What I would do is see if the bearings and seals have any number(s) on them, and if so, try a good bearing sales outlet. Bearings are often not as special as people think, and designers tend to use off the shelf; readily available parts. You could very well find the bearings and seals at a far cheaper price than you would pay either through John Deere or Echo/Kioritz. Echo does have a website with parts blowups for reference if needed.

Here is the e-mail address for Frank Bowman: [email protected] He can make you rings better than original, and cheaper. Be sure you need rings though, as it takes a good while to break these things in when they are new or you re-ring them.

For gaskets, if you can't save the one between the case halves, make one out of glossy paper of the same thickness. Leave out the cylinder base gasket, and seal that joint with "Yamabond" sealer from the Yamaha motorcycle shop. Works great, and it will raise your compression just a little.

A carb with a 9 or 10 mm venturi should work fine. Make sure it has two adjusting needles. A lot of the newer carbs have either one, or none! Walbro has a good website with numbers and venturi sizes.

I gut the exhaust system, and use two outlet tubes of 7/16" to 1/2" inside diameter. (I usually use K & S brass tubing, and carefully braze them into the muffler.)

7300 rpm's on a 16 x 8 APC cut down to 15 x 8, with ratty bearings, stock muffler, carb, etc. isn't too shabby. My tricked out Echo only does around 8200 on a 16 x 8 APC, though that is at a pretty high density altitude. (4200' and 80-90 degrees)

Hope this helps,
Good luck,
AV8TOR