The simplest mods I know of are this. This is my work on a Homelite 23AV (cheap enough to throw away). Take muffler off. Take out or drill holes in internal bafffle. This is sheet metal inside muffler that air has to travel around or through to escape. Then open exhaust port, the area that air finally exits muffler. This reduces the back pressure on engine to move it's burnt fuel/air from engine to muffler to outside. Less pressure means less resistance to air/fuel coming into engine. This is the small part. It is your job to now adjust the carb. mixture (throttle/low/high) to make the saw run at full power. If you don't get it right, then all gains could be lost and you might burn up saw from too lean a mixture. My Homelite 23Av (38cc 2.3ci) gained about 300RPM on throttle and 5 or 600 RPM on top speed. These were measured with a tachometer with bar and chain instaled. This saw now cuts in my opinion like a good saw. I am guessing that this saw will not hold up that long do to quality grade of saw. I'm not saying that Homelites are bad, just that some other brands are built to better/tougher standards or higher grade alloy metals. If you want to mod a saw, start with something that will not hurt you in the pocket book too much. If I muffler mod a saw that's great. If I want to port a saw NO WAY. Realize your expertise and stay there until you work up to it. Do a search for "359 muffler" or "359 mods" or "muffler mods". That should give you some more insight. There is intensive discussion about mods if you look around. My origional question was is a "muffler moded 359" o.k. with .325 chain and is there any gains over .375 chain, although I worded this probably wrong. Do some looking around, maybe we can compare notes. Konrad695
Please understand these are coments from a novice that doesn't know any better. My landscaper friend once told me "HEY Konrad, the enginers spent more than a six-pack designing that snow blower". Which means- Just because I can grow tomatoes doesn't mean I can redesign the Space Shuttle. Even though "I think I can".
