You sound like a very useful person to have on this forum, welcome.

Hello,
Names Brian. Just got my 97 savage 2 weeks ago and its my first bike. Took the MSF course other the weekend and now im on the road. Got it right before it starts getting hot (tucson,AZ).

Ill see if i can take some pics this week. Pretty much stock minus swingarm license plate and the previous owner painted the bike with rustolium bedliner. I plan on doing a dyna swap for the exhaust, new bars (recommendations appreciated) and something for the rear fender.


-added pic-

Aloha from O'ahu!  I've been lurking on the site here for a while learning as much as I can about S40s.  I don't see too many of them on the island and those that I do see are in pretty poor condition.  I finally found an '06 today with only 700 miles on it!  It's in good condition with only a little oxidation on the aluminum parts.  Thanks to this site I knew what to look for and what to look out for.

New S40 owner. Just got my bike a little over a week ago. Love it so far. Great bike. This site was very useful when I was researching the Suzuki S40. My bike had an aftermarket exhaust already installed when I bought it. Not sure what kind it is. Looks like a Jardine maybe? Whatever it is, it's LOUD.

So far I have changed the custom grips that where on it out for some Kung Fu Biltwell grips. Very old school looking. Replaced the high rectangle mirrors with some old oval mirrors I had that sit lower. Added saddlebags. Had to make some brackets, but was easy thanks to some searching for DIY methods here. I took the hard foam out of the sissy bar pad and stuffed it with batting and restapled. Easy fix and my wife is very grateful. I just flipped my risers around yesterday to give me a little more stretch in the arms but not sure how permanent that is yet. In order to do so had to remove the windshield that came with it. I also drilled out the idle mix plug and turned the screw out half a turn. Noticed an increase in take off power, but it is still afterfiring and has a little bit of flat spot in throttle response so will be doing the spacer mod sometime soon.

Thanks to everyone on this site for all the great info so far. Glad to join the club!

Hello all -
I'm Kevin, from the cool, damp Pacific Northwest. Been riding all kinds of bikes on and off for about 40 years now. A few years back I went through some tough times and went from riding a '92 Fatboy to an '82 Kawi KZ250 that I found on CraigsList for $50. Best $50 I ever spent, it's a fun little ride for around town, but not much of a highway cruiser. Since things are looking up for me again, I thought I'd step up a bit and buy something that will get me out of town without getting run over on the 60+ MPH roads.

I've been eyeing the Savages for a few years now, and they have one of my favorite features in a bike: mechanical simplicity. I finally found one within my means last week and made a beeline to a town about 50 miles away to snap it up. It's a 1995 model with 14K on the odomeeter, in good shape and mostly stock except for a batwing style fairing. It looks like the vacuum petcock has been replaced too, and I'll have to see if I can figure out if the cam chain tensioner has been upgraded.

Did about a 100 mile ride over the weekend to a car and bike show with my teenage daughter on the back and I am very happy with the performance. I'm not a small guy - 6'1" and 180 lbs, and with my passenger we're over 300, but the Savage hauled us around just fine. It's funny how it doesn't really look like a small bike from a short distance, but when I sit on it it feels about the same as my 250. I might do some mods to the seat and forward controls to give me some more legroom, but I love how light it feels. At my age, I don't want to be trying to pick up some 800 pound beast if I dump it in a low speed turn (which I'm much less likely to do with this bike to begin with.)

Anyway, that's my long-winded introduction, I'll post some pics when I get a chance and start asking stupid questions as soon as I can come up with some

Hi guys. I'm another new member, but been reading around here for about 6 months. Thanks very much for all the techy advice that's been posted up. I've learned a lot about my scooter from you guys. I'm really loving the bobber, cafe and scrambles styles crew are building.
I never really had an interest in cruisers and had only ridden a couple, just for fun, swapping around with friends on rides. But weirdly, one day I suddenly became convinced I needed to build a bobber. Why, I have no idea. I originally wanted a Yammy SR500 but they're rare in Australia and expensive, too. Googling around, I came across the Savage and saw what a cool bike they can become. So I started looking. And looking. This one's another rarity but finally found one after a year and a bit of looking. Got an 86 with 32000k on Ebay for $3500. It's far too much, I know, considering the stuff you guys in the states have available. Bikes are still pretty $$$ over here and as soon as they get old they get hit with the "collectible" stick. So it goes.... After a 1000km road trip to collect it on trailer it was mine. I gave it a big service (it hadn't been used for years. BTW I know the oil subject is a touchy one but I'm using plain old dinosaur car engine oil. The rotella you guys like isn't available here. I have an old Ducati Pantah I've done nearly 100000k's on, and a DR250 with 60,000 both run on car oil de jour and changed every 2500km. Both are like new on the inside.) and popped around town on it for a couple months, just getting the feel of it, finding out what needed doing. Imagine my surprise. Nothing needs fixing. Nothing's broken. It ALL WORKS! . So I got into it. It's got flat drag bars, 4" pullback and HomeMade risers, chopped aftermarket triumph back mudguard with a (repro) Vincent/Velocette STOP light and chopped BSA front (still to be fitted). Of course the pipe has lagging on it, and an embarrassingly loud slashcut shorty. Gotta do something about that. It was a cheery looking candy apple red so I changed that to a more gloomy looking baby blue, which looks really cool. I pulled the clutch cover off a while back to check the tensioner (which I only knew of thanks to you guys) it had about 1/4" to go. So I copied the Verslagy mod (thanks ). I guess I'll get around to the fuel tap at some point as well. Meanwhile it's a really fun thing to cruise around on and is very unique. Nobody knows what it is, and no one else has one. It's great.
Thanks for reading and thanks for all the good advice and inspirations so far. Happy days.
simon

Made a couple of posts before introducing myself, sorry about that.

Name is Kim and I am a Him.  Mom was reading Rudyard Kipling in the Maternity Ward (no lie). Anyway, it's better than "Sue".

I'm 61 and started riding just about 3 years ago.  Managed to get tossed off on my first week riding to work, newbie mistake of fixating on the curb instead of where I wanted to go.  This was on my buddies SV650.  Bought a couple of my own after that, BMW F650, to tall for me, and a Honda Shadow Aero.  Wasn't physically back up to it yet, sold the bikes and took a break.

This past year, started taking lessons again and shopping. Kept coming back to the S40.  Wanted something larger than a Rebel, but not too big to start, this is perfect. Dealer had a good price on th 2013 with a great interest rate.

Currently taking private lessons, which I highly recommend. I can see a large improvement in my street skills.

Seems like lots of great folks here and great info.

Happy to be here and I'll quit blabbering now.