I've used dozens of am kitsI work on power equipment in our business, full time now since 2003. It's not a main deal, but we have a reputation in our area for doing good work and folks are constantly showing up with saws, generator sets, and other equipment that's giving them troubles.
To date I've never even looked at aftermarket P/C kits for any of these saws, OEM all the way and have had ZERO issues to date with any of it. It hurts a little more going in but from a business standpoint you are insuring that you will NOT see the saw again for the same issue and your customer will be able to continue to use their saw for many years.
With that said anytime we see a "smoked" P/C we check for air leaks and almost always rebuild the carb (and often end up replacing the fuel line/filter in the tank as well) and fine tune the saw and fatten it up if/as needed before we give it back to the customer.
The trend in recent years is for the manufacturer's to delivery their equipment pretty lean right out of the box to make the EPA happy. Of course they don't know exactly where the equipment is going to end up or the quality of fuel that's going to be put thru it. Some folks will step up with higher octane and/or non ethanol, others will cheap out and use the least expensive fuel, and may also use lower quality 2 cycle mix.
For these reasons we tend to er on the rich side vs lean in the cut. Not enough so it "blubbering" and way down on power, but we make absolutely sure it "four strokes" when the load is removed during a heavy cut.
Even with all that said I've always been curious about some of the higher end aftermarket kits and how well they hold up in long term service, but to date I've always went OEM instead as the jump typically isn't that much higher and I know we're doing the very best for the saw and our customers.......Cliff
Best way I have found to seat those seals is: find a washer that will slip on crankshaft, but larger than bearing pocket, coat outer rim of seal with light coat of sealant (I use motoseal) and seat seal with deep socket or small piece of pipe. This prevents seating too deep or not square in pocket. If someone has a better way, please let me know.I bought OEM parts because I don't want trouble with the saw, I went cheap when I rebuilt it last time and now I'm doing it again, I could be that I messed up the seals, they were not oem seals, so that could be a factor. I bought a new oem fuel tank/handle because the knock off gave me fitting issues when I first assembled the saw. The half wrap handle was beat when I put it together, a new one will be much nicer. If I could powder coat the cases I would since I have all winter to do this saw over.
Let us know what happen?i was going order some parts from them.
I tried that once .the wife handed me a new *******.lol.I used a socket with well placed taps, but it may or may not been a good idea to do it that way. While my wife was out tonight i was able to scrub my cases spanky clean without any words from her. They frown on using the kitchen sink for cleaning our toys.
They have been good to meOk, they are ordering a kit for me#
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