Stihl® 500i - 7 Month Overview, Stock vs. Psy-Ko Saw-Off

top in the middle of the day t ladies and gentlemen boys and girls we have us a nice little treat here um basically a brand new 500i and then we have one over on the right here with the uh run time with the saw testing over the months that i've had that thing the amount of time that it had on it when it got here we're talking probably about three weeks of use essentially that'd be falling timber on a daily basis so quite a number of hours at this point so it's well broken in i guess at this stage of the game is what i'm trying to say with that and this saw has a cycle level zip kit on it about as far as i can go with one of those this saw is completely bone stock it's not really broken in necessarily but i wouldn't say that the tolerance in these new saws is anything to write home about they're actually pretty sloppy right out of the gate a lot of the new steel chainsaws especially the stratification engines so i guess if we want to talk about a kind of a little bit of a brief overview before we start sawing um they are really lightweight and they do have pretty good power straight out of the gate um for a stock saw i guess if you want to go down that road i know that a guy used to fall timber with on a regular basis called me about the 500i wondering if there's a way to get some more power out of them because he's run modified saws for years and years and he's not overwhelmed with the power that they have in stock form which i'm a little jaded probably as well i don't think that i think that in stock form they're one of the best running saws that were ever made i guess if you want to talk about it from that perspective but once you've had an opportunity to deal with saws that have a lot of power then you're kind of a little bit disappointed sometimes with the stock offerings if we want to take a trip down memory lane in the late 70s the 2100 hit the market and that saw ran better in stock form than the 56s did um it's just the way it worked they're up on displacement a little bit about the same weight kind of sorta i think they weighed a little bit more as well had a different definitely a better feel the way they were designed they weren't clunky box-shaped um a lot more maneuverable and they had more power when the 181s came out they were kind of a force for what they were 80cc saw but the thin ring versions they ran really good right out of the gate um this is another one of those saws i guess if you want to talk about that i know that the 64s were kind of an interesting concept when they hit the market that was in about 84 from what i remember a lot of guys didn't really like them the 56 crowd i guess the staunch 56 um sympathizers if you will they weren't overwhelmed with the 64 but in the right application they actually did a little bit better if you had to do full man or whatever they were a little bit better as far as maneuverability they were designed much better for that application so there's been some saws that come out over the years here and there that kind of set the world on its nose a little bit this is one of those saws um there's a lot of hype about world's first fuel injected saw that is not accurate it's the world's first electronically fuel injected saw yes you can say that first fuel injected saw no you cannot say that i think there's a lot of misinformation along those lines that's being spread out there personally um john cerred had a couple different versions back in the 50s they were diesel i'm not that versed on those saws my buddy dave belongs to this uh he's basically he's chimed in on the unveiling or the unboxing of this 500i from back in march uh seven months ago essentially uh he sent me this saw i've had it for a long time able to do a lot of saw testing some sabbaticals out into the wilds if you will and so i've had an opportunity to use that in a few different places and definitely have some ideas about it but if you want to talk about maneuverability there's one thing i don't like about these saws [Music] one concept if you want to talk about spring mounts for example they're a lot better if you have carpal tunnel or prone to get arthritis some guys are like that some guys are not white finger crowds gonna like these over um conceptually anything that's hard mounted but what i don't like because i do a lot of this when i'm lemon and so this saw you can feel it hitting the stops and this is a lightweight 32 we have some full comp windsor chain on it so pretty light ensemble and yet you can feel it hitting the stops so this thing flops around i'm thinking that you can see it one of the things you got to make note of in this process is something that i did on this particular saw as i was trying to figure out a way to make this actuation of the nut onto the i don't know what this molded piece is called but it's the little molded piece in here i don't know the tang the plastic tang that's molded into the filter base upon trying to figure out what to do i actually added a second little fiber washer in here that seemed to tighten up the actuation of the nut and makes it a lot more solid i was trying to think about i actually had one over the top of it helps even better but it's a real pain to be working on the air filter trying to get it clean so if we want to talk about support for my flexi flyer situation with the springs we can see where the cylinder covers gouge this little plastic well it's probably a rubber piece in the air cleaner cover which is trying to keep the rain from getting down on the element itself as far as i can tell but you can see it has like gouges in there and that saw was only run with the i think the longest he had on it was maybe a 28 i'm not exactly positive he's gonna have to chime in and let us know but there's enough flex in the spring mount system because those springs are actuated or oriented like this basically they're the one even the one in the front is running this way whereas husqvarna goes this way so longitudinally the 500i with the orientation of the springs it's good longitudinally essentially laterally it's not it's not very strong and we watch when you're flicking it from one side to the other you can't necessarily see what's happening maybe not as good as it should be or could be shown but i'm thinking that you can see maybe even you can hear it if you know what you're listening for where it actually hits hard enough that it makes a noise as you deal with your maneuvering so we can watch it right there so it's one thing that i don't appreciate about that particular saw there aren't too many others in all actuality i mean if you think about it in concept it's super lightweight it's not much bigger than like a 272 husqvarna physically in size i've had them sitting right on the floor next to one another which i thought was pretty interesting so physically it's not that big um i waited on my uh hand-me-down bathroom scales technically and it doesn't weigh in the 13 pound well the west coast version doesn't weigh in the 13 pound range it's in the 14 pound range so essentially it doesn't matter when it's light weight you don't have anything in the gas or oil tanks to me on a personal level because you're not using a saw with no fuel and no oil you're gonna gas the thing up and go to work so with that being said consistently um this saws come in at 16.8 pounds um it's about a half of a pound lighter than my torque monster 461. so pretty substantial weight differential thursday afternoon it becomes pretty noticeable and actually in some applications that would be ground brush load ground contour steepness maybe even wednesday half a pounds kind of a big deal um in stock form they run better than a 461 and they run way better than a 462 as well with the low end concept they have a little bit more of a low end kind of power in stock form than the 462 and they have more than the 461 there's a little bit of a differential between those two as well if you want to talk about fuel mileage one thing i noticed they don't do very good on fuel necessarily especially in zip form one of the problems is there's a uh the ai if you will the controller is about it's not a brick but conceptually it's shaped kind of like a brick and it's about three inches tall and it's about an inch wide to about an inch and a half wide and it's about two inches or two and a half inches wide and it occupies a huge amount of volume possibility in the gas tank right in this area here now i'm hoping you can see through the holes in the bottom but that screw goes into the bottom of the computer module and it's a pretty good footprint on the bottom now one thing i noticed when i got that saw with only about two weeks of runtime in a falling application like i mentioned the amount of wood chip and debris i was overwhelmed at how much was actually in there i guess that's what i'm trying to say technically i was flat in awe i blew on it and blew on it and blew on it if you want to take a look at the top of it you can see where the lead comes out right here it's clear back here and it's clear up here so it's about an inch and a half or so wide up here about an inch wide over here we kind of already did the bench talk portion so we'll get into that a little bit more heavily later i guess at some point so i guess essentially if you're the type of guy that uh no offense intended but kind of a little bit rough on your equipment you might not actually like this particular saw it's not a tough feeling platform i don't think i'd be wanting to knock the undercut out even if they're kind of just hanging in there if you just kind of set it on there and slide it out then well you might not have any issues if you're going to be banging on those undercuts trying to knock them out because they got a little bit of wood left on one side of the other or across the hinge itself i wouldn't recommend this particular saw for that kind of a guy i guess if you're super gentle on your equipment then i would imagine it's going to be a fine platform the one thing i wonder about though if you're in the bottom of a yarder block let's say and they have a basically the pump is mechanically it's looks like a little carburetor conceptually underneath this bulb right here and the primer bulb is something that you have to pump to get a little bit of fuel squirted into through the nozzle into like the intake circuit essentially priming it with raw fuel this is going to wear out at some point and you're not going to get a day's notice it's not going to tell you with the little i don't know friendly reminder via led light up screen yeah this thing's going to be going out tomorrow you better get it in the shop and get it fixed what you're going to get is one time it's working and the next time it's got a perforation in it and you're spraying gas on your finger or your glove in your finger whatever and so depending on how far you are from the road at that point it's going to be a little bit of a situation or at least it has the potential to be a little bit of a situation in contrast not necessarily along the same vein but i've had crap get into the carburetor that's too big to go through an orifice in the jetting circuit and essentially probably like water i mean it mostly happens in the winter and you can basically set it on a stump have the thing wide open and you can back the high speed needle out until whatever it is that's giving you grief will actually pass through the process and then you can actually save the day in the bottom of the hole and technically that's not even an option with one of these saws right here so technology and advancement is great but sometimes you get where it's engineered in harder for the end user to be productive out in the woods if you want to talk about something that's a little bit better design wise to be easier to deal with certain situations out in the bush if you will the old stuff is much better in that regard now we're going to have to run this one against that one and see how this she fares this saw lays waste to a stock 660 45 seconds in a 24 inch cut or something stupid so um she actually makes my torque monster 461 a little nervous too so we're going to cue these two up here pretty soon but right now we're just going to take a look at these two in a minute i'm going to pause get everything warmed up because that's going to take a while and then we'll start the saw testing portion of this okay we're warmed up with option number one the bone stocker one thing that i forgot to mention if you look at this saw the fit and finish is really nice actually um this part right here is a molded part of the air cleaner cover and it actually works out pretty well your hand fits right here very nicely the way it's kind of super smooth and it's actually contoured the shape isn't boxy at all it's nice and smooth so it fits in this area of your palm very nicely so we can see the lines spend a lot of time actually conceptually um thinking about and like designing that part of it i mean it's kind of a cool looking saw i would say for sure um the edt9 kind of like talked about this thing it's a little bit of a fiasco dealing with some of the saws it doesn't do a very good job monitoring these at all um the computer is hypersensitive to monitoring the speed of the crank once you zip one of these you're going to have to have your chain spot on at all times because it won't let the saw rev excessively like when you're limbing in stuff and what happens is it dumps a lot of fuel into the process from what i can tell you can hear the richness of the operation and they suck up the fuel i did notice that part of it so anyway we're pretty warmed up we're gonna take a look at the attack a little bit here for a second oh oh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] oh again i think i've complained about this attack the led readout doesn't stay um queued up if you will for any length of time it's kind of a bummer on the design aspect i'm wishing that it would stay legible for about 15 or 20 seconds maybe even 30 give you some time to check it out but it is what it is there um 1338 is what i saw the highest i think that's the highest i've ever seen um like i said the computer really struggles keeping the zip saws under control if you will and so it's dumping the fuel to the operation as far as i can tell i'm gonna swap out the bar and chain off camera and get the other one warmed up and then we'll roll forward all right we managed this successful wardrobe change now we're going to take a look at that lateral lack of stiffness on this saw since it has a little bit of time on it i've asked around if the different versions have different springs in them i've looked at an ipl i can't seem to find where they're any different but this soft flops around even worse than the other one i think probably because this one has some time on it but it's like i'm thinking you can hear it it's like so when you're flicking it around you every time you're feeling it and it's much worse on this saw hitting the stops so again we'll take a look rings are positioned this way so it does have good longitudinal stiffness it's just not so much side to side i haven't actually put a three foot bar on one of these i wouldn't even bother with the three foot heavy weight personally come on um oh um and before i forget these have a little roll pin that limits the movement in the control bolt for the oiler if you want to run it at max you're going to have to push that roll pin down into the body of the oil pump itself it only takes a little bit i'm pretty gentle with my little punch and i get kind of a smaller hammer to deal with it the movement's only 3 16 of an inch or something not much and you can actually turn the control bolt through the full range of motion so as i'm thinking about this process i come up with little tidbits here and there that i keep remembering about if we want to talk about the process and the feel that one feels better we watched how we can't even get that thing rolling up monitoring with the tack because that thing hits the rev limit threshold so quick it you can hear it it hits that rev limiter in concept it hits that threshold like that and it hits it hard and so it like i said earlier if your chain isn't absolutely perfect when they're zipped you're gonna be hitting that rev limiter like that and you're going to be having a problem because what i think is happening is it's dumping more fuel into the process now it's about 23 inches across right there we were using the same bar and chain i'm gonna go with we're at least two seconds faster both ways if not three with the zip saw versus the stock one um i put a lot of pressure up in the last like half of an inch and you could hear that saw pull down the engine pull down but it kept right on moving through the cut nicely i was actually kind of pleased with that um i guess conceptually if you can pick up two to three seconds on a 20 to 24 inch cut with a saw that's actually saying quite a bit in my humble opinion um and this is a known quantity in stock form the 500i for actually really not being a slouch of a saw and we just saw the zip form pretty much beaded into submission right there it wasn't a half a second faster and kind of unfortunately you can't tell what it feels like with your hand on the pistol grip or the handlebars but you can definitely feel the difference in the way they um pull the chain through the wood it does a much better job in zip form although in stock form it's actually doing pretty well also i'm not necessarily complaining i already mentioned that saw in the top three of all time best running saws out of the box from what i can tell um that's kind of saying something there's a lot of new age trickery to get to that place but it it is what it is um all i can do is say i'm hope i'm gonna hope and pray that my buddy dave is well pleased with what he gets i'm gonna make the recommendation you better pack a half a gallon extra of fuel a couple of liters anyway because you're gonna be going through it buddy you're just going to be going through it all right so kind of just an overview session general concept some of the things that i've noticed about the saw using it out on the coast a couple different places in land um there's a lot of things about that saw that are really sweet there's some things about that saw that i don't particularly care for at all but i'm only one guy in this process i'm just giving you what little bit i know um so there you go um anyway i'm gonna hope and pray that mr dave go to his youtube channel it's out in the wood all run together all lower case out in the wood not woods wood is singular and he's got the little torque monster 357 and we ran that in the spring as well um check the description i i put information in there that i think about that i forget to talk about quite a bit i'm thinking a lot of people aren't actually um perusing that section at all and so i've had this particular saw since super early march uh maybe even late february uh we're seven months into the process right now i guess essentially and so i've had some time to you know come up with some ideas about it but kind of a long rambling discussion talking about this and that what makes this thing tick is coming up in the bench talk videos and we got a lot of soft videos and some falling videos we're gonna be posting that stuff here and there as time progresses so anyway thanks for watching this session we're in the cool of the evening now i'm hopeful that you'll have a blessed day wherever you might be on his green earth thanks for watching

Channel: hotsaws101

Views: 20,078

Rating: 4.8490567 out of 5

Keywords: West coast timber felling falling, Stihl ms500i ms 500i hotsaw

Id: U1DVoNxDj5M

Length: 30min 1sec (1801 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 23 2020