Hi all,

I've just purchaed a 97 650 Savage this past fall.

The bike starts great, then after it warms up, it dies, like it's flooding out. You can keep it running if you keep on the throttle.
I've taken the carb off and cleaned it up (thanks for the great post by SavageWahine), still does it.

One thing I checked today is, in 25 degree weather, it will start up instantly, without pulling out the choke and idle nice, until it warms up. This dosn't seem normal to me. This sounds like a carb issue to me...but, I'm not sure where to go from here. I was hoping the carb clean-up would fix it.

Any ideas??

Thanks for any advice.

Dumb question but is the idle set high enough for colder weather?

mdurham wrote on 01/20/08 at 17:12:24:

Why does all this sound completely backwards?  Doesn't make much sense, because if you start it with the choke and leave the choke on too long, it will stall out as if it is flooding...

Are you sure that you are using the choke correctly?

Trippah wrote on 01/20/08 at 17:37:36:


Possibly, but I know that the main jet is a 145 which is what the service manual shows. I'm not sure a bout the other ones.

Demin wrote on 01/20/08 at 17:37:36:


That was my next step, maybe try and set the idle really hi so it'll stay running. It was doing this in October too when the weather was pretty nice. I pulled the plug when I had the carb off, it looked like it had been running rich, bu not that bad...but I don't really have any miles on it to to get a good indication.

You have choke correct, in "off",  pull out to choke.

So.....  couple of questions.

1) Is the cap/plug over the low speed/idle mixture screw on or off?  The idea of this question is whether the low speed mixture has been set too rich or not.  Remember, with most bikes, the low speed , mid  and high speed mixtures are controlled by different things.  Giving it  throttle moves it to mid range....

2) When it dies out, can you smell a gas smell from the exhaust pipe?  I mean an un-burnt gas smell.....

3) If you can, is the spark plug wet when it dies out?  Sorry, I know it's a pain to get to the plug..... a lot of people feel the spark plug is your eyes into the engine.

4) Do you give it a little throttle to start the bike?   Idea here is that idle may be too low, and a habit of many people is to tweat the throttle a little when starting.  This would over-ride a low idle condition.  Also, a little note here, with an en-richening type choke, you have to keep your hands off the throttle when choked (I'm bad at this one....    ).

5) Does it do it with the fuel petc.ock set to Prime?  


T-Mack

T Mack 1 - FSO wrote on 01/22/08 at 12:53:50:


Great questions T-Mack,

My answer, unfortunatally to most of the is...I don't know.

1. The speed/idle mixture, capped...I'll have to do some reading on this. Is theis inside of the carb? You might have something here.

2. Can't really smell any gas when it dies.

3. Haven't pulled the plug just after it dies, but I did later and it was sort of dark, but it didn't have any time/miles on it to I feel got a good reading.
Boy, those Suzuki enginners where really thinking when they put the plug where they did, stupidist thing I'v ever seen...it should be easy to pull a plug and check it

4. Petcock was on prime this weekend when I put the Carb back on, it didn't actually die, but I had to keep the throttle up to keep it running.

So, when it's cold...the choke should be pulled out...right??

Thanks!

T-Mack,

The speed/idle screw is not capped and has an adjustable screw. Just found it. Do you know off hand which way leans out the idle adjustment??

Hopefully getting closer to solving the problem.

Thanks!