New Saw First Start

[stihldragon]

My latest saw, the 261c, was ran full throttle for about 30 sec by the dealer. I’m not sure if that is a break In process or just a way to see if it has any flaws. I know it made my gut feel funny, just didn’t seem right but that’s what they have done with 2 saws purchased there.
When I got it home I ran it hard with the bar buried in dry Oak. I’ve always been told to break something in the same way you expect to run it.


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That's definitely something to ponder about. I like the 261c it's very competitive for it's size. Saws have innovated so much that they could probably care less if you break them in or not. I just feel comfortable with the idea that it "might" add hours to a saw.

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[Huskybill]

I put a 32” bar on my new 385xp, and a 28” bar on my new 575xp and ran them like a horse race, let’s not forget the dealer adjusts the low speed, the idle, the high speed.

At the shop where I worked the flat head stock car knocked the office wall clock off the wall from the middle bay, my drag race car knocked the clock off the wall from the third bay. My point is the oil pressure is up, the timing set, valves adjusted, the water temp is up, the Carb was adjusted. With any race engine I built it was 30 seconds wide open throttle to seat the rings and to see if she’s build correctly and stays together. I trust my work and don’t baby nothing.

 

[Andyshine77]

Run good mix, make sure the saw is tuned correctly and don't make really long cuts without taking a break for the first few tanks of fuel. Other than that you're wasting time and in some cases "like adding oil directly into the engine" are doing more harm than good. Tune the saw run the saw, that's it.

 

[drf255]

Run good mix at a fatter than normal ratio. Make sure saw is fat at WOT.

Let it warm up to temp.

Put bar in wood and run a WOT intermittently checking tune by lifting for a sec in the cut.

I typically beat on them the first few cuts, as long as they are at temp. If they will fail, they will fail in the first few cuts if it’s a manufacturing defect.

 

[rd35]

Brand new engine or brand new rebuild. I set the carb a bit rich, fire it up, burp the throttle several times at low rpm just to give the crank case and cylinder a few heavy shots of atomized mix to coat everything well. Then I set L to a good slightly rich idle and spin it up to set H a bit rich as well. Next, I run it like any other saw. After about 15 minutes of run time I retune the carb (L and H) to optimum (4-strokes at WOT with no load....2-strokes when it hits wood at WOT). I have never had piston/cylinder problems and my 18 year old MS260 still has excellent compression after several hundred tanks of fuel through it (50:1 synthetic stihl, echo, or husky oil....whichever is on sale at the time) Actually seems like the compression is getting higher every year....probably because I get older every year!

 

[bigfellascott]

I'm a self taught saw builder and all I buy is parts saws. I cut trees with my rebuilds on a daily basis. I restore and reuse worn engine parts and I've been using this break in procedure not knowing if it's really necessary but I always retune as needed. Here's a picture of a badly scored piston I reused. The rebuild ran like new.

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Yep I've used a few that look like that, I just give em a bit of a rub with wet and dry to take any soft alloy off, new set of Nikasil rings and put em back together, they go great as a rule (the pistos only holds the rings lot like it's touching anything so to speak. As for run in we generally like to get em a little warm and then let them cool down again and cycle through that a couple of times but generally most of our rebuilds are just rings and pistons so no great run in procedure required for that one.

 

[Mad Professor]

Besides the way you run it, give it a once over for fasteners/clamps etc. Intake and carb, muffler, cyl, clutch, flywheel, air filter installed right, hoses connected correctly.

Then after a couple of tanks I check muffler and cyl bolts/screws again.