Dear Savagers:  I took it upon myself to do two things on my 2006, which has about 1100 miles: 1) check the head bolt tightness, mainly because it says to do it in the manual at 600 miles and 2) measure/adjust the valves.  

The Suzuki manual says "remove the cylinder head side covers and cylinder head cover."  It makes it sound easy but getting the head cover off is a serious job.  I used Greg_650's bolt on the top of a box method to keep track of all the bolts --it worked brililantly (see http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?board=tech;action=display;num=1099227...).  Then I was puzzled that one of the head bolts seemed to be missing, but it was just underneath a plug.  After removing the plug I checked the tightness of all four bolts with my torque wrench.  The were all fine so I did all that for nothing!  I must admit it was a good learning experience to finally see what the engine insides look like.

Putting the head cover back on is also a bit tricky, as it has to be resealed and certain bolts must go in before the cover is attached.  The plug also has to be resealed.  I reset the automatic de-compression cable, which isn't hard but takes time.  In retightening I was very scared that a bolt was going to snap-- they just don't feel very strong so I used less rather than more torque.  When some just felt like they were going break soon I left them wrench tight rather than use the torque wrench.  Does anybody have any ideas where to get stronger bolts?  I think it would be worth changing them all out.  

I used Vroom1776's posting on adjusting valves (http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?board=tech;action=display;num=1151938...) and it was very good.  I had never done anything like this before and had to sit back and imagine what was going on with valves going up and down before I could begin.  Finding the exact space to measure at first was hard, but the red arrow on the photo saved me.  After re-doing the head cover they were tight so I adjusted all four of them to .004 inches.  I ran to Lowes and got some new bolts to replace the very weak valve cover bolts that came with the bike and put those on.  They felt a lot stronger, real steel.  Replaced the tank, rehooked the cables, and fuel lines, put on the seat.

To my amazement the bike started up and sounded great.  I rode it around the block two times, very gently, and couldn't tell much difference from what is sounded like before, although I did notice it was a bit smoother sounding.  I will wait until the sealent cures before testing the engine at higher rpms.  

Cool, good info. I'll be doing mine in about 150 miles, which means 2-6 weeks depending on weather & weekend obligations.

Thanks for your support.  Now looking back I would NOT have checked the head bolts for tightness.  Taking off the engine cover is a serious chore and I doubt that any mechanic at a shop would do that as normal servicing.  That said, I did learn a lot about the engine that way.

Aren't the Savage bolts made of zinc?  I  don't know.  I changed out the ones of the valve covers straght away for some steel ones I got at Lowes and also ordered as set of steel hex nut engine bolts off Ebay from a place called _____ choppers (I forget the name).  I haven't tried them yet but I am pretty sure they are not all there, at least not the very long ones.  Has anyone else tried this?