I live at 6000 ft and ride over an 8000 ft pass each sunday.  If you live in a similar location,  I would appreciate what kind of carb mods work best for you.  Am not interested in opinions, tell me what YOU have actually done to your carb.  Help me out here!

We'll need to know the year of your bike.
and then look for digger... I think he's that high up too.

well, you've got a one of a kind.
You shimmed the needle? not cut down the white spacer?
If so, sounds like you should left the pilot alone.

Have you read bot's and lancer's carb tuning guides?
next is to read your sparky.

Pop your spark plug and see what color it is.

If it looks chocolaty... DON'T LICK IT!   it's the right color, hence your air/fuel mixture is OK.

If it's black and sooty, you're rich and need leaning.

If it's flaky whitey it's too lean and you should enrichen it.

Your best bet is, once you've found the right spot, leave it at that.
OR
go Dial-a-Jet...

Really, none of you guys has looked at a Savage plug tip lately --- "dirty snow" is about as normal as you are ever going to ever see using a stock heat range plug and the stock CV carburetor and near stock jetting.  

Stock, it looks kinda like the valves do, all white and fluffy.  

Lightish vaguely tanish white is the best I have ever gotten off a fresh plug using the recommended half spacer and air screw tunes.

Our bikes tend to run lean, clean and hot according to the old school spark plug reading techniques.   This does not mean it is set up wrong.  Nor does it mean it is running too lean or too hot.

What sort of oil you use also tends to color your plug up some -- I ran a rubber seal softener additive for a while once that made my exhaust pipe and plug a fairly bright orange color.

(really, it did)





Dave, when your O² sensor was saying your mix was jest right, what color was your plug ceramic around the center electrode?

(Dave may be the only one of us that has actually tuned his mix ratio completely "right" with any real scientific reason to actually believe he actually got it totally right.)

Oldfeller:

I hate to admit this - but in the 2,200 miles since I set my carb up with the O2 sensor, I have never taken my plug out and looked at it.

It sure did take all the guess work out of setting up a carb however - and you could immediately tell where a change in a pilot jet, main jet or moving the needle would change the mixture ratio.  I never could have gotten the carb dialed in this close without the O2 sensor.

Dave