Bit of smoke out left tail pipe on startup

[Houdini]

Try taking the "oil soaked matress foam" out of the air cleaner and running without it...that may isolate your "smokin" problem...

[TheCafeKid]

Well, not to sound like a jerk or what have you, but i would suggest picking up the CORRECT filter for your bike, be it Uni, K&N or Suzuki OEM. Mattress foam doesnt sound all that wonderfull to me, and it degrades quickly exposed to elements. Dont want THAT sucked into your carbs.

Float levels are essential. The floats are what determine when the carbs quit taking gas from the tank, or the volume of flow from the tank, etc to put it simply. They are designed to shut off a needle valve inside the carbs, sorta like the float in your toilet. Im sure you know what happens when the toilet float is set too high, the toilet runs constantly, using a crap ton of water and keeping you awake at night with its incessant "HISSS" At any rate, if the floats in your carbs are incorrectly set, the carbs will constantly flow gas just the same, causing an over abundance of fuel in the mix, making you rich. All that gas wont burn on combustion, so it comes out your tailpipe as smoke. There are other not so great issues associated with this problem as well, much more devious than an embarrassing smoke trail. The BS (CV type) carbs on your bike do not have an overflow, unlike the earlier VM type mechanical carbs. So all that gas that ISNT getting burned or exhausted is going somewhere. Its going into your crank case, washing down and thinning the oil in your cylinders and doing eventual detremental damage to your motor. My suggestion, before you proceed any further in chasing down your smoking issue, is to pull the carbs and set the floats as per the manual.

[donimo]

I was planning on getting the right filter, but the closest suzuki dealer is over 2 hours away, and I have a 4 month old and house renos, I figured because it ran ok with it before... I will pull it and replace it with an OEM on before I tune again, may be a while though

As for the floats, it had no overflow issues before the rebuild, oil smells fine, nice and clean as it was just changed before I bought it, no gas smell at all. I didn't have a way to measure the float height accuratly, they are both set the same I know, but as to what they are set at?

but I don wanna pull the carbs again lol

[donimo]

do you have to pull the carbs to check the floats?


just askin...

[Houdini]

You have to pull both float bowls, and the inner screws take a lot of praying or swearing depending on your faith to remove / install.

On "some" Mikuni carbs the pivot arm that holds the floats is nearly level when fuel starts to flow past the float needle valve. But if you can see the fuel flowing you can measure the float height; you have also figured out how to bypass the vacuum petcock on the tank.

Your latest "smokin" problem sounds a lot worse than float height measurement; hence the suggestion to do the easy things 1st: remove the "after market" air cleaner, see how the bike runs, and report back for further orders... :-)

[TheCafeKid]

You have to pull both float bowls, and the inner screws take a lot of praying or swearing depending on your faith to remove / install.

On "some" Mikuni carbs the pivot arm that holds the floats is nearly level when fuel starts to flow past the float needle valve. But if you can see the fuel flowing you can measure the float height; you have also figured out how to bypass the vacuum petcock on the tank.

Your latest "smokin" problem sounds a lot worse than float height measurement; hence the suggestion to do the easy things 1st: remove the "after market" air cleaner, see how the bike runs, and report back for further orders... :-)

My point is, no matter WHAT the problem may be attributed to, float hight is an essential part of a carb cleaning and rebuild. You are playing with fire by not assuring they are set correctly. Just my .02

[donimo]

My point is, no matter WHAT the problem may be attributed to, float hight is an essential part of a carb cleaning and rebuild. You are playing with fire by not assuring they are set correctly. Just my .02

I kinda just followed the carb refresh guide on this site, so they are clean, but it didn't really talk about float heights.

I realize this may have been a mistake, but i am new at this. All my experience is with car carbs (holley etc), and you can largely ignore the floats till later cause they have a nice window and are adjusted with a screw...

[TheCafeKid]

I kinda just followed the carb refresh guide on this site, so they are clean, but it didn't really talk about float heights.

I realize this may have been a mistake, but i am new at this. All my experience is with car carbs (holley etc), and you can largely ignore the floats till later cause they have a nice window and are adjusted with a screw...

Understandable, please dont thinking I am bashing you by any means. Before I started loggin on here, I knew NOTHING of carbs other than very basic understanding of how they worked. However, a few carb rebuilds, top end rebuilds, and barn bike, basket case resurections later, i have a DECENT idea of how to SCREW UP when restoring/resurrecting a bike. I am by NO MEANS an expert, merely at best a semi adequate hack The one thing that is across the board true, as i have found thru many frustrating days and nights, is that cutting corners, or NOT DOING something that is necessary and essential on one of these machines is a pure and futile waste of time and effort. As im sure by now you have realized, bike carbs, and motors in general, are a bit more finicky than cars. There is alot less room for error, especially on an air/oil cooled motor. Running lean wont just stagger performance, it can lead to complete DESTRUCTION of the internals of the top end. Pull the pin, and BOOOM Running rich, well, while its a bit less disasterous in the present, can have long term effects that will end up in much the same way.

At any rate, i will conclude my rambling by saying that *I* have found the best way to track down a problem, is to assure that the BASICS and ESSENTIALS are taken care of. Otherwise, I end up chasing my tail and throwing money at the problem, hoping i get a silver bullet fix, and wasting alot of time, money, effort, and RIDING SEASON

Your mileage may vary.

TCK

[donimo]

I agree, and that is why I refreshed the carbs and bought new intake seals etc, to rule that out first, but it seems I missed something.

I realize now using the refresh guide was only supposed to be one source of info, I wish this had come up before I used up every ounce of strength and patience ramming the carbs back in the intakes in 5*C weather, unheated garages and thick cold rubber are no fun...

I honestly won't have enough time to tackle a job like that for a couple months at least, I got bike time, then its reno time, no more bike time till renos are done, which sucks because the finishing part of renos SUCKS, takes forever, never looks good enough (for me) and it very tedious.

[TheCafeKid]

I agree, and that is why I refreshed the carbs and bought new intake seals etc, to rule that out first, but it seems I missed something.

I realize now using the refresh guide was only supposed to be one source of info, I wish this had come up before I used up every ounce of strength and patience ramming the carbs back in the intakes in 5*C weather, unheated garages and thick cold rubber are no fun...

I honestly won't have enough time to tackle a job like that for a couple months at least, I got bike time, then its reno time, no more bike time till renos are done, which sucks because the finishing part of renos SUCKS, takes forever, never looks good enough (for me) and it very tedious.

Oh i know the feeling man. I ran my own small reno/remodel/roofing company for some years. Cost of materials constantly going up, lack of RELIABLE help and eventually my own lack of patience for slow paying customers, and my own horrible ability to save money for those LEAN months (you know, Jan and Feb, when you're eating cup a noodles for dinner every night...lol) forced me to hang it up.

Tip on the carb boots. A hair dryer is great for heating the rubber up and making it more plyable. It can be very very frustrating at times, but once you get her running just right, as long as you keep up on the regular maintainence, you generally wont have to mess with them for a number of years at a time. And nothing can compare to that sense of satisfaction of doing it yourself.

[donimo]

So I pulled the filter, started it up, smoked a bit, maybe a min or 2, didnt seem as much as before, but this time of year steam can make smoke look worse so?

But after a few min, no more smoke and the idle mix screws make a difference, after 5-8 min of idleing the choke came off (was only on a bit) and it put putted just fine, its loud without the airbox lid, is that what pods sound like?

Anywhoo I guess that was the issue. I will try to order a filter.

the 2 plastic "screens" that hold the filter arent flat, ones concave and the other convex, so it doesnt seem to hold it very tight, At first I thought one was backwards, but after way too much effort I realized there are tabs on them that I allume hold the filter, so it is in the right way?

Any 450 owners (same filter) know if this is norml or should I order those too?

[Florida Guy]

Good to read you may have found the problem.

[donimo]

Yeah, thanks to you guys!

[Roostabunny]

I know I'm late in the game here, but I'm trying to diagnose a rough running at idle/low throttle and realized I hadn't cleaned my filter in over a year of daily commuting. I'm on a really tight budget, so buying special oil didn't seem like the best idea when the manual says regular motor oil, so here's what I did...

First off, I have a UNI filter in good shape, and I also recommend something built for your bike. Aside from tuning problem, the idea of gaps allowing grit through would worry me.

I washed with Simple Green for the heavy gunk then re-washed with dish soap and hot water then let it dry.

To oil I was going for a really light coating, so I poured some Rotella into the bottom of a clean basin and rubbed each outer surface of the filter in the little puddle. Then I squeezed (no wringing) with paper towels till I was rid of most of the excess and just barely spotting the towels.

Just my $.02.

For me it didn't fix the problem, but at least I know that's not the problem. Gotta tweak my mixtures I think.