Posted by Bryan Felsher on February 26, 2002 at 06:01:26:
Hello everyone. This is my first posting. I have a
2001 savage. Here's the list of modifications. First
I removed the white spacer and pulled the brass plug.
That was easy. I made a slide hammer out of a piece of
5/8 steel bar with a hole cross-drilled at one end and
a flat ground on the other end. I then used two
weights. One free to slide and the other clamped on
the flat with a set screw. It worked good. I tapped
the plug with a 10-32 bolt by drilling a #21 drill and
grinding a flat on one side of the bolt. This allowed
the bolt to self tap it's way in. Just a little trick.
Then, unhappy with the weak exhaust note, I switched to
a Harley chrome slash cut baffle-free pipe which I
bought at the local harley shop for ten dollars.
#%@$ing loud!! low rumble. Cool. Then, I made two
aluminum two inch risers and pushed the bars way
forward like apehangers. It was cool, but I changed
over to wide Harley roadster bars w/o risers, which I
like much better. BTW, I haven't had to change stock
cables. The pipe gave the bike a nice backfire and was
running to lean, so I rejetted to a 160 main jet,
replaced the airbox with a POD foam filter. I also
turned the idle mixture screw out probably about 3
turns or so, I forget. The bike idles low and
there's absolutely no backfire. I could get the idle
even lower by changing the primary jet, but it's low
enough. If you change to a free flowing filter like I
did, you must rejet!! The bike now pulls hard all the
way to redline with no flat spots. The personality of
the bike also has changed to in that it likes to be
ridden much harder. I'm happy. My next move will be
to pull off the head, cut it down .030 and open up the
intake and exhaust ports, and fit a bigger carb with a
RAM forced intake, or turbo charger with NOS.
Just kidding. Have fun with your bikes!!