Echo CS-400 Just Sucks?

[FlyingDutchman]

So I bought a CS400 to replace a fleet of Sears /Poulan saws. The bars and chains work for the Echo supposedly. I use this saw for clearing fencerows, cutting dirty wood and other extreme duty tasks, with fairly disposable picco chain. The new Echo bar and chain are still on the shelf, and I'm using old Poulan/sears bars and chain. These bars and chains literally say they work for Echo right on the packages.

It was cutting okay with an old very worn Oregon 14" bar then i lent it to a friend. I had just tightened and sharpened it and it was running well. He said it threw the chain within 5 minutes. He tried putting it back on without tightening the bar nuts and it shredded the bevel gears on the tensioner. I think I started the whole mess myself after the chain coming off awhile ago, he finished the job. Very poor design that requires the bar nuts to be tight to work.

Okay so I replaced the tensioner parts that were bad. Come to find out it ended up shredding the chain (which made him have to mess with the tensioner) and putting the bar out of it's misery. So I put a 16" bar and chain on it. Sharpened and tightened it. I was clearing boxelder brush to get to oak. Cutting performance was poor in the oak and boxelder with a pretty sharp chain. Saw pinched very slightly and then pow, chain flies off the bar and ruins that chain too from the sprocket turning against the back of the drive teeth. Down 2 chains. Afraid to kill more.

I've inspected the sprocket and it looks fine, as a near new saw should- chains all were quite tight and pretty new when it tossed it. Its almost like the saw has too much power or can't keep the chains tight an just lets them fly off except they ARE tight..

In addition its having starting and running issues, low power and generally I'm just dissappointed by it. I always wanted to love this saw, but all its done is make me run the Poulans even harder because you know... They actually run, don't toss chains, and even my crummiest superclean seems to have more power than this thing.

 

[Bobby Kirbos]

It was cutting okay with an old very worn Oregon 14" bar then i lent it to a friend. I had just tightened and sharpened it and it was running well.

You bought this saw to replace your Poulan/Sears fleet. Lend one of those to your friend.

Related, but in a different money pit - I can't begin to tell you how many times I have heard "this gun sucks, it keeps jamming." The gun was fine. The jams were caused by the cheap aftermarket magazines that the guy was running. New, good factory magazine, no more problems. With that said, did you try running it with the new Echo bar/chain, tensioned correctly, and bar nuts tightened correctly? Yes, the Poulan bars should run fine, but if they are already 1/2 beat up.....

 

[Kenskip1]

A friend of mine has the CS 400 and he loves it.After a MM it really woke up. Honestly, putting a worn bar and chain on a saw is like draining the oil out and not replacing the filter.Anyway he really likes his.It sounds like your issues are self inflicted.

 

[mountainlake]

Sound like you shouldn't own a chainsaw, Cs400 Echo are great saws. Steve

 

[Bobby Kirbos]

You guys are brutal. Though I was thinking the same thing, I was trying to be nice about it and help him find his way to the same answer.

BUT

I suppose that when you're dealing with something that can tear you up in short order, nice shouldn't be an option.

 

[FlyingDutchman]

I lent the Echo to the friend because it has a chain brake and the Poulans do not. Its a safer saw to use. Chain shredded before he could get much time with it. Then yes, he borrowed a Poulan.

For all intents and purposes, I did cut successfully with the 14" bar at first maybe 5 or so tanks of fuel. The saw was pretty fuel efficient and lighter and cut okay and attributed the mediocre power to break in. The chain tensioner was working correctly and the bar I had the second incident with
came off of a running Poulan I never had any chain jumping issues hammering through brush.

I think the saw needs a carb adjustment to lower the bar speed post break in. Its probably not 4-stroking and is revving out to the moon with no load, not especially good in the brush.. Unfortunately, this is not "dink around with saws season" so I probably didn't take time to check that before going out and hitting wood with it. Last check, adjustment was good.

Don't mind being called stupid while asking stupid questions, but they do help me think through things.

 

[stubnail67]

While poulan bars fit the cs 400.only if it was 3/8s lo pro... if your using a bar off a 2900/295/2600 well thos chains are not goning to be the same as that cs 400's lo pro 3/8s 50 gauge chain....you can switch the sprockets on poulans of that model to run the same echo. now my poulan s25 and micros bar and chain combo's work just fine as they use a 3/8s lo pro and an A041 mount... check your poulan bars and see if you maybe used a .325 your buddy might just be prone to tearing stuff up .... i have a few of those....even without the muffler mod my cs 400 always fired up and was dead nuts reliable.....with a mod much better...also your going to want to adjust the carb to where your located.about all i can think of....Any saw will throw a chain if it gets slack.... say he did not tighten it right or try to adjust it with the nuts way to snug.... my boss is a Ham fisted SOB.... great guy but he breaks every saw he touch's.....

 

[stubnail67]

I lent the Echo to the friend because it has a chain brake and the Poulans do not. Its a safer saw to use. Chain shredded before he could get much time with it. Then yes, he borrowed a Poulan.

For all intents and purposes, I did cut successfully with the 14" bar at first maybe 5 or so tanks of fuel. The saw was pretty fuel efficient and lighter and cut okay and attributed the mediocre power to break in. The chain tensioner was working correctly and the bar I had the second incident with
came off of a running Poulan I never had any chain jumping issues hammering through brush.

I think the saw needs a carb adjustment to lower the bar speed post break in. Its probably not 4-stroking and is revving out to the moon with no load, not especially good in the brush.. Unfortunately, this is not "dink around with saws season" so I probably didn't take time to check that before going out and hitting wood with it. Last check, adjustment was good.

Don't mind being called stupid while asking stupid questions, but they do help me think through things.

you will want to pull the limiters and adjust the carb on for sure....

 

[mountainlake]

Listen to stubnail, educate yourself on running saws. Tensioners are not meant to hold the bar in place when cutting, just to get it tight enough to tighten the nuts that holt the bar. Echo saws don't have the toughest tensioner but in 20 years I have never stripped one when used properly. The CS400 when tuned right and muff modded is a REAL strong saw .Steve

 

[Deleted member 149229]

Listen to stubnail, educate yourself on running saws. Tensioners are not meant to hold the bar in place when cutting, just to get it tight enough to tighten the nuts that holt the bar. Echo saws don't have the toughest tensioner but in 20 years I have never stripped one when used properly. The CS400 when tuned right and muff modded is a REAL strong saw .Steve

What he said.

 

[svk]

you will want to pull the limiters and adjust the carb on for sure....

Yes.

My 352 was terribly lean from the factory. After muffler mod and proper tuning, the cutting times dropped by about 50 percent. That is a big difference IMO.

I do not know what to say about your chains other than that you may have messed something up with the first thrown chain and it damaged the second one. Or since they were used, perhaps they both randomly had issues.

 

[Wood Doctor]

you will want to pull the limiters and adjust the carb on for sure....

Pulling the limiters and throwing them away also works on Poulan Wild Things that have them on board. These plastic carb limiters can easily make it impossible for the carb to do its job.

 

[FlyingDutchman]

Cleaned the air filter, pulled the limiters and adjusted to stock spec. Did not want to run right unless adjusted per spec. Fatter on the H screw did not help. Thanks to backhoelover for the specifications. It was not running correctly before this.

I dressed the 16" bar and went through a couple chains with no real success, they cut crooked despite my best filing jobs. One of the garage sale chains was hardened and destroyed two files.

Found a new Oregon chain. Cut a pickup truck load and felled a couple trees. No chain throwing and decent performance, cutting straight. No monster by any means but... It worked! If it continues to be reliable I'll look into muffler modding. Thanks for the support guys

 

[Cycledude]

I am also Echo CS400 owner, not much power but it’s a nice light weight easy to start and use saw, the chain tensioner looks kinda flimsy but I haven’t had any trouble with it, the bar nuts do have to be tightened before you cut anything, I’ve never seen a saw that didn’t require tight bar nuts while cutting. For the price I think they are pretty decent little saws.

 

[Deleted member 149229]

Muff mod, retune and get away from the green label chain.

 

[rocketnorton]

Sound like you shouldn't own a chainsaw, Cs400 Echo are great saws. Steve

you will want to pull the limiters and adjust the carb on for sure....

this ^^^^ + adjuster is just that. not a stop 4 bar. hold tip up after adjust while tightenin nuts. chain should roll freely when done

 

[Matt Hogden]

Sound like you shouldn't own a chainsaw, Cs400 Echo are great saws. Steve

I second that. They are tough as nails mate!

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[mountainlake]

I ran over one with a 11000# tracked skid loader, bent the bar real bad, broke the top handle and a small crack in the gas tank that I plastic welded. And the recoil . Not to bad. Steve

 

[Cliff R]

The Echo CS-370/400's are excellent saws as mentioned. I have at least a zillion hours on one and ZERO issues with it anyplace. Of course I don't put Poulan bars and POS chains on it either, and there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with the chain tension device on those covers, so most likely we have miss-matched parts here combined with operator error, or a little of both.....IMHO.

ALL Echo CS-370/400's that I've worked on here REQUIRE the limiter caps removed to add some fuel or they will not only be down on power, but liable to "toast" the P/C as well. I'd do the saw a favor and put the factory bar/chain back on it, and open up the mixtures a bit. I'll bet you will have a completely different opinion of that saw afterwards........Cliff

 

[LuDookie]

Very poor design that requires the bar nuts to be tight to work.

I think mountainlake might have touched on this a bit, but it sure stood out to me and maybe I don't quite understand. I've got a 370, which is very similar to the 400, and I've owned several saws, big and small, and in all cases the nuts have to be loose to tighten the chain, but absolutely have to be tightened before cutting. Any saw will throw a chain if not. You can't horse on the bar/chain tensioner either, but the bar nuts are the only thing that really holds the tension on the bar/chain for cutting. No way around that. Hope that 400 starts/continues to work out for you. They are good saws.