Do not leave the stock vac petcock on the machine -- a big piston and hot cam and opened up exhaust and intake mean you put a Raptor on it 100%.

Stock petcock depends on vacuum levels that will not exist on that modded engine any more.   And the modded engine will require more gas than a stock vac petcock will deliver at all speeds and intake vac conditions.

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If the bike has 30,000 miles on the clock, those cam lobes look positively cherry compared to most of what I have seen with not quite that many miles on them.

So.....What makes you think the engine was overheated as stated in the title?  I don't see any burnt valves, scorched piston or cylinder, trashed bearings?  I see an engine with a lot of miles on it, and one that possibly didn't get the oil changed regularly and got some wear as a result.  It might have been running a bit lean.....but overheated....I am not sure?  

Also, the piston top had a LOT of carbon buildup, the piston skirts were a little scuffed but not bad, the cylinder walls were NOT scored, the cam bearing surfaces in the cylinder head were not damaged.....there was nothing to indicate it had been run low on oil OR that the oil had been run way beyond its normal change interval. I will be 63 on Sunday, I have been working on engines since I was 15 years old and in my experience I think this engine was run hot but not to the point of mechanical failure. I hope this information helps someone determine what they see in their engines in the future. If and when I get an engine in my shop that has different characteristics I will post some pics like this to help folks understand what they are seeing inside their engines.

Ah, Suzuki you little devil you ....  EPA leaned on you and in response you set our bikes up to be super lean running critters to make the US gov'ment happy.  

You traded off our long term engine life so you could sell an obsolete design in a super lean condition for what, 20 more years?  

The engine fooled you though, it could take it.  

ST, don't get mad -- all the lean/hot symptoms you saw are real and they exist in all of the stock Savage bikes all of the time.   My spark plug looks like white death every time I looked at it and my exhaust valves still are always white on stem and tulip.

I spend a lot of time (and some money) to get back the 10% performance that Suzuki traded off to the EPA, and I got it all back and more at the cost of really poor gas mileage compared to the old stock engine/carb set up.

And ST, how could you / how should you know that the guts you took pictures of are normal enough looking guts?   What crazy company would ever DO that to their product on purpose, and then to add insult to injury put a solid brass plug over the carb adjustment screw so you CAN'T rectify it?  

Certainly no German company would do that ....

Ah, the Savage.   Needs to be tweeked to run at full power and has to have special selected oil to live a full life.   It isn't very fast nor is it very powerful for its displacement, but it has good torque and fits old creaky legged old men just fine.

That's why we loves it so ...


actually, we loves it for what it does up in the mountains where it is in its natural habitat.   Can't go over 85 mph up in the mountains on even the longest straight away and the torque will blast you out of a corner faster than most all the bikes up there, save the crotch rockets which are GONE so fast you didn't even really notice them blow past you.