Hello forum.  I'm new to the Suzuki Savage and based on my luck in the last year wth two clunker bikes I'm starting to wonder if God just doesn't want me to ride!

So I bought a 2011 S40 from a dealer having only seen pictures.  bike looked pristine and only had 1600 miles.  I read up on the backfire issues some folks have had and thought thats nothing a turn of the pilot screw can fix.  

When I got the bike I noticed the brass cap to the pilot screw was already removed, presumably by previous owner.  So I decided to ride it. Maybe they already fixed the lean issue.  Anyway they may have done more harm than good if they did work on it.  The symptoms are as follows.

Cold start, bike will idle fine and smooth.  Start ridingafter warming up a minute or two. no trouble.  Coming up to a stop, travelling 40 to 50mph, pull in clutch, decelerating...dies...restart, won't idle, have to twist throttle to keep it alive.  Get bike home and I go through the song and dance of adjusting pilot screw to find highest idle.  adjust idle speed to a nice even putputput (No tach so rpm is a guess).  Shut her down.  Next morning I think I've got things fixed....and the same situation!  Almost like a gremlin is sneaking into my garage and resetting what I'd done.  I'm wondering if idle speed too low? petcock fried? The only thing I know it's not for sure is pilot mixture.  Any guidance would be appreciated.

justin_o_guy2 wrote on 06/18/14 at 10:48:56:



Yes, setting the idle speed up will probably fix the problem.

luckylouie82 wrote on 06/18/14 at 10:56:19:


Your bike should run down a level street in first gear at about 9-10 mph with the throttle closed if the idle speed is approximately correct. A little too high is better than too low.

Ok.  Just for full disclosure, the two bikes I've had previously were a 78 Yamaha triple and a 92 Nighthawk 750.  So I only have those two for comparison.  

So yesterday I worked 8 hours.  Bike sat in the parking lot in the Texas sun.  Turned up idle a bit.  Started it up "cold" and she ran beautifully all the way home.  Sat in the garage over night and this morning on the way to work the same thing happened that I described before.  I tried letting the throttle go slowly, but that didn't work.

In addition, bike only seems to do this within the first ten minutes of riding.  And this morning, just for giggles I switched the petcock to prime after it stalled and it seemed to run a little better.

Does the brain trust still think idle too low?  I would have thought petcock except it didn't effect it before.  I'm pretty confident pilot screw is spot on.  Could it simply be I'm not giving it enough time to warm up?  After sitting for 16 hours I let it warm up for 2 minutes or so.  More than I did for the two previous bikes I had and in the afternoon after work it needed virtually no warmup time.  

If low idle still thought to be the culprit.  Does anyone have a resource to let me know what a proper idle should sound like?  Like I said, only two bikes before this one and it feels like I'm already idling this bike higher than the other two.

Thanks for your help everyone!

Ok, I'll experiment with that this afternoon.  

I almost think that bike is still cold in the morning and choking itself out.  Otherwise why am I not really having issues when riding home in the afternoon?  

How long do these bikes take to warm up?  It's idling fine with no choke before I get going in the morning.  But maybe it's not ready for any speed???

This is new to me with my other bikes, even though they were carb'd ran almost like fuel injection.  Unless it was cold outside, (sub70's)  I could just fire em up and go.  I if it's a characteristic of the bike, I can live with it.  Just don't want to ignore a possible problem.  Or try to create one that doesn't exist!

I vote petcock...
just switch out to this raptor one and you'll be fine...easy fix.
Make sure you get the real Yamaha one and not the knock-off one...

5LP-24500-01-00 part #

http://www.ronayers.com/FUEL-TANK--C469576.aspx

Only advantage is that if you leave it on prime you don't have reserve any more.
The vac petcock is a bummer anyway...it causes all sorts of weirdness as far as troubleshooting. You'll have to install the Raptor one and then block off the vac port on the carb.
I used a small screw and then covered it with a rubber piece from a wire kitchen rack foot...lol

p.s. i also only had trouble when it was cold in the morning...did the raptor mod after I owned it for a month and no issues since...

yep, that's what I'd do...
Unless your carb float is messed up you shouldn't have problems with forgetting to shut off the carb but it's a habit i've always had so it's kind of automatic for me...good habit to have tho'...