The engine is back in the bike and it started right up! Runs very well. I did all the mods suggested here. Carb jetting, plastic clip mod, dyna exhaust. Opened the exhaust port.

I adjusted the pilot screw slightly and set the idle. Took it for a ride and everything seem great.

Here’s a picture. The Dyna pipe is a Vance and Hines that I bought as a lost pipe from a pair for $50. All I needed was a short pipe between the header and the muffler. Had a Honda pipe laying around that had the clamp at one end. Worked a treat.

My next thread will be “Mounting a Sidecar to My S40”  

Great job.

Serowbot wrote on 09/06/20 at 07:55:34:


That’s the mod to the needle clip in the carb...maybe the wrong terminology. It moves the needle up a bit. I did all the basic mods listed on here. Mainly because I wanted the less restrictive exhaust. I was really surprised at how well it ran because normally when you do mods to carb it takes a bit of tweaking. I rebuilt the engine also. I turned the gas on, turned the key and hit the starter button and it started right up and actually idled pretty decent. I’ve built a lot of bikes and very few started an ran this good out of the box. I think it shows how good this site is for the Savage/S40

The Savage motor is basically a fancy lawn mower engine - not too sophisticated, and the jetting is pretty consistent.  Extreme altitude changes is about the only thing that makes deviating from the basics necessary.  (Although some open exhaust and cone filters have caused jetting to be nearly impossible to achieve a good running bike).

My mower has a higher power to weight ratio.  

I’ve owned a lot cruder engines than this one. The Royal Enfield Bullet 500 I talked about in another thread is just one of them. When I was building that engine I was laughing the whole time about how simple and crude it was.

The Suzuki engine is really quite sophisticated by comparison. Probably the only thing I wish was a better design is the head in terms of restrictions. There is a good amount of HP lost there.