saw sick because of old fuel, my worries were over and all I had to deal with was my guilt of operator error but all was good.
It took the likes of all of you on this forum to encourage me to pull the muffler and look for myself. I know it’s hard to trouble shoot from a computer screen and keyboard but damm if you guys didn’t nail it!
My frustration is I received more support from this forum then I did from the company representative /dealer and they charged me ten bucks for a tool that was still under warranty, I was surprised at the labor charge but wrote it off because I felt it was worth every penny of it because the saw was inspected and found worthy by the professionals.
I am now convinced that there are more professionals on this board then with in three hundred miles of my little five acre plot in east Tennessee.

Thanks for all your support Dale

After that warranty has run up find a local guy that works on saws.

 

[matt9923]

Where did this pic come from?

Ill bet from a camera.

 

[Andyshine77]

Where did this pic come from?

Post #54.

 

[volks-man]

is it me or does it look like this saw ate that missing piece of exhaust port at the 5 o'clock position?

 

[Fish]

Ill bet from a camera.

OK mr smarty pantssssss. plural

I went back and found the link of the 4 pics, I just was going on the one piston pic as most here were.

Whatever.....

 

[Brian VT]

Whatever.....

Jeez, Fish. You're so "sensitive". I'm imagining you saying that like a Valley Girl. "whatEVerrrr..." LOL !
I didn't know where that pic came from either.
Back to the OP. Yeah, this site's great. It would be nice if the guys here were running OPE stores (some of them are).
The bottom line is that most buyers have better things to do than hang out here or mess with tuning saws. They pay good money and expect the thing to work when they need it, within reason (good gas, clean filter, sharp chain). With a good dealer that is what should happen and that's what you should expect from your saw/dealer if you honestly had a clean filter, good gas, and a sharp chain.
BTW, I drove an hour to get my Dolmar too.

 

[THALL10326]

is it me or does it look like this saw ate that missing piece of exhaust port at the 5 o'clock position?

I'm with you, that is a very odd looking lean burn out, I've never seen one like that. I'm thinking the engine took in something or something came loose in it, a piston pin clip maybe. Most lean seizures seem to score the entire area of the piston on the exhaust side. That piston looks like new cept for 1/4 area thats scored.

Surprizes me that saw started again and idled..

 

[Brian VT]

"Should I richen it more than 14,200 ?"

I wouldn't on a stock saw unless it at least had a muffler mod to let it run a bit cooler.

Richening would add more fuel and it'd run cooler and less rpm. No ?
Do you think 14,200 is too close to the edge ? I like the speed of this saw. That's why I bought it. I'm more of an F1 guy than Nascar.
Also, I read that there's not much point to doing a muffler mod. on this saw unless it's ported ? I wouldn't want the noise unless it's really helping the engine. Sorry for the hijack Dale.

 

[CHEVYTOWN13]

14,200 is a safe setting/good performing rpm for a stocker.

If you richen it, it's likely going to run like a turd. If you muffler mod it, then you can richen it up a tad and it should run cooler than stock.

As far as a muff mod not working on a 5100, I highly doubt that. It worked for me.

Ported, you can throw all the above out the window...it's an entirely different machine.

 

[Brian VT]

If you richen it, it's likely going to run like a turd. If you muffler mod it, then you can richen it up a tad and it should run cooler than stock.

Got it.
I'm gonna wait a bit to decide about mods. I think I've got some warranty left.
I'll have to go look for posts on your 5100.

 

[belgian]

I'm with you, that is a very odd looking lean burn out, I've never seen one like that. I'm thinking the engine took in something or something came loose in it, a piston pin clip maybe. Most lean seizures seem to score the entire area of the piston on the exhaust side. That piston looks like new cept for 1/4 area thats scored.

Surprizes me that saw started again and idled..

Well, we can all dance around it and speculate to death, but it's obvious to me that this kind of scoring is quite uncommon, hence a reason more to bring it back to the dealer (?) and file for a warranty claim.

Only an investigation will tell what happened.

 

[aldo]

I am so far from knowing about chainsaw tuning I can't even see that far but ......... in your scenario I would play dumb and say the saw still don't run well and it bogs down in cuts etc. Make up some bollocks to drop the line on them that the muffler needs to come off etc so they can see the prob we have seen.

 

[THALL10326]

Well, we can all dance around it and speculate to death, but it's obvious to me that this kind of scoring is quite uncommon, hence a reason more to bring it back to the dealer (?) and file for a warranty claim.

Only an investigation will tell what happened.

I'm with you, that scoring is very odd. I can't say I've ever seen one like that. Most scores I see are across the entire exhaust port. That piston looks like new on the one side. The score itself looks more like a scuffing instead of heat related, no dark hot gas lines in it...

 

[stihlboy]

looks like a hot spot from carbon gone wrong, if they replace the p&c ask to have the old cylinder.........then we'll teach ya how to port

 

[THALL10326]

looks like a hot spot from carbon gone wrong, if they replace the p&c ask to have the old cylinder.........then we'll teach ya how to port

From the amount of metal gone off that piston its fairly certain that cylinder isn't worth a hoot in hell. Carbon would leave color behind, that piston looks like it got sheered by something..

 

[stihlboy]

fractured ring??? and to the OP what brand of gas were you running?? have had duke gas fry a 5100s