Bike is stuttering under a load like it's fuel-starved or rev-limited...

[MidnightRide]

MidnightRide Have you made any headway on figuring this one out? I'm running into about the same. I just haven't had the time to tear into everything and I need to get the raked triple tree replaced with OEM before I worry about getting up to interstate speeds.

The progress I've made is to pick up a fuel filter, and that's it! Does the bike even HAVE a fuel filter? Haven't ridden since the posts I made above. Started it a few times.

Bought the wife a quad (Honda FourTrax) and spent way too many hours upgrading it (new carb, battery, axles, brakes, paint, shocks, and more). It had sat in a field for ten years (rust). Bought it to help out a recently widowed friend of ours, and Anne has been after me to buy her one for more than a year now.

New oil/fuel pump for the boat. Fishing. Toasted the Jeep on a trip to the cabin (HEI distributor fried?), worked on our homes and buildings, and just got back from a 2000 mile business trip to California over the weekend. Not to mention maintenance on my other vehicles.

Way too many projects.

Did I mention poker?

And now the weather's getting cold...

Seriously, does that damned RS even have an external fuel filter (2001 Midnight Star)? I haven't even pulled the fuel pump cover to check. That's probably all that's wrong, one of the filters is plugged. I'm thinking the Lucas cleaner I put in the tank months back broke up crud in the tank and lines and that plugged the filters. I need to give myself enough time to pull the petcock, fuel pump. and carb to check for clogged filters in each, rather than just assume I can just pull an inline filter and replace it with the Amazon-supplied Yamaha replacement. Once I get into things, I want to be able to set aside enough time to get it resolved.

I picked up some Seafoam. It looks good in the can.

Still time to get some 'sorta warm weather' riding in though!

On another note, while in California over the weekend, my check engine light came on in the van. O'Reilly Auto Parts pulled a code for me and it was the O2 sensor or cat. Sold me some kind of toxic cleaner for about $30 a pint to put in my tank, and within a few hundred miles the check engine light was off and fuel mileage was up 3 MPG highway miles (I put the Lucas in that tank regularly). Really curious to see how this last tank's MPG made out! I highly recommend that stuff. May pour some into a couple of other vehicles just because. I have the empty bottle in the van if anyone wants me to check it. Got in at 1 AM last night and haven't finished emptying the van out yet... Anne got on a plane for Florida this morning, her work booked the flight at around 10 PM last night (Sunday) while we were on the way home. Chicago on Tuesday and home on Thursday. She's been gone nearly every week over the summer and that really squeezes my time while pulling double-duty.

Our time is REALLY tasked during the warm weather months. Not looking forward to winter weather.

I'll post an update once I get those fuel filter issues addressed.

Sorry I can't offer more!

[Brad_G]

I'm curious about what you put in the tank to get the O2 sensor/cat cleaned. That must be some toxic stuff.

[MidnightRide]

Brad_G , the stuff is called CataClean .

Here it is on Amazon, a lot cheaper than what O'Reilly charged me:

https://www.amazon.com/Cataclean-120...or+cleaner&qid =1634665498&sr=8-3

In reading the Amazon reviews, it seems a lot of guys use it to clear codes before getting an emissions test. Some have mixed results.

For me, I was on the highway, so per the instructions, I had to run the tank down to around 4 gallons before adding it, which I did near Weed, CA (3425 ft. elevation). Ran it up to Klamath Falls, OR (4094 ft. elevation) before filling the tank, which was around 70 miles to our target *cheap* gas station. Low fuel light was on. The bottle says to run it 10-15 minutes after adding it with four gallons in the tank, but we didn't have that option up there on the highway, nor did we want to fill the tank at $4.55 a gallon at some remote mountain gas station. But adding it sooner would have left more of the product to dilute into the tank after fill-up. We 'only' paid $3.56 a gallon in Klamath Falls. It's around $3.34 closer to home. The average in California was around $4.19 a gallon for regular unleaded, and in some areas it was $4.79 a gallon! OMG.

The check engine light was still on by the time we hit Klamath Falls, but a couple of hours up the road and the code had cleared! We'll see how long it lasts. Nearly 250k miles on the van now with the stock 2.4 liter four banger engine. Went from 22 mpg (on this trip) to 25 mpg on the tank with the cleaner. Never had an emissions issue with this rig. We did notice a rough idle while at a light or drive-thru and couldn't figure out why, and apparently this was the cause. It cleared up before we got home.

Says it's good for gas and diesel but not 2-strokes. I'm going to pick some more up for my other rigs, and run this one one more time, just because...

With my painting background, I thought this smelled familiar, and in checking the ingredients I find the primary ingredients are Xylene and Acetone. Anyone know where we can get the other contents? Maybe we can make our own!

I pulled this off the label for the 3 liter bottle. The one I bought was only 1 liter.
.

[Brad_G]

Thanks for the information. I had heard of it, but hadn't known anyone that actually used it and their results. My daughter's Camry will throw a code now and then (and then goes away on it's own) and wondering if this might help it along. Her code is a cat. efficiency code.

[MidnightRide]

LOL well hopefully my code went away because of the product and not just highway miles! But the idle cleared up and MPG went up so it's got to be the product.

But a mix of Xylene and Acetone is much easier and cheaper to come up with, and I just happen to have BOTH sitting on a shelf at this very moment, so.....

[BlueRidgeSasquatch]

Father Pobasturd I'm going to sell it once I finally get it off there and make sure everything is good on the bike. I like the rake, but the way everything is set up on the bike, it's just too sensitive in the steering (short trail) and too low in the front. A big front wheel would fix what I need, but so will the cheaper route of putting the OEM back on lol.

[BlueRidgeSasquatch]

Duke Thanks, but I already picked up an OEM off another member that's local. I'll definitely check those out. The last owner went pumpless on mine, so I'm wondering if they ever replaced the needle with the grizzly one

[MidnightRide]

Nine months later...

Sunny and low 60's so time to get the bike out. It was running in the 30's two weeks back, and mid 20's overnight.

So I pulled the Jeep from the work area and pulled the bike over. Damn, that thing was grimy. Did a light clean but need a deeper one. I'd pulled my bags off for new tires so still need to get them back on. I'm loving the Shinko 777's.

But my focus was on replacing that fuel filter to see if that resolved this crapping-out issue, which had gotten pretty serious.

First, I pulled the old one out, and it was discolored so I figured it was just plugged-up and that was the problem. Now, I start the bike regularly and run it until it's fully heated up, and no problems running that way. So the fuel was still flowing. But then I blew through the filter to see if it was plugged, and absolutely no resistance, it was like the air was going straight through, not even slowed by the filter itself.

Hmm, that was odd, and didn't give me a lot of hope. I figured the filter wasn't the issue after all. I'm going to cut it open to see what it looks like.

So yesterday I jumped on the bike for the first time since this original post last July. Hard to believe it's been that long. I was going to dress warmer but figured it'd only take a few miles to determine if this fixed anything, so I just jumped on the bike and went. I headed toward the lake.

Seemed to run fine, so I kept going to the lake, around 15 miles away. Absolutely no issues, everything was PERFECT. It seemed like the filter was the issue.

Decided I needed a longer ride, was having a blast, so I jumped on the ferry across the lake so I could run a mountain pass that I'd been wanting to check out. Glad I did because that 'highway' road had some serious potholes. I felt I should have been on my motocross bike when I hit one of them. OMG. Glad I didn't try to plan that loop into Starfest 2022.

Hit some more roads into unknown territory, bike running beautifully, but because I was on an Indian reservation I kept it close to the speed limit, which generally didn't exceed 60. I carry a legal sidearm and that doesn't bode well on reservations. I ran 85 miles in all, but never stopped to let Anne know that my quick little 20 minute test-run had expanded a bit. I wish I'd have dressed warmer, because that last 20 miles was numbing me to the core.

Damn. I knew better... Takes the fun out of it.

About 15 miles from home I was climbing a long shallow grade and 4th gear was loving it, but 5th seemed to be working a bit harder than it should have. Normally I wouldn't have thought much about it, but I thought I'd try to put a real load on 5th since that's where I first discovered the issue last summer. Now I'd already done this along the route without issue, the previous problem wasn't there. But this time when I did it, only because it seemed to be down on torque a bit, now using more throttle than I normally would in those conditions, almost like flooding the bike, it started crapping out like before. No problem if I dropped it down to 4th, it loved the throttle. I'd ran it up to 90+ earlier in similar conditions, without issue.

So I was running 60-70 in this 60 mph zone on a state highway, no longer on the rez, then up to 90 again for a while just to assess things overall.

The new filter seemed to solve the problem, but it seemed that 80 miles into the ride it may have been plugging up again. Only speculating here. I don't think I have issues with rust or crud in the tank, but I'll get a light in there to check again today. But now I'm thinking I may have just been flooding the bike when going full throttle in 5th, rather than down-shifting and jamming it in 4th, which would be standard procedure if I was passing in a similar scenario. I'll do some more testing.

The other thought I was having was that under this load, after a longer run, my coil or other electrical issues may have been loading up and not able to handle the needed spark for the load. My plugs are fairly new but I haven't touched the coil. It's an '01 1600 with 12k miles.

But I'm definitely ready for an upgraded CDI, Dyna 3000 or from a 1700. That 4250 RPM rev limiter totally sucks. Needs to be 4750 at minimum. That extra 500 RPM might be enough.

I'm so impressed with the way that bike runs, sounds, and performs overall. Really couldn't ask for more. LOVE riding it! I'm going to keep riding it again, this time with PLANNED longer rides, and see what develops. If it gets worse, and I jam another new fuel filter in it and it goes away, we have our problem. I may pull it apart and pull the rear fuel line from the filter and run the fuel pump to see how much fuel it's pushing through. If it seems restricted at all then I'll assume the filter is plugging up again. But if it's dumping through then I'm thinking something electrical is losing efficiency after heating up over a longer period of time.

The new filter did the trick, and that's what I recommend for those of you with similar issues. Cheap, quick, easy fix. Be sure to go with a genuine Yamaha filter for better fitment.

We'll get it dialed in--

Looking forward to that next ride!

[Shores]

I didn't go back and reread the original thread, but are you sure the tank is venting through the vent tube in the front of the tank? Or did you vent the gas cap? When it craps out have you tried removing the gas cap. The cows bag may not be letting the milk out!

[MidnightRide]

I didn't go back and reread the original thread, but are you sure the tank is venting through the vent tube in the front of the tank? Or did you vent the gas cap? When it craps out have you tried removing the gas cap. The cows bag may not be letting the milk out!

Yeah I checked that a while ago. Just pulled off the gas cap and ran it down the road; still crapped out, even on a short ride. Glad you reminded me of that, because this ride was absolutely normal and without issue until I tried that full-throttle in 5th while pulling that grade while running 60-70 MPH.

I think the problem is solved. Do me a favor and try to replicate the situation. Run 4th gear around 65 MPH on a light grade, and then go to 5th under WOT to see what happens. Does the bike just bog down, slowly pickup speed, or stutter a bit? I have the hyper-charger as well, so it may not like those conditions. It's like I flooded the bike under unnatural riding conditions. Too much load.

[Shores]

I have a fuelie so I have no issues at all. It's strong going uphill all the way to 150 mph! If I were you, I would dump the hypercharger and go with a universal K&n or a K&n in the stock air box.