boboak said:
Mods are great but if you make your living with a saw longevity and dependability rule.
I know I'll probably get flamed on this, but what the heck:
My opinion on muffler modding is that to some degree the increase in power is an illusion. Yes power does go up especially at high revs, but the increase sound level itself makes humans (especially guys) believe the motor is making more power. Common for kids to replace highly tuned exhaust systems on stock high performance street bikes with noisier ones and and swear they get more power. But usually the dyno and the quarter mile times don't prove that out.
So I argue that in in bigger wood when the saw is working fairly hard (which is what I am usually dealing with) simply opening up the muffler doesn't buy as much increase in performance (course depends on how restricted the stock muffler was, I do believe some are worse than others) as the increased sound level and fuel consumption might indicate. A little better performance, but not the 35% some people estimate. Again I am not talking small wood here where it is all about rpm.
The times I have run along/against other comparible saws that have muffler mods only, my sharper chains has had me cutting slightly faster in big wood. (And I've also run along more fully modded saws that ate me up.) Anyone got a muffler modded 7900 in the greater Seatle area? I haven't had a chance to run my stock 7900 against one of those to do a comparison. I'd be interested on the honest comparison.
This is only my opinion and admittedly is considered blasphemy on AS. And since I might be the only person that thinks this way on AS I could be mistaken. And I fear having admitted I feel this way might mean no more invitations to AS birthday parties...