Hey guys, long time reader first time posting.

Quick about me: I'm 26 live and working in Huntsville, AL as a mechanical engineer. Any one reading this thats local give me a shout! I use to race peddle bikes like tour de france style and quit shortly before graduating college. Recently I though it sure would be nice to ride again but I wasn't interested in peddling so yea, I bought a bike with a motor this time.

A few months back I bought a 2009 savage with 485 miles on it from the Facebook marketplace. Its my first motorcycle. It started and would idle when I got there to look at it but would starve and die with any rolling on, of the throttle. Fixed it enough to ride it over 100 miles home to my garage. sea foam in the tank and carb cleaner spraying into the air intake.

Since, I've gotten it home I've changed oil, new spark plug, fixed little things here and there then put 1,200 problem free miles on it. But it starting having some problems after that and I knew it had to be the carb. Pulled it off and it was the nastiest thing I've ever seen. Bad enough that when I backed the drain screw out on the float bowl nothing happened... On the "rebuild" of the carb I replaced all the brass in the bowl because they were now a dark green color. So new main and pilot jet, the little filter thing the gas travels through to get into the bowl and new float bowl needle. So now it's clean.

It had previously been running lean, I did the white spacer mod and put a 55 pilot jet in. Put it back together and it was crazy responsive and fun to ride but it is like it started settling in because it kept getting more rich while I was riding. To the point it choked. Then I would turn the air/fuel mix in and it was good for another 15 or 20 minuets then it would choke again. So I worked my way all the way down 3/4 of a turn out on the air/fuel mix and was still to rich.

Yesterday evening I put a brand new 52.5 pilot jet in. Got it back together and put my air/fuel mix to 1.5 turns out. Put enough gas in it to get me to my local ethanol free pump. When I shut it off, I about jumped off the dang bike it backfired so loud...

The question I pose is, do I go back to the 55 pilot jet and just ride it to rich (I'm not a professional mechanic it just seams to be that way to me) Or do clean carbs and new jets have to "settle in"?

Stock air intake and muffler. If anyone has a dyna muffler handy I'm quite interested!

Thank y'all for the time and help.
- J

I think a 55 is way too rich. You need to consider a 50 pilot. I might even be running a 47.5 on my bike now.  Bike runs strong off idle and hardly ever snap, crackers or pops like it did with 52.5 and 55 jets, though I still get a soft poof when shutting down.

As for the Dyna muffler.  I have a set that's perfect.  I can sell one if you can't find one locally.  I can be reached with Gmail.  My username on here is my address.  I recommend sucking it up and buying the Ryca adapter when installing it.  It fits perfect, looks good and makes the job easy.

Update: let the bike warm up, took if for a lap around the neighborhood. Then I turned the idle down then started turning the fuel/air screw in and out with meh results so took it back to 1.5 turns out, turned the idle back up and rode if for a bit. It rode well but I felt like it could be a little stronger. Cut it off and BAM again. turned it to two turns out rode and and it felt like it was struggling at lower RPM's cut it off and nothing in the after fire department. So I've split the difference 1 and 3/4 turns out rides/sounds strong and a mild fffumph when I cut it off.

So case closed, for now. If I put that dyna muffler I'm guessing it will need a mild adjustment? I'll do some poking around to see what I can find.

Maybe if I get to enough post I'll be able to add a pic of the bike later.

I'll get to the petcock but when I pull off the fuel line from the carb i get a tiny amount of gas that comes out from whats in the line then it doesn't drip or anything after so I'm assuming my vac is fine? or is that an incorrect assumption? Then when moved to the prime position it flows nice and steady.

Also a titbit I wanted to add. The first time I put my carb back together after cleaning I did it with such excitement I forgot to put the diaphragm spring back in and the bike still ran. The only thing I noticed is engine braking was nonexisting my guess would be because the needle isn't slamming home.

You said you did the spacer mod but you didn't say what you did . Did you sand the white spacer or replace it with washers? How many washers or how much of the spacer did you remove?
     The stock petcock is failing or will fail ,that's why we recommend changing to the Raptor.
    If your thinking of changing to a Dyna or other suitable muffler ,you should do that before tuning the carb or you'll be tuning it again.
    Part of your problem of running rich may be your stock air cleaner ,it has many pleats and is restrictive,(less air tends to make the motor pull more fuel from the carb) A K&N drop in or Oldfeller''s filter (it's in the Tec Section) may be a good bet, more so if you change mufflers.
       All jets add to the total amount of fuel . Even at wide open throttle (WOT) your still getting fuel from the pilot jet
        If you want to stop the afterfire at shutdown ,place the bike in neutral, allow it to drop to idle speed and reach down and pull the choke out fully a second before hitting the kill switch.

batman wrote on 08/11/18 at 08:18:56:



I sanded the white spacer in half or just a hair above half to be exact. The bike has backfired in 4th gear a time or two when I go from 3/4 throttle to rolling all the way off the throttle but they haven't been loud enough to be alarming to me and still a mild foooph at shut down.

I'll look into the raptor petcock.

When you speak of the K&N air filter are to talking about switching to a cone air filter or does K&N have a air filter that mounts in the suzuki savage air box?

I'll also try pulling the choke out before shutting down the bike to see what I get.

I've purchased a dyna muffler and hope to get it on the bike in the next week or so. Upon doing that, do you foresee me needing to rejet? right now I'm at a 52.5 pilot jet and a 145 main jet and air/fuel mix screw turned out to 1.75 turns with the white spacer sanded down to half the original thickness and the bike is running great.