Poor starting and ineffective choke
 

Had a SV650 unfaired W reg for a couple of months. Generally runs fine but was always a bit lumpy at low revs. However now it is a pig to start. Been a gradual thing. Sounds like only one pot is firing for a while until after about 5 tries, the second one kicks in. Once warm seems to go fine. Choke apparenlty has no effect bike warmed up or cold. No rev increase noted at all when choke is on.

Plugs are clean and fine. Air filter is good and fully home. Any ideas?

Does the choke lever feel stiff when you move it. If so it might be the choke plungers are stuck in the barrels of the carbs. Happened to me last winter. New choke cable and taking the carbs off and cleaning all brass choke plunger barrels, fixed my SVS.

HTH

There seems to be very little movement on choke lever. Moves only half and inch or so. Not sure if this is normal or not.

Thats exactly what mine was like. I'd be checking the choke plungers before I did anything else if I was you.

You'll need to prop the tank off, remove the airbox and then remove the carbs, theres a screw on the front and a seperate one of the rear carb that you'll need to undo, watch for the springs when you undo them ( if you can mine were seized solid with rust ) clean them off ( I used WD40 and a cloth ) and then make sure they slide freely in the chamber and then refit and it should sort your problem out.

If you can get hold of a Haynes manual it'll make life easier. As the process is quite well described in there and theres lot of pictures to help you when or if you get stuck ( I did several times )

have you followed recommended maintenance schedule ? likley all you need is clean air filter, fresh plugs and a carb sync

even though it seems to run perfect, the SV an be running pretty crappy and still seem to perform

every 7500 miles whether I think it needs it or not, I always have the recommended tuneup done

and I always notice better performance, milage & starting after I get it back