I am not sure how the cone filter affects things - but your jetting is way wacky compared to what I know works with a stock filter.  The single washer on the needle will make the midrange very rich.  The 55 pilot jet is also very rich.

If you warm up the bike well, drop the idle speed down a bit lower then is recommended (like 800/900 rpm), and then turn in the mixture screw...what happens?  If you can turn the screw all the way in and the engine is still running...the pilot jet is to rich.  You should be able to turn the screw in/out for the smoothest idle....and that should occur with the mixture screw 1.5 - 2.0 turns out from lightly seated.  Fewer turns for the ideal setting indicates the jet is too big....more turns indicates the pilot jet is too small.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm5mB3R8Ucw

Once you have selected the pilot jet, then do full throttle runs to determine the main jet size.  Finally the needle can be set by adding or subtracting washers to get a smooth transition from idle to partial throttle acceleration.

Notice......adjusting your carb for proper fuel mixture doesn't involve listening for pops and backfires caused by an improper muffler.  What the bike does when you close the throttle is not a good indicator of proper jetting...and trying to jet to eliminate backfiring will most likely result in too rich of a mixture setting at idle.

Folks responding to this thread need to be aware of the exhaust system you are running.
http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1431100374/0 

Rylee wrote on 05/18/15 at 23:44:00:

Current jet setup is a 152.5/55/1 washer/2.5 turns on the screw.

What size washer?

A 55 pilot does sound rich. Especially with 2-1/2 turns.

If an owner replace the OEM nylon washer, the correct replacement size is a #4. It would take 3 of them to equal the OEM height. The fewer washers, the richer. So if the OP is running one #4 washer, then not only is his pilot circuit rich, so is his jet circuit.

@Gary
It's the washer that came in Lancers kit. Before with the old exhaust I had a terrible surging issue and dropping to 1 washer allowed me to get about 2 turns on the idle mix screw and that alleviated the surging. The current condition is not surging it just doesn't wanna run at idle. It takes forever to come off the choke and even when the choke finally disengages it idled very poorly causing me to have to adjust the knurled screw in the carb and bump up the idle well into 12-1500 RPMs.

One thing I have noticed is pulling the choke 1 click out seems to do little to nothing to the idle once the bike is warm which would indicate a rich setup if I've read correctly.

I'm merely trying to adjust jets for idle. I don't have any surging and only seem to get a little acceleration during speed tests. My 1st concern is the pilot/needle spacing as both seem to be rich and causing the bike to run terrible at idle and low speeds.

If you are just working on idle and partial throttle, leave the needle alone for now. Work one circuit at at time. Go back to the 55 pilot and adjust the mixture screw until you get good roll on throttle response. Once your happy with the throttle response you should adjst the idle speed to 1,100-1,300 prom