You will be OK revving it. They are just covering their arses and do not want you maxing the engine out at peak revs and bogging it down a lot when it is new. Break her in a tad easier than you normally would run a saw. She will be fine. Ease up a tad... I know it is hard. About like buying a nice new sports car and having to limit the RPMs until its broken in. But in the long run it will be better.
Nice that you got the 24/25" (I dunno why they call it a 25) for the cost of a 20". I would recommend a 20" if you are cutting mosly pine and fir. A 24" does fine even in black oak here. I have an 18" that came with my 361 and it seems small for it. I moved the 18" over to the 290 where it has a better home, and use the 20" that came on the 290 on the 361. A lot of guys around here use RM full skip. I use (and prefer) full comp (but I have skip).
Running a smaller bar will not burn it up. Heck, you can crank up the oiler on a 361 and it will gush all over an 18 inch bar. I turned it down to half dose for that size, and up to full for the 24". All those guys back east run short bars. And in Europe too. We western cowboys all seem to prefer longer bars. Go figure... I like the 20 and 24 on the 361 best. A 22" would be perfect I think. But I cut mostly fir here; grand and Doug. But also black oak, maple and madrone. Madrone is tough on chains though. Seems to me that a longer bar has no big chain drag, and the chain speed is the same. Only when you come into contact with wood along the entire length of the bar is there a difference. If it bogs too much in that case go with skip and keep the revs up. And I have found that even with a 460 you can bog it down in fir even with a 20 inch bar on it. So... I say go long.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Therrin  Windthrown,
Could be. I'll have to check it out.
It was originally supposed to come with a 20", but I requested the 25" with it, and they swapped it at no extra cost.
Probably 70% of my work is on pines and firs. I was leanin more towards the 18" bar for the shorter one, but my Dealer mentioned a couple guys puttin shorter bars on their 361's and burnin em up. Sounded more like operator error to me, but I don't know.
As for it attaining peak performance after everything seats propperly, I had also read that in the manual. However, it also said not to run it at high RPM's for the first 5 or six tankfulls or so.  Is that really a problem? I found it difficult *not* to run it at higher-end RPM's yesterday. It's hard to cut through somethin that's 24" diameter without givin the saw the juice it needs to get it done.
What's your advice on this? |
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Stihls: 210/250-/025/290/361/FS85
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