Huztl /Farmertec 361 "No Base Gasket Build" Pile on with your pics and vid's!

[weimedog]

A Huztl 361 box of parts to saw project. A simple build with a no base gasket implementation for a compression increase.

ALSO a few thoughts on the Aftermarket Saw craze....guard was down. Never good..
Cases & Commentary


Final Assembly and first start

 

[weimedog]

First trials....some work to do BUT there is potential in this saw..

 

[Rick Stephens]

Building my second Huztl 361. Doing some port mapping preparatory to port and piston mods. Was very surprised that the upper transfer ports are about 1/3 covered by the piston at BDC.

While plotting out piston mods, kind of realized the low transfer port location as it relates to the piston, means the entire load makes a 180 degree turn coming down off the inside top piston cavity, through the piston ports, and downward around the lower cylinder transfer port edge before traveling up to the upper transfer ports. Nearly 30º is spent with the piston close to or at BDC, and most of the fuel air mix will transfer with piston nearly or at BDC. Looks to me like lowering the side ports in the piston and raising the upper transfer ports will do more than anything else for the transfers.

What am I missing? I know I'm just learning this stuff.

 

[Rick Stephens]

Ported the cylinder a bit. Since I get .020 squish gasketless, I raised all the ports 25 thou. I also raised the lower transfer port 40 thou. Then opened up and lowered the ports on the piston. Going to give er a shot.

 

[weimedog]

Think you will be pleasantly surprised with the direction you are headed .. Just consider trying to get a better squish band machined in that cylinder, which unfortunately drops the cylinder even more exercising your die grinding skills even more yet. I haven't come up with a solution to the floor of the exhaust port being low even before trimming the cylinder base though. Maybe some "new" folks with different idea's can do better. You know the definition of insanity is....Just as a thought, the old "Madsen" approach to gaining x-sectional area on the transfer might work too....they decked the cylinders as most do to be able to first get a nice squish band and compression, then machined "ramps" or wide grooves into the top of the piston so the transfer timing or blow down was more reasonable & more cross section open when the piston was at BDC. Many of the "hot rodder" type deck the cylinders here in this paradigm and since the lower edge of the transfer is now that much further below the top of the piston at BDC, creating a "square" edge & resultant turbulence effectively shrinking the cross sectional area ....most go and raise the top edge of the transfer to regain that area...with crazy small blow down numbers which is a bit counter intuitive if you come from other two stroke worlds, its just the x-sectional area gain over comes the issues with timing. Theirs was a compromise to that problem.

 

[Rick Stephens]

Think you will be pleasantly surprised with the direction you are headed .. Just consider trying to get a better squish band machined in that cylinder, which unfortunately drops the cylinder even more exercising your die grinding skills even more yet. I haven't come up with a solution to the floor of the exhaust port being low even before trimming the cylinder base though. Maybe some "new" folks with different idea's can do better. You know the definition of insanity is....Just as a thought, the old "Madsen" approach to gaining x-sectional area on the transfer might work too....they decked the cylinders as most do to be able to first get a nice squish band and compression, then machined "ramps" or wide grooves into the top of the piston so the transfer timing or blow down was more reasonable & more cross section open when the piston was at BDC. Many of the "hot rodder" type deck the cylinders here in this paradigm and since the lower edge of the transfer is now that much further below the top of the piston at BDC, creating a "square" edge & resultant turbulence effectively shrinking the cross sectional area ....most go and raise the top edge of the transfer to regain that area...with crazy small blow down numbers which is a bit counter intuitive if you come from other two stroke worlds, its just the x-sectional area gain over comes the issues with timing. Theirs was a compromise to that problem.

Interesting. Especially the concept of ramped piston crown. That would also screw with squish. I checked with the local machine shop today about decking, seems crazy to spend $70 (or more if the squish is changed) in machine work on a $10 PC kit. Especially since then we end up with ports that are even further from useful. So I'm not sure if this is the right place (Huztl PC kits) to start.

I have a couple friends by tonight working on and talking saws. Every upgrade looks pretty great when lubricated with a little tequila. Happiness is another shot of Hornitos. I think I'm ready to assemble this saw and see how she works with this level of upgrade. My biggest issue now is the horrid muffler. I cut one up that I ordered as an extra during the last saw purchase. If you never looked inside the Huztl 361 muffler, fair warning, you are going to be shocked. What a POS. I make my own dual port deflector with a spark screen, but needed to figure out how to add a spark arrestor to the original port. It spits sparks during use, unacceptable. So I disassembled one. What a piece of junk. I may just weld over their hole and dual port both sides.

 

[weimedog]

I wouldn't pay a nickle to machine any saw, basically I have a lathe and most who would play the saw mod game have something that is along those lines as compression is the easiest way to gain power. BUT if you don't have a lathe then things like a no base gasket build are what you have for options or spending money....

 

[Rick Stephens]

I wouldn't pay a nickle to machine any saw, basically I have a lathe and most who would play the saw mod game have something that is along those lines as compression is the easiest way to gain power. BUT if you don't have a lathe then things like a no base gasket build are what you have for options or spending money....

I hear ya.... I own a gazzillion dollars in welding stuff. I own test equipment for the computer storage business I have had for the last 20 years. No lathe. That doesn't stop me from wanting to do a job right. That said, it would take a shitload of decked cylinders to pay for a lathe :^)

 

[weimedog]

I hear ya.... I own a gazzillion dollars in welding stuff. I own test equipment for the computer storage business I have had for the last 20 years. No lathe. That doesn't stop me from wanting to do a job right. That said, it would take a shitload of decked cylinders to pay for a lathe :^)

Mine has more than paid itself off..

 

[Rick Stephens]

Mine has more than paid itself off..

Last 30 years I've wanted a lathe. Never seem to get there though. I'm right with you on your statement though. I never regret a good tool.

Finally doing some in wood tuning on aforementioned ported 361. I had to take it back apart as I had a couple vacuum leaks. First leak was a new OEM Husqvarna Decomp I put in. I bought it for a friends 660 kit and swiped it for a bit since I didn't have any plugs, I won't use the Huztl decomps. Second leak was between carb and boot. That one was both hard to find and a puzzler as I used what I consider a superior Hyway brand boot. Used a little grease to solve that one, and stole a plug out of another 361 to replace that Decomp. Not sure long term what my boot fix will be, grease probably won't cut it for very long.

Without break in, this saw runs 13,500 out of the cut and 10,600 in the cut on a 16 inch pine log letting the bar pull itself. I'm running a two or three times sharpened Oregon LGX chain on a 20 inch Versacut bar. I'm really looking forward to getting the rings broken in and tune it up for best performance. See what it will do. This saw is a brand new build.

One weird one, I had to make the cam slots bigger for the oil cap. I don't know how it is possible, but the little cutouts in the magnesium where the cap cam locks down into, were in the wrong place. I have an older Huztl 361 with some hours to compare to. When putting the oil cap on, as soon as I flip the latch closed, it pries the cap out of the hole. After much trading parts and measuring, widened the dish out about double and all is good.

 

[weimedog]

Sounds good, and you explained perfectly why on about everything less than 70cc's I just put a plug in where the decomp used to be (Not a sparking plug, just a plug.) AND why I use Three Bond 1184 inside the boot and on the cylinder intake flange...

AND Nice looking work BTW.. Need some video to back up those pics though..

 

[weimedog]

ALSO interested in feed back on the VersaCut bars....ANY one do bore cutting with them enough to know if they will stand up??

 

[Rick Stephens]

ALSO interested in feed back on the VersaCut bars....ANY one do bore cutting with them enough to know if they will stand up??

So I had turkey dinner Thursday with a couple loggers and told them my setup. Comments on the Versacut weren't negative, except he says if you pinch em they bend. Says he has about 10 of them, and several are woggled. However, I wouldn't lend him my pickup, my girlfriend or my saw. He's on the insane side. He has a new baby, I told him there ought to be laws on who can or can't breed.

For me, pretty much every pine I fall, I bore cut the hinge. I had a couple barber chairs last year doing humbolts with standard backcuts on largish ponderosa. Never again. So every pine over 10 inch or so gets a bore cut. I ran regular Oregon pro bars up until I built a couple 361s and a MS250 a few months ago. The 250 got a little 16" Speedcut. I ordered a second 20" Versacut for the 361 I just built. (because of your GTG video, BTW)They were running a $29 sale on Amazon last week. And for a general purpose saw, the LGX chain is superb. Fun noodling today. For $29 I bet the sealed bearing in the nose will last plenty.

Another note, my other Huztl 361 is a big bore that I took a Farmertech 440 carburetor body and swapped over all the parts off a Farmertech 361 carb. Only mods were drilling out the body to use the boot pulse line and widening the choke shaft for the bigger plate. I'm probably going to have to redo the boot with a 440 boot to get enough airflow. On the way from China now. I'll post some pics when I finish it up.

Rick

 

[Rick Stephens]

Took the two 361 Huztl builds out, ran them next to an OEM MS440. The MS440 kicked their butt. I'm looking forward to making the 361's progressively better. I'm going to keep on working on the porting. And I still don't have the carburetion quite where it should be. I noticed while putting the video together that the log I was sawing had knots the 361s had to saw through, you can see the saws slow down through them. The log was clean for the 440. of course, enhancing the difference.

Results:
361 w/ported 47mm cylinder: 13.72 sec - 14.07 sec - 14.64 sec for a total of 43.43 seconds

361 w/big bore 49mm and 440 carb: 14.36 sec - 13.52 sec - 13.23 sec for a total of 41.11 seconds

440 OEM saw 10.67 sec - 9.56 sec - 10.09 sec for a total of 30.32 seconds