What oil is best? and what ratio?

[mrxlh]

Kick this thread back in the right direction... chainsaw brand... fight!

Wouldn’t be no fight if Stihl could build a good oil…

 

[Stump Shot]

Could also be too tight of ring end gap. I’ve seen .011” grow and snag a 9010 exhaust roof

I see what you mean, there is something funny going on there.
Without the benefit of seeing the entire cylinder and Randy slacking on us, I'd put forward the theory that some of that carbon got on or behind a ring to make it force outward and then it "bit" in changing direction.
As there sure is some vertical scoring to go along with to say there was a little something something in there.

 

[Mastermind]

Sorry for the slack.

Calving is wide open here. And cows are dumb.

 

[70binder]

Good morning, gents. My name is Chris. Long time lurker but felt it was time to finally register on the forum. The 3120 above is mine. I had originally planned on having work done to it eventually but once it started acting funny, I figured I might as well call it quits on that big tree I was working on because I didn't want to damage the saw and get ahold of randy to see what was needed from me to get the ball rolling. Randy was nice enough to pencil me into his schedule awhile back so I sent him my saw to make it run like a 3120xp should. When he asked what oil I use after opening my saw up and told me that particular oil is junk, I instantly knew I should have ran better oil. I will now run the oil he recommends from here on out when i get the saw back. I'm a Husky guy through and through and the only reason I used the orange bottle Stihl oil is because the local saw shop carries it in bulk and its half the price of the synthetic stuff. I always thought that because I kind of baby the saw and don't abuse it, that particular would be fine. Seeing this kind of wear in a saw that really doesnt have that many hours on it makes me think the oil is the culprit and i really should have spent a little extra on a high quality oil. I bought the saw brand new , took my time breaking it in and always mixed my fuel rich. During cuts, I'd always stop atleast twice for a minute or 2 and let the saw idle and cool down then continue on with the cut. I never let it run out of fuel either. Everything I thought I could do that was overly cautious to prolong the life of the saw and it still started eating itself.

 

[Mygalomorph]

Olive oil is the best.
Three to four soup spoons daily
and will protect your heart and arteries,lower your cholesterol,
strengthen brain function and protect the nerves while will awake
any "sleepy" reproductive system.
Which other oil offers that much ?

Salmon and most other fish oils

 

[Powerstroke Cowboy]

Salmon and most other fish oils

Indeed!!

@70binder, Welcome too OPE. Some lessons are learned the hard way. Sounds like you did not push your saw till she quit though. Your saw is in good hands.

 

[bertfixessome]

Also Top Tier gasoline brands - more & better detergents equals fewer carbon deposits.

Me thinks you have watched one two many TV commercials.
Detergents in oils do not "clean" anything
Their 1 & only job is to envelope anything that is not oil so that the filter can remove them before they drop to the bottom of the sump and form a sludge
Almost the same function as a dispersant to the point that all detergents are dispersant but not all dispersants are detergent .
And the last time I checked here was neither a sump not an oil filter on a chain saw save the one on the bar oil feed.\
Oils are rather like atmospheric pollution the less one knows about them the stronger they argue about them.
As for modern ash less two stroke oils there is 5/8 of SFA difference between any of them .
The saw makers run saws on progressively richer mixes till the ports start to clog and that is their recommend ratio for all oils other than the one with their brand name on it
Then they lean the mix till they start to get excessive bore wear or ring wear ( done by AA spectrometry of the exhaust ) ,then they pick the 1/2 way point between the two, round it out for simple mixing and that is the recommendation for their own brand oil .
Then you get managers with MBA's who have never seen a chain saw let alone used one and they decide we have always used 25:1 and it will be too confusing to run 100:1 in our new saws and if the owners run 100: in their old saws they might blow up and we could be liable or trash the reputation of the brand diminishing the brand name value so they leave the mix way too rich.
Point in mind
The Victa power torque engine ( 2 stroke mower engine ) was originally designed to run 32:1 when mixed with engine oil ( old enough to remember those days ).
Engine oil does not dissolve in petrol .
When tier II exhaust emission became law, suddenly it was safe to run the same engine on 100:1 using their brand of 2 stroke oil or 50:1 on any other brand.
Running 50:1 over time causes build up of carbon in the exhaust port so the engine runs bad , because you are not using the superiour Victa oil .
And they actually think we believe this .
The exact ratio that works best for a particular saw being used by a particular person will vary because the load on the saws will be different between some one who is limbing branches less than 1' thick and his mate who is running hard trying to fell a 150' hardwood . And this is before we talk about the actual saw tuning wich most do by ear then feel .
I do appreciate that some oils do have a lot of aromatics in them and if mixed a touch too rich for the particular saw will stink and over a full day can leave the operator with headaches & nausia
Running the mix 10% leaner probably would not cause the same problems .

 

[Loony661]

Good morning, gents. My name is Chris. Long time lurker but felt it was time to finally register on the forum. The 3120 above is mine. I had originally planned on having work done to it eventually but once it started acting funny, I figured I might as well call it quits on that big tree I was working on because I didn't want to damage the saw and get ahold of randy to see what was needed from me to get the ball rolling. Randy was nice enough to pencil me into his schedule awhile back so I sent him my saw to make it run like a 3120xp should. When he asked what oil I use after opening my saw up and told me that particular oil is junk, I instantly knew I should have ran better oil. I will now run the oil he recommends from here on out when i get the saw back. I'm a Husky guy through and through and the only reason I used the orange bottle Stihl oil is because the local saw shop carries it in bulk and its half the price of the synthetic stuff. I always thought that because I kind of baby the saw and don't abuse it, that particular would be fine. Seeing this kind of wear in a saw that really doesnt have that many hours on it makes me think the oil is the culprit and i really should have spent a little extra on a high quality oil. I bought the saw brand new , took my time breaking it in and always mixed my fuel rich. During cuts, I'd always stop atleast twice for a minute or 2 and let the saw idle and cool down then continue on with the cut. I never let it run out of fuel either. Everything I thought I could do that was overly cautious to prolong the life of the saw and it still started eating itself.

Welcome to the forum. Sounds like you did everything right to prevent failure from human error.

 

[Loony661]

Me thinks you have watched one two many TV commercials.
Detergents in oils do not "clean" anything
Their 1 & only job is to envelope anything that is not oil so that the filter can remove them before they drop to the bottom of the sump and form a sludge
Almost the same function as a dispersant to the point that all detergents are dispersant but not all dispersants are detergent .
And the last time I checked here was neither a sump not an oil filter on a chain saw save the one on the bar oil feed.\
Oils are rather like atmospheric pollution the less one knows about them the stronger they argue about them.
As for modern ash less two stroke oils there is 5/8 of SFA difference between any of them .
The saw makers run saws on progressively richer mixes till the ports start to clog and that is their recommend ratio for all oils other than the one with their brand name on it
Then they lean the mix till they start to get excessive bore wear or ring wear ( done by AA spectrometry of the exhaust ) ,then they pick the 1/2 way point between the two, round it out for simple mixing and that is the recommendation for their own brand oil .
Then you get managers with MBA's who have never seen a chain saw let alone used one and they decide we have always used 25:1 and it will be too confusing to run 100:1 in our new saws and if the owners run 100: in their old saws they might blow up and we could be liable or trash the reputation of the brand diminishing the brand name value so they leave the mix way too rich.
Point in mind
The Victa power torque engine ( 2 stroke mower engine ) was originally designed to run 32:1 when mixed with engine oil ( old enough to remember those days ).
Engine oil does not dissolve in petrol .
When tier II exhaust emission became law, suddenly it was safe to run the same engine on 100:1 using their brand of 2 stroke oil or 50:1 on any other brand.
Running 50:1 over time causes build up of carbon in the exhaust port so the engine runs bad , because you are not using the superiour Victa oil .
And they actually think we believe this .
The exact ratio that works best for a particular saw being used by a particular person will vary because the load on the saws will be different between some one who is limbing branches less than 1' thick and his mate who is running hard trying to fell a 150' hardwood . And this is before we talk about the actual saw tuning wich most do by ear then feel .
I do appreciate that some oils do have a lot of aromatics in them and if mixed a touch too rich for the particular saw will stink and over a full day can leave the operator with headaches & nausia
Running the mix 10% leaner probably would not cause the same problems .

The quote you used is referring to the different detergent levels of gasoline, not oil. Here in the U.S. gasoline varies widely from brand to brand, and also different areas of the country. They have very different additives and detergent packages tailor made for the area and weather. For example: where I live in Minnesota, the same 87 octane gasoline changes formula 7 times throughout a calendar year just to stay volatile at different temperature ranges..

 

[bertfixessome]

Good morning, gents. My name is Chris. Long time lurker but felt it was time to finally register on the forum. The 3120 above is mine. I had originally planned on having work done to it eventually but once it started acting funny, I figured I might as well call it quits on that big tree I was working on because I didn't want to damage the saw and get ahold of randy to see what was needed from me to get the ball rolling. Randy was nice enough to pencil me into his schedule awhile back so I sent him my saw to make it run like a 3120xp should. When he asked what oil I use after opening my saw up and told me that particular oil is junk, I instantly knew I should have ran better oil. I will now run the oil he recommends from here on out when i get the saw back. I'm a Husky guy through and through and the only reason I used the orange bottle Stihl oil is because the local saw shop carries it in bulk and its half the price of the synthetic stuff. I always thought that because I kind of baby the saw and don't abuse it, that particular would be fine. Seeing this kind of wear in a saw that really doesnt have that many hours on it makes me think the oil is the culprit and i really should have spent a little extra on a high quality oil. I bought the saw brand new , took my time breaking it in and always mixed my fuel rich. During cuts, I'd always stop atleast twice for a minute or 2 and let the saw idle and cool down then continue on with the cut. I never let it run out of fuel either. Everything I thought I could do that was overly cautious to prolong the life of the saw and it still started eating itself.

Running rich is almost as bad as running lean
Running rich encourages carbon deposits which can break free & destroy a bore in no time flat
Add to that fuel is metered in by volume so if your fuel has more oil, per unit volume then it has less fuel so fuel wise it is running a bit on the lean side and the opposite is true for running thin mixes
Your practice of idling down for a few minutes is also bad for the saw and its thermal stability so everything is expanding then contracting .
Acceleration occurs because the carb runs the engine rich on most saws as they have fairly well fixed ignition timing

So your actual use was about as good as you can get if you want to destroy the saw .

 

[70binder]

Running rich is almost as bad as running lean
Running rich encourages carbon deposits which can break free & destroy a bore in no time flat
Add to that fuel is metered in by volume so if your fuel has more oil, per unit volume then it has less fuel so fuel wise it is running a bit on the lean side and the opposite is true for running thin mixes
Your practice of idling down for a few minutes is also bad for the saw and its thermal stability so everything is expanding then contracting .
Acceleration occurs because the carb runs the engine rich on most saws as they have fairly well fixed ignition timing

So your actual use was about as good as you can get if you want to destroy the saw .

I didn't think 32:1 was too rich. Ran a 40:1 tank through about a year ago to see if performance increased. It didn't, so I stuck to my 32:1 mix. It's strictly a milling saw and I'd rather have a little more oil going through it rather than a melted piston. Oh well, live and learn

 

[bertfixessome]

Deter

The quote you used is referring to the different detergent levels of gasoline, not oil. Here in the U.S. gasoline varies widely from brand to brand, and also different areas of the country. They have very different additives and detergent packages tailor made for the area and weather. For example: where I live in Minnesota, the same 87 octane gasoline changes formula 7 times throughout a calendar year just to stay volatile at different temperature ranges..

Detergents in oil detergents in fuel they are the same
They do not clean anything except in TV commercials .
It is all marketing hype
Carbon build up comes from incomplete burning, be it fuel ( soot on plugs ) or oil ( build up on piston crowns & exhaust ports.).
And down here there is no law that defines what Petrol is, just regulations of the maximum amounts of the various componants
So we have a maximum Tolluene content of 45% Wt/vol , maximum Benzene of 60% ( total benzenes ) and 50% of any one benzine .
METH is around 15 % etc etc etc.
Thus our blenders scour the planet for the cheapest scrap & byproduuct volatile liquids and flog them off as "fuel" .
I always found it side splitting funny that I was no longer able to buy solvent benzene because it is castenogenic but I can put it in my fuel tank.
It does not matterwhat goes into fuel because it is designed to be burned in computer controlled fuel injected car engines which self adjust the timing & fuel concentrations real time while running .

 

[Mastermind]

I didn't think 32:1 was too rich. Ran a 40:1 tank through about a year ago to see if performance increased. It didn't, so I stuck to my 32:1 mix. It's strictly a milling saw and I'd rather have a little more oil going through it rather than a melted piston. Oh well, live and learn

I don't know yet with any certainty that what oil, or how much oil you used actually hurt the saw. I'll be doing some very close inspection today. Kevin pointed out something that I am really wanting to look at. Ring end gap....

 

[70binder]

I don't know yet with any certainty that what oil, or how much oil you used actually hurt the saw. I'll be doing some very close inspection today. Kevin pointed out something that I am really wanting to look at. Ring end gap....

He might be right. Maybe it's too tight.

 

[bertfixessome]

I didn't think 32:1 was too rich. Ran a 40:1 tank through about a year ago to see if performance increased. It didn't, so I stuck to my 32:1 mix. It's strictly a milling saw and I'd rather have a little more oil going through it rather than a melted piston. Oh well, live and learn

But did you retune it to the 40:1 mix or just slosh different fuel into the tank ?
Very few engines made since 1990 need 32:1 which along with 25:1 are throw backs to the days of engine oil which simply forms an emulsion so you had to shake the can vigerously every time you refilled and if you did not us the machine give it a good shake before you start because over time the oil sinks to the bottom .
This does not happen with modern 2 stroke oils because there are a lot of dispersants in it so it dissolves into the petrol ( actually disperses rather than truely dissolving ) and stays that way almost indefinately .
If you centrifuge it then the oil will seperate and if you pressurise the air / fuel mix some of the oil drops out which is what happens in the crankcase during primary compression

 

[70binder]

But did you retune it to the 40:1 mix or just slosh different fuel into the tank ?
Very few engines made since 1990 need 32:1 which along with 25:1 are throw backs to the days of engine oil which simply forms an emulsion so you had to shake the can vigerously every time you refilled and if you did not us the machine give it a good shake before you start because over time the oil sinks to the bottom .
This does not happen with modern 2 stroke oils because there are a lot of dispersants in it so it dissolves into the petrol ( actually disperses rather than truely dissolving ) and stays that way almost indefinately .
If you centrifuge it then the oil will seperate and if you pressurise the air / fuel mix some of the oil drops out which is what happens in the crankcase during primary compression

I did not retune. Wouldn't that be counterproductive to what I thought would help longevity? I've had 2 stroke stuff all my life and never had a problem before

 

[Mastermind]

But did you retune it to the 40:1 mix or just slosh different fuel into the tank ?
Very few engines made since 1990 need 32:1 which along with 25:1 are throw backs to the days of engine oil which simply forms an emulsion so you had to shake the can vigerously every time you refilled and if you did not us the machine give it a good shake before you start because over time the oil sinks to the bottom .
This does not happen with modern 2 stroke oils because there are a lot of dispersants in it so it dissolves into the petrol ( actually disperses rather than truely dissolving ) and stays that way almost indefinately .
If you centrifuge it then the oil will seperate and if you pressurise the air / fuel mix some of the oil drops out which is what happens in the crankcase during primary compression

The 3120 has a non-adjustable carb.

 

[bertfixessome]

The bulk of the deceased saws that come into my shop are dead because the customer ran a heavier oil mix than was specified working on the "if a little is good then more must be better principe" well it is not .
And the damage from carbon build up is every bit as destructive as running too lean

 

[Loony661]

The bulk of the deceased saws that come into my shop are dead because the customer ran a heavier oil mix than was specified working on the "if a little is good then more must be better principe" well it is not .
And the damage from carbon build up is every bit as destructive as running too lean

Although I can agree with this statement somewhat, I don’t believe that all oils are created equally. Some burn cleaner than others. And good, high quality oils, will not leave carbon deposits behind, even when mixed “heavy”. This has been proven time and again on this site with tear-down pictures of saws running 40:1 and 32:1, etc. I myself run 40:1 in my modern Stihl saws.. Upon tear-down, my piston tops and combustion chambers are clean. I run my saws hard - I’m a logger.

 

[Powerstroke Cowboy]

Although I can agree with this statement somewhat, I don’t believe that all oils are created equally. Some burn cleaner than others. And good, high quality oils, will not leave carbon deposits behind, even when mixed “heavy”. This has been proven time and again on this site with tear-down pictures of saws running 40:1 and 32:1, etc. I myself run 40:1 in my modern Stihl saws.. Upon tear-down, my piston tops and combustion chambers are clean. I run my saws hard - I’m a logger.

Another interesting thing would be to find what the oils flash point is. Weather high or low. I can't help but think flash point plays a part with how well they oil the internals without producing carbon.