I am lovin this post.  It's a nugget of gold.

The best carb is the carb YOU like best.  When I was a young man, I spent hours lusting over the hotrods that the cool guys drove.  Back in the day, the coolest cars had certain qualities that were unmistakable.  They all idled about 1500.  They all made this awesome induction sound when the eight barrels opened up.  They were all a handful to drive around town, lurching along, heavy clutches that wore your leg out, flat tappet cams ticking away in a sweet cadence that mesmerized the young wannabes.  Some things you just can't shake.  I can't shake my affection for a hotrod, warts & all.

In addition to my Savage, I have a Burgman.  That thing is sweet.  It always starts on the first tap of the starter button, immediately settles in to a silky smooth idle, fuels perfectly under ALL conditions, has tons of power, is comfy as a Barcalounger, keeps me dry in the rain, has loads of trunk capacity, stops on a dime, carves corners like its on rails.  But, it ain't nearly as much fun as my Savage.

Now that I put the 40mm S&S carburetor on, to me the Savage is even more fun.  It's my hotrod.  Sure its a little choppy here and there, but screw on that throttle and the old engine gets an instant erection.  It's like Viagra for that 40 inch mill.

I've been testing and tuning for the last 1500 miles or so.  Logged countless hours in the saddle sorting out the stock carb on my Stage II ported head.  That head doesn't utilize bigger valves so it only flows about 7% 12% (don't know how I screwed this up) better on the intake (exhaust has the full treatment so its about 43% better than stock).  I can confirm that the stock carburetor, once properly sorted out, worked absolutely flawless on that head.  It ran perfectly and the setup made some really good power.  Then I installed the Super-E.

It's like hoppin out of a new Camaro with all the performance options and climbing into a 55 Chevy with a hopped up 409 and traction bars.  The thing is a handful but oh the smile on my face.  Its significantly faster than the stock carb, and also significantly less sophisticated.  But I love this thing.  It not only makes loads of top end power, but it also has excellent torque.  Roll it on, any gear, and it goes.  It actually likes WOT way better than cruise.

IMO, the stock carb can pretty much handle any flow requirements demanded by the stock cylinder head.  It's a typical metric mixer, pretty much flawless once correctly jetted, and flows more than enough air to support stock head flow regardless of exhaust, cam, compression, etc.

Bump up your head flow and it's time to invest in a carburetor that can keep up with the head.

If you are curious about the flow capabilities of the carbs in question, check out this old post on carb flow tests.

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1552860080

I'm not suggesting that everyone go out and round up an S&S Super-E and slap it on your Savage.  It's waaaaay to much trouble.  But for me, having a thirty year-old piece of nostalgia hangin off my intake port is simply the coolest.  Takes me back to my younger days.

Yep!  The best carb is the carb YOU like best.    

And just like dogs, they will pee on the floor at some point.  

Correct, to each his own.
 
The intent of my reply was to show that a souped up head can use a 40mm carb.  That 1500 miles of test & tune weren’t spent exclusively on the S&S.  Most of that time was spent sorting out the stock carb, then sorting out the exhaust system, then sorting out the stock carb again.  After I was satisfied that things were optimized for the Stage II head, I embarked on the S&S.  Essentially, I spent a lot of time, and learned a whole bunch.  It was fun, and I like the results.  Now I have a good foundation for the next phase of the project, the Stage III head with bigger valves.  That 40mm mixer will be absolutely necessary for the Stage III.
 
I made it a point to state “I'm not suggesting that everyone go out and round up an S&S Super-E and slap it on your Savage.  It's waaaaay to much trouble”.

I also made the point “IMO, the stock carb can pretty much handle any flow requirements demanded by the stock cylinder head.  It's a typical metric mixer, pretty much flawless once correctly jetted, and flows more than enough air to support stock head flow regardless of exhaust, cam, compression, etc.”

If I wanted to get things just right the first time, I’d leave the bike alone.

The reason I resurrected a ~7 year old thread was that I liked the idea of putting a Mikuni VM on my Savage when I start to convert it to a bobber. It runs GREAT with the stock carburetor so I thought I could put that aside the way it is so that I have something to go back to if I encounter any problems with the VM.

I rarely pass 50mph so I thought I might be able to go with a smaller VM than the 36. From what I understand when I read about carburetors for this bike, if I get a too big there wont be enough air flow through it.

This will probably be a winter project for this or perhaps next winter and I will use an O2 sensor to help with tuning of the carburetor.

Aesthetics is definitely a big part of it. Also the Mikunis has been around for ages and are used for so many different engines, you can find information and spare parts everywhere. One of my goals is to tune the AF ratio to almost perfection and without any proof of it I suspect it's easier to find jets for the Mikuni than the stock carburetor.

The difference between CV and VV was new to me and probably something I have to consider. The stock CV carb feels a bit more "Japanese/over engineered" and maybe not as robust as the Mikuni.

I hate to beat this topic to death ....But I love the stock CV carb ! after 24 seasons It has never been a problem.  I have done a few mods to it that have made it much better than it was completely stock- the only purchase being a 150 main jet . my motor from carb to exhaust header is stock ,the only custom piece being an unmolested HD Dyna muffler . I run a tuned intake runner using about 5"of 1 1/2 "PVC pipe inside a gutted stock air box ,with custom Oldfeller filters moved to it's exterior ( they can't be seen , the bike appears stock) . These simple low cost mods have raised hP from 30 to approx.  34 . max rpm from 5800 to 6146 . top speed from 87 to 92mph( a stock bike would reach redline a 97.5mph) , and increased acceleration through the entire speed range , all on E87 pump gas. avg 51.5 mpg at 60-70mph. I couldn't ask for more .  It also means if any of running gear brakes down I can visit a Suzuki dealer anywhere in the world by a stock part, and the bike will run as well or nearly so and get me home,  making reliability as high as possible.
   To each his own.

 

No ,your motor will run normally until you reach very high rpm or WOT. That's where the carb may limit your speed.   Too small a carb hurts higher speeds by not being able to supply fuel fast enough ,too large a carb hurts lower speeds , caused by the air velocity being to low.

Dennisgb , you maybe half right, a smaller carb may well perform better in some bikes not because of it's size but because of the design of the entire head ,the total intake and exhaust passages.  the flow in AND out of the motor needs to be balanced.
    Most bike's today run a balanced cam with intake and exhaust lobes having the same lifts and duration, even the Savage as equal  valve lift, it's .330/.330 stock .  the stock lobe lifts are .254/.244  but the rocker ratios are 1.299 In/  1.352 Ex
   Web cam standard for the Savage (the mildest  performance cam) has lobe lifts of .256/.256   which gives valve lifts of .332(.5) /.346  . The bias is need to offset our rather poor exhaust passage. So unless you want do vast changes to the motor ,putting on a big honking 40mm carb isn't going to allow the bike to run well. If you can't get all the exhaust gases out then there's little room to get a fresh charge in.Cavi is looking to start at the wrong end of the horse.
     The Savage isn't along stroke motor ,it's a square motor 94mm x 94mm . Piston speed at 60mph is 4006rpm /2=2003 combustion strokes/60 sec =33.38 times/sec , or as long as it takes you to say,0ne-one thousand. So I don't think piston speed is much of a problem ,even at 1000 rpm idle its firing at 8.3 times per sec.