Id say that the insides on that saw are bone stock and havent been messed with, they discontinued the the screw type 044 tank a long while back. fortunately the only difference between a 044 and ms440 is the gas tank caps (and some older 044s have a 10mm crankshaft where the later have a 12mm). anybody who tells you different is retarded and doesnt know about it. all of the 044 ms440 parts have 1128 cast into them and are the same thing
franken saws are not that bad if somebody with half a brain matched the parts together.
I have 2 ms440s on my work truck, one is nearly new (6 months run time max), the other is one thats about 9 years old that i rebuilt from a box of parts from various 044s and 440s i'd ran and crashed out or blowed up over the years. The one i built has one case half from a 2002 ms440, and the other half from a 96 044. The franken saw runs better, cuts faster and is more dependable than the newish stock 440.
