2, a compression ring and an oil ring.

Also, oil could be dripping down the valve stems.

Your weight will only factor in WOT acceleration, so no need to mention it unless you're trying to impress someone.  

What jets are you running?

When I forget to take the choke off, my oil comsumption goes up for awhile.

Do any aftermarket piston people offer a 3 ring piston for our bikes?   Wiseco?   There are only a couple of aftermarket Suzuki pistons out there.  Maybe one of them is a three ringer.

===============


I will offer you a different thought on your oil consumption -- ponder it and then toss it because it is just one of those alternate possibility thoughts.

When we ride at high RPM top speeds we are churning the oil to the max with the crank and gears and cam chain and all.   Our oil pump is at max pressure and highest flow rate and a lot of oil being tossed up and puddled in the cam pool up in the head where it is getting all frothed and blenderized by the spinning cam lobes and rocker shafts.  

Oil gear frothing is at the max level down in the gear box too, so the increased interstate speed level blow by coming from the big 2 ring piston has the maximum chance to carry some frothed oil out with it when it exits the engine up at the head dump tube that runs to the air box.  

Suzuki recognizes this blow by driven frothed oil movement goes on -- they put a durn reservoir on the bottom side of your air box to catch it and hold it and then gave you a dump tube to open to let the mess out every time you change the oil.  

This is a design based factory recognized phenomenon with a factory provided catch reservoir to back it up.

My bike doesn't use any oil really unless I hit the open road and run at speed for a while.   I can run though 1/8 quart in a hard high speed riding day so I always carry oil with me for road trips.

Big singles use oil -- all of them do to some degree.  A Savage uses relatively more oil than most with its single compression ring, oil loss through 4 valve stems, blow by out the compression dump tube, misc. known leakage points (rubber plug, clutch lever, speedo connect etc).  All of these things get worse with higher road speeds as internal blow by pressurization levels go up inside the engine case.

Good news is the Savage doesn't sit on its side stand just weeping oil through every vertical case seal and side cover, etc like an old Harley used to do.  At least our bikes are well sealed from gravity driven leaks.

I followed Ed after we got his alternator case crack epoxied back shut.  Ed had put a bit too much oil back into the bike (he ran an oil cooler with no check valves and he couldn't use the sight glass as his oil level indicator with complete accuracy).  I watched oil coming out of his overflowing air box  dripping down hitting his exhaust system making a smoky mess so I know first hand that blow by driven frothed oil can exit your top bypass dump tube when you run at interstate speeds.


======================


All you guys do realize that oil expands 3-5% when it gets hot, right?

You always check your oil at the same temperature (cold would be better) but you never fall in the trap of thinking you lost or gained oil simply because it changed its temperature?

Right?  


If you check cold and think you need some, add it and check it hot next time you may think you have too much oil in there.

And finding the same "level spot" to do the checking on counts for a lot too.

Well if you're going to ask a loaded question of someone too tired to check his facts at dam near midnight when he got up at 6 and wrenched, pounded, sawed, riveted his brothers car all day... then flog away.  

Naw, Verslagen has an old one and a new one and if there were any ring count differences between them he wouldn't have been a' flogging his donkey like that.  

Actually, I don't think ring wear has ever really been much of an issue with Savage, we have seized up and scrubbed up some aluminum pistons before on the list with no real damage even done to the cylinder bores.

I think we blow by some oil, we blow out some oil through the dump tube system and we weep some oil past worn valve seals.   I think if you use enough oil to top it off fairly frequently it winds up keeping the additive packages in your oil "fresher" and so far nobody has discovered any real downsides from mild oil usage.

PLEASE, do remember to blow out or Gunk degrease and hose out your spark plug hole really really good before pulling the plug out -- sand is not your friend and it lives down inside that greasy dirty hole just waiting to jump on top of your piston.

I'm getting very confused with my savage's oil consumption. At first I started with removing all engine external leakeges. Didn't help at all, even though there were some significant leaks. The compression is very good, about 12bars. Engine performance is excellent, no problems with starting, torque and power seems brilliant to me. Completely no visible smokes coming out of exhaust.

I filled it with oil to max level. Went on a 250 miles trip. Now oil is barely at min level, I have to tilt the motorcycle a bit to the right from upward position to see oil in the window. As I assume the difference between min and max is 1 litre, this would give 4l oil consumption per 1000 miles. This is INSANE ?! For such oil consumption it should smoke blue as hell...

I don't think the speed of the trip will make it any worse then if you went slow.
My commute is typically a half hour at 60 to 70 with some extra giggles thrown in here and there.

Worn out rings, I'll consume a qt every 1000, new engine, no consumption.
But it will vary between summer and winter.  With winter I was getting much less consumption.

If it's heat related, it certainly will be more evident during summer.  Head temps morning or afternoon in the winter are about 280°F  Highest I've seen is 320 though.

If you look into your sparkplug hole with a borescope you'll find that the top of the piston is covered in carbon... there'll your oil.

And I guess it doesn't smoke because it's burning with the combustion cycle rather than as if you had leaking valve seals.

My bike was 2 when it set its personal worst oil consumption record. 2 quarts in less than 5 hours. Rode from Memphis TN to Sturgis MS, a total of 203 to 205 miles.

I have not, and will not, run 10W40 full synthetic since then. Won't run dino 10W40. Big piston, sustained speeds, and high ambient temps use oil.