Hello all

I'm having some issues with my ride. Or rather; I've BEEN having issues for a few years now. It is running, but I often experience poor performance. Hanging idle, low power or power cutting in and out, knocking or pinging (I'm not sure what the difference is).

I've mainly blamed the carburetor, and it's been taken apart completely a couple of times. I've also replaced the camshaft and rockers because they looked worn, and someone told me it MIGHT be reason. I've had no luck finding the reason for this issue, until a few days ago, when I tried checking the dynamic ignition timing with a strobe light.

At idle the timing mark is at 3 o'clock. It may be advanced a few degrees before TDC, but that's difficult to see on this bike. when I touch the throttle the timing mark jumps to what I perceive as 30° BTDC. This is measured with my eyes only, but I would think, that it was fully advanced. I increase the rpm and the timing mark stays at 30°. As I release the throttle, the mark remains at full advance for a few moments, then shifts between no advance and full advance several times and finaly settles at no advance. This looks very odd to me, and a minute later it stops behaving this way and I see the timing mark move smoothly clockwise with the rpm.

I believe/hope I've found the cause for the poor performance. I would like to replace the TCI module. At the same time I'm also tired of spending money without getting any results. Do any of you have experience with these kinds of issues? The engine runs, only the ignition timing seems to suffer. My theory now is that it stems from the inside of the black box. What do you think?

By the way.. It a Suzuki Savage. Did I mention that?

I can't help but think it's inside the black box. As far as i can tell, both the pickup and the ignition coil are connected directly to the box. Any timing components would have to be in between those two.

I have observed the transition from idle to 4500 rpm a number of times using a degree wheel and strobe.  As I recall, it is a smooth transition, and the timing drops back to original setting when you return to idle.  Don't know how you were able to shoot those timing marks with the engine running.  I bet that was messy.  The tool shown in this old post makes that job a lot easier.

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1521968829

All right.. So I've re-soldered all of  the PCB. One the worst soldering jobs I've done in my long career as an electronics whatever it's called in english.. BUT IT WORKED.

I did the same test as before, and i could not get it to fail (jump to full advance). Now I've just taken her out for a short ride in the sunset, and there was no hanging idle, no dying at red lights and a (pretty) smooth torque from low rpm. So far it's a success, but it was an intermittent problem, so I'm trying to be causiously optimistic  

Thanks for your help guys and for listening to my woes.