Background: I ride my savage every day to work and because it saves me $7 a day vs. driving the car I’ve been afraid of doing rebuild or modification work on the bike for fear of being down more than a day…

But since my bike went down with a broken gear shift rod and neither of the local Suzuki dealers had a spare in stock I had a order a rod to be shipped to me, thus, I’ve got mandated down time … so I might as well do some mods and maintenance that have been building up  while I can afford to “risk down time.”

First project, put on the cone filter I bought a couple of months ago, but didn’t want to put it on without rejetting the carb at the same time...

Parts I used:
Cone filter with clamp (bought on e-bay, like this one)
155 main jet (switched to 152.5 after a couple of months use to regain some lost MPG)
.055 pilot jet w/ vent holes (Both jets bought on e-bay, like these)

What the savage looks like before:


Step 1:
Take off seat and unbolt gas tank.  (My tank doesn’t like to come off, it’s the kind that has the petcock jam under the frame bar when you try to lift it, so it takes some twisting and jimmying to get it to come up… very frustrating if you weren’t expecting it)

Step 2:
Disconnect throttle cable: done by twisting throttle linkage by hand and removing cable end from the hole, pull out cable body from the top after removing clip (very stiff, had to be banged gently by putting a screwdriver head in the slot and tapping the screwdriver with a hammer to get it to pop out).

Step 3:
Drain tank by pulling the gas feed tube first and very quickly put it where you want the gas to go.  Gas can be held in the tube with the tip of your finger though.



Have a spare tank to pour the gas into, and then just wait for the bike tank to drain, takes a while, you won’t want to have to hold the spare gas tank the whole time… Prop it up and leave it alone…



Step 4:
Disconnect all the other tubes, one black on left side and one black on right side.  Air vent tube from the petcock refuses to come loose on the right side of mine though… so I proceeded to step 5 anyway.

Step 5:
Loosen (remove) clamps on air vent tube behind the carb (2 clamps) and then loosen the clamp from the front of the carb holding it to the engine (1 clamp)

Step 6:
Pull air tube out (very tight squeeze, have to squash the rubber tube to get it out, but you need to get the extra room to pull the carb out.

Step 7:
Twist and pull with both hands, and a very firm grip, the body of the carb and pull it out from the engine. (in my case it was still connected to the breather hose that still refused to let go).  There will still be gas in the carb and bowl, expect about half a cup or so to spill out, so be prepared to catch it with something or you'll have a mess on your hands and your garage floor...



Some cleaning solution and screwdriver between the rubber and the carb did the work though and it came off without having the cut the tube end off.

Step 8:
Clean off all parts of the carb that you can touch with carb cleaner and paper towels.  Then turn the carb upside down.



Step 9:
Remove the four screws that hold the bowl in place and place the bowl in a safe place to the side.



Step 10:
Remove these two jets and replace them with your new jets (screw them in firmly tight but don’t mash them in, brass will bend):



Then replace the bowl, be sure to gently screw the four screws in before tightening any of them, get them all in and then tighten them so that the seal will be good against the gasket (replace that too if you want, I didn’t, it was still in good shape)

Step 11:
Put the cone filter into the hole for the air filter BEFORE replacing the carb onto the engine.  You don’t have much room when the carb is on the engine to put the cone in the space behind it.  It is much easier to put the cone into it’s area and then squeeze the carb back onto the engine.

Step 12:
Replace all the tubes and reconnect the throttle cable in the reverse order that you took them off, refill the tank with gas and start her up!





p.s., you might need to readjust the idle screw for your new configuration.  Additionally, I noticed that I didn’t need to use the choke at all to start it up from a dead cold.

LANCER wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:07:


It didn't need much choke before plus it was a really hot air temp here today when I was done doing the job, 96+.  

Without being able to drive it yet (still no gear shift rod yet), any idea how I should check to see if its too rich?  

I'm open to suggestions, thanks.

I tried to put the cone filter on my bike last night, but I ran into a problem getting the carb to stay on the motor.  It doesn't seem to go in far enough and the clamp won't hold it on.  The air filter hose seemed to hold it in place snugly before, but now it just wants to pretty much fall off.  This is the 3rd time I've pulled the carb and it's always been a nightmare to get it in and out.  

Mine's a 95, is this normal?  I'm I not lining something up between the carb and motor?  I can't use the cone because the carb won't stay on.

[Edit: want to add it's a california model.  Also, the carb is backed all the way against the battery box, as it pushing against it.]

I'm in the middle of doing this mod now.

got my cone filter off ebay for $10 shipped. it is some oddball chinese thing. 60mm diameter (even though stock carb is 57) (it is about 75mm long, 74mm at its widest, and 51mm at the small end), "Moxi racing project" cone filter.

I have two questions about this mod:
1) what did you do with the electronics that were mounted on the left side of the air box?

2) what am i supposed to do with the air hose that comes out of the top of the engine. it used to flow into the airbox, now it just kind of... hangs around.

What size diameter cone filter would you get if doing this mod, 60mm? Is it necessary to have a crankcase breather filter with this?

Edit: roughly 57mm

Here's an issue with pod filters you need to be aware of...
If the filter obstructs the passageways of the intake, your bike ain't gonna run right.



http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1347609265

If you click on the members Icon on the left side of the posts....you can see when the member was last on the forum, and when they last made a post.

Balderdash has not been on this site since 2009.....you are not likely to get any response to your inquiry to him.

If you look closely at the photos that Balderdash posted, you can see the black plastic air box is still in place.

I should add, I think the OP made a nice contribution to the forum and I'm not trying to pick on him.  Just pointing out the errors or our ways.

I'll also add that the OP may have felt the need to change the jetting based on recommendations on this forum and what mods others have done.  This is perfectly understandable and almost reasonable.

I think we should offer up our opinions and experiences.  Ultimately it's up to the individual to decide what mods they want and when they want to do them.

And while I would have guessed the OPs jetting would be too rich based on my experience with my bike, under my riding conditions, based on how I wand my bike to run, it could have easily turned out that the chosen filter required the chosen jetting.  

My point is I think it's better to test one change at a time and make adjustments based on the changes that change may or may not have made.