Carb Wars: Episode 1, A New Project

I don’t remember how to rebuild carbs. I took auto shop in high school where I rebuilt a ton of them, but that was over a decade ago. So I bought myself a set of carbs to tear apart and rebuild.

Before I get into it let me back up a little bit. As you know I ride a 2002 Suzuki SV650S, which is a first generation SV. This generation ran from winter 1998 to 2002, and had carburetors, curvy lines, and various other minor differences from the second and third generations.

I recently tried to install a K&N high performance air filter into my bike, but I realized that it made the fuel mixture FAR to lean. I can’t leave the bike like that without burning out the pistons, so I swapped it for the old, stock filter. I’ve been doing a little research and I found out that Suzuki shipped the SV carbs with very small jets so that it could pass US EPA requirements. This is great for my gas mileage (I get around 45 mpg right now on a stock set up), but might be bad for my engine. When I pull the spark plugs later this winter I will find out if it’s so bad that I need to make modifications.

So in preparation for that potential modification I bought myself a set of carbs to rebuild so that I can keep my stock set on a shelf for later. They cost me $60.00 shipped, which is a steal considering that the cheepest set I saw on eBay was about $120. I will rip them apart and relearn all that  have forgotten.