Hey guys. I've been having idling woes for a few weeks now. I thought I might be able to figure it out myself and took the carb apart, cleaned it, did the white spacer mod, and replaced the 52.5 pilot with a 55 w/bleed holes.

That didn't fix my idling problem.

The first time I fire up the bike I have to pull the choke out one notch, turn the idle screw in a few turns and she'll fire up. After idling for maybe 10 seconds the idle will slowly drop down. I have to give it throttle to keep from cutting out, even though the idle screw is turned way further in than it should be. Turning it in even more does not yield immediately raise the idle.

For the first few miles I have to keep the choke out a click anytime I need to slow down and stop or it will die out.  Once it is warmed up I can put the choke back in and come to a stop without it dying right out.

The idle will still drop down a few hundred rpm though. After sitting at a light for maybe 6 seconds the idle will slowly rise up to where it's supposed to be.

But because of the idle dropping down a few hundred rpm I have to keep the idle higher than normal so that when it drops down it doesn't get too far down below 1,000rpm. When the idle goes back up then it is around 1,300-1,400rpm and is too fast.

This will continue to happen even after 20miles of riding in 85degree weather, when the bike is more than fully warmed up. But it's not as drastic of a change in rpms. I can turn the idle screw back out a couple of turns and go back to maybe 1200 rpm and it'll drop down to around 1,000

I had a similar but much more drastic drop in idle when I would stop with the stock petcock. I replaced that with the Raptor and everything worked fine for a good 9 months.  Now the dying idle is back but not as severe as with the bad stock petcock, and in a different manner.

I sprayed everywhere around the carb and intake boots with carb cleaner to check for vacuum leaks and found none, even on the nipple that was covering up the old vacuum line.

I took the carb apart, cleaned it, did the white spacer mod (I had a flat spot when accelerating from 1st to 2nd) and changed the 52.5 Pilot to a 55 w/ bleed holes) I left the stock 145main in there. I saw the old nipple covering up the former vacuum line was cracked, so I replaced it with a new nipple.

I played around with the pilot air screw a bit and nothing changed. It acts the same at 1 turn out as it does 3 turns out. The idle doesn't even rise or fall while adjusting it when the bike is running.

The white spacer fixed my flat spot and the bike feels a lot better under hard throttle.

But my idle is still screwy

What gives?
Also, my Sammy has always got around only 42mpg, shouldn't I be doing better?

2001, 14,100 miles. Stock exhaust & intake. Sea level.

Just to clarify Sammy has been getting 42mpg and was idling like crap in stock form for weeks before I touched the carb. I've only gone through 1 tankful since I put the carb back together and got 40mpg, gotta go through so more tankfuls.

Well I went to 3 turns out on the 52.5 before opening up the carb and that had no effect. Turning the pilot air screw would not raise or drop the idle rpm.

I read the threads on the TEV.
I opened that up while I had the carb apart and it was pretty clean in there. I cleaned that out with carb cleaner, checked out the rubber and cleaned that with a little soap and water.

Cleaning the carb and changing the jet left me in almost exactly the same shape I was in before chaning it, no better, no worse.

Spacer: 1 Ace Hardware Nylon washer part # 58047-A
(their part look-up on their website sucks, type in 58047-A and get nothing, type in 58047 and get a box of gutter spikes)

I am not an experienced carb tech, just a monkey with a wrench or two.

I don't have an air compressor so all I could use was a can of carb cleaner and a can of compressed air meant for cleaning computers, likely not 80-90psi.

I also don't have a carb cleaning tool or a torch tip cleaner, so I took Justin's advice and used some guitar string in the jet passage ways. But I'll have to admit that I did not run the string through Every passage/hole.

I suppose I'll have to hit up a plumbing supply store to get an adequate torch tip cleaning tool, and go at the carb again.

My local Harbor Freight didn't have a torch tip cleaning tool, neither did Ace.

I have a generic bottle of Super Tech cleaner with the nozzle and straw. Thankfully I too wear glasses because I did get a blowback blast to the face and could feel it sting, had to wash my face right quick.
I used Berryman's B12 Chemtool when I soaked the metal bits of the carb.

I did have my hands on the slide while putting it back together.

Well,, if youve got that kind of experience,, Ive never encountered any severe, stubborn type clogs, Or, maybe I did,, & never even found them, But if you say Big Air is what a guy needs, okay,,