Bare minimum of tools to give a go at porting

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Jkstihl

Chainsaws make me fap.
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Anyone care to give a basic rundown of the bare minimum tools to get my hands dirty porting.
 
To woods port you just need a dremel, and double cut carbide burrs. To polish just a split mandrel for the dremel and sand paper. Personally I would also get a pencil attachment for the dremel. Could get all that on amazon for under $100. There’s gain to be had with just Woods porting but if you want serious gains you need to have a lathe.
 
To woods port you just need a dremel, and double cut carbide burrs. To polish just a split mandrel for the dremel and sand paper. Personally I would also get a pencil attachment for the dremel. Could get all that on amazon for under $100. There’s gain to be had with just Woods porting but if you want serious gains you need to have a lathe.

To be clear, what most guys call a "woods port" is done with a lathe and a right angle handpiece, like a foredom. I'm not saying a guy can port a saw with a Dremel. Yes, it can be done with great success. But, if you send a saw to one of the guys on here doing woods ports, it'd be pretty curious to see nothing but Dremel work done.
 
Most of the woods porting you'll see here and a few other boards is nearly a stock-appearing race port. It makes a very nervous saw that runs at very high RPM, requires high octane fuel in hotter climes, 32;1 mix ratios, that will not last long under serious use(whether by engine wear or chassis wear and stress), and will require more tuning and maintenance. This usually doesn't matter for some professionals, as they can go through saws at an alarming rate whether tuned or not, or do not care if they have to replace their starter assemblies or bars on a regular basis, etc. But if you are running one for firewood, home use, and most felling, or a communal saw for a work gang, or own that work gang, such a saw is not really a necessity, and can be a hindrance. A simple woods port, which used to mean just widening the ports(but not too aggressively), and maybe adding some port and ignition timing, will do. In some cases such a woods port can add a tremendous amount of power from stock like with some 372's, 288's, 394's, 066's, 046's and 044's without any need of machine work, and the saw will require no more maintenance or attention or fuel quality than the stock version required. One porter here showed a simple muffler mod and timing advance increased performance on a 261cm by over 30%, another got nearly 40% on a carburated version. And I have seen many saws without machine work win GTG's. Even some porters here will 'detune' their usual designs depending on the use. But, for many, it's seeing a hot saw chew up wood in a video and internet boards competition that make more of an impression than reliability or ease of use, or having a saw easy to start without destroying the starters.
I may come across as having a preference, but this isn't the case. I'm simply explaining how I have seen things progress as far as port work is done in my time.
So basically, we sort of have two ports available nowadays. An actual woods port, and then a chainsaw forum woods port.
 
Sounds like we all have different definitions of what a woods port is. I’ve learned everything I know from the forums and I was under the impression woods porting is simply widening the ports. Which could be done with a dremel. Now to do what I consider a full blown port job that requires a lot more than just a dremel. I have at least 2k into the tools I use to do such work.
 
Don't listen to these snobby pricks @Jkstihl . All you need can be found at your local Home Depot.
View attachment 797536 View attachment 797537

I heard all you use personally is a big hammer to pound rocks into powder, find a stick- smear some grease on the end of the stick and dip the greased end in the rock powder.
Then you put the greasy powdery end in the port and use friction of the stick between your palms to grind the port- just like fire starting...... or old fashioned valve grinding, without the rubber suction cup! :laugh:
 
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