Racing Fuel in Chainsaws?

jomoco

jomoco

If there's one thing I do by the book?

It's running premium super unleaded fuel in my saws since the 70's when leaded premium was available.

But the use of ethanol to oxygenate unleaded fuels has shall we say, dampened chainsaw performance across the board, in my opinion.

After consulting with an old school logger friend of mine who owns a saw shop now as a certified Stihl Saw dealer, I decided to try 100 octane racing fuel in my saws.

At ten bucks a gallon it was kinda pricey, but I wanted to at least try it.

The improvement in performance was startling, taking me back to my teenage racing days of screaming bikes and that Bardhal two stroke mix smell in the air.

Now I understand why pro loggers pay 80 bucks for 5 gallons of racing fuel.

It's to regain that childhood thrill of throttle response induced adrenaline that can be so addictive it can lead to paying your dealer whatever he wants to get your fix.

You must pay to play....see?

jomoco
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Full Floater, Bel-Ray, Fox, yes it all is flooding back. Some talk in the woods about running 100 LL av fuel. We used to race on airplane fuel the red stuff smelled like...ahhhh. Made the push mower sound like a helicopter. That's probably not legal, just because LL is Low Lead, but not unleaded.

Now the canned fuel is sweet, it should be more like 97 or 98 octane. I say run it and gun it. You are gonna write it off anyway, and how much gas do you use in a 35-90 cc engine in a week--5 Gal? Less cost than energy drinks or cigarettes, for sure. More fun, too.
 
Stuff I ran was 100 octane, kinda greenish, and made each saw I ran it in quite noticeably better in terms of throttle response and high end performance. Almost like a supercharger.

And that smell of the full synthetic Stihl mix!

I think this stuff cleans your saws out good!

jomoco
 
I used c13 hi octane oxygenated race fuel with Amsol synthetic mix in my ms200 for 3years of heavy use. It should be noted though, that the saw was ported, gasket matched, polished and balanced. After the 3 years I thought it should be time to swap in new rings, but upon opening it up they and the jug were fine. Re jetted it and it still runs fine on 98 super. One of my guys was lippin me about putting all that work into a climbing saw, until we raced it against his stock 440. New chains, 12inches of sugar maple = tie! I think the time savings of faster cutting outweigh the additional cost of the fuel, and no overheat problems even though I'm notorious for leaving my saw idling all.
 
That's funny Bigwood, because my Stihl guy tells me the opposite. That not letting my 200T idle between cuts is the reason it gets too hot and the mufflers loosen up and rattle off!

I think my guy's right, that idling the saw between cuts keeps the saw cooler.

But that doesn't answer why Stihl can't design a chainsaw muffler that won't rattle off regardless of how much of a fuel economizing jerk I am?

I must admit though that the new conical lock washers Stihl now uses to hold 200T mufflers on with seem to work, but it's too soon to say definitively that they've solved the problem at last. Another year should tell the story though.

Atleast they did something bout the problem, and they deserve praise for that, from me anyway.

Good job Stihl.

jomoco
 
Never thought that letting the saw idle would keep it cooler, but makes sence!
I can't figure out your muffler problem though. I can safely say I've never had one come loose. Quick count..... We've got 12 020, 200, and p.o.s. 201's ranging from 10 years to weeks old and the only thing that rattles are the kids knees that are running them some days.
 
I just went out and bought 10 gallons of 100 octane and mixed w/ Stihl HD full synthetic. The litmus test.....I filled my home firewood pile (read abondoned/neglected) Stihl 026,.... ..it ran like a scalded daog. Going to work early tomorrow to dump all the tanks and refill with this Nectar...game CHANGER. wish I would have known 23 years ago.....
 
Many race fuels actually have ethanol in them. That is one chemical that is used to "oxygenate" them, although there are others. Also, the extra octane does not help the performance of your saw. If anything, it would slow it down. High octane fuel is made to be more burn slower in order to inhibit "pinging". You simply don't need that in a chainsaw. You're using a slower burning fuel for no reason. The only reason to run any of these fuels is to find one with no ethanol at all for maintenance purposes.
 
In CA I see 18 locations listed for a population of 30 million people, so I was thinking that was the norm. But I see in NY there are somewhere between 100 and a billion so maybe finding non-ethanol is not even an issue for you there.
 
Only ice a difference running non ethanol.. We only have 89... Wish we had 92 E free.
It's only about .20-.30$ per gal
 
it depends on what fuel you are using but in most cases racing gas will run fine but lower your horsepower as it burn rate is a lot slower , if you increased your flywheel timing you would get some of that power back . One thing a lot have not said is with the higher octane you do increase your safe factor on lean burning the piston and the burn rate is a lot more controllable with the higher octane
 
I ran a Stihl 041 I believe it was, that was modified for a large chainsaw competition in a East Coast tree climbing competition back in around 1982, Flemington NJ. It was the second year and chainsaws were in 2 displacement categories and the one I was in was the larger one. It figured into a tree guy's total score along with climbing a tree with flags all over to touch, a pole spiking contest and pole felling accuracy contest and other stuff. I got beat bad in the first saw contest the year before, so as there were no mod restrictions...

I asked my saw guy (Stihl dealer from Hightstown NJ and drinking buddy) to build me a saw so I assume it was ported as it came down to me (running the saw) against another well known saw dealer in the area and I smoked him (the usual 4 complete slabs timed to hit ground with the last one timed). My guy and I ran what was called "missile mix" in the saw. I remember a guy in the stands yelling out to me "why don't you put some gas in that saw" because of the odor I guess. But no rules against that at the time.

What was that stuff?
 
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