3rd header cold most of the time, but not always.

[cockneyrick]

Not that problem as I am using a slave tank with direct feed?

[spadefoot]

I checked the compression on the bike tonight, I got (approximately) 145, 125, 125, 145. From reading on the forum it sounds like anything over 120 is OK. I still can't get the 3rd cyl to run reliably. I'm getting spark, and the plug is wet w/ gas when I pull it.

[spadefoot]

OK, so, tonight's good news: Cyl 3 Decided to start operating! To be honest, I'm not sure what happened. The last week, I took the carbs and airbox off and re-installed the filter box ( and filter) that was supposed to be there. After I got that back together, I could get it to idle by turning the idle adjustment screw up to what should have been a pretty high setting, but only resulted in the 1100 rpm idle I sort of expected. Tonight, I got it warm and idling, then sprayed a little starter fluid around the intake boots, and discovered that I hadn't tightened one up quite enough (cyl 1, not #3 that's been be-deviling me). So, I tightened that up, then re-did the squirt check, no change in idle. On the off chance that I had a cracked boot somewhere in the rack, I started bumping the side of the rack with the heel of my hand to see if it produced anything odd. Suddenly, the idle zoomed to about 4k and stayed there. I let it go for a little bit, gave it a little throttle to see if it would drop back down, but it stayed up there at 4k. I then adjusted the idle screw back to what would be a more "normal" setting and got a nice idle of 1000-1100rpm with (wait for it) a hot 3rd header! I was so used to it being tepid, at best, that I nearly burned my hand. I ran out of shop time, so I couldn't experiment any more but tomorrow, if it'll still idle at that setting and #3 gets hot, I may be in business.

[Suzuki_Don]

I started bumping the side of the rack with the heel of my hand to see if it produced anything odd. Suddenly, the idle zoomed to about 4k and stayed there. I let it go for a little bit, gave it a little throttle to see if it would drop back down, but it stayed up there at 4k. I then adjusted the idle screw back to what would be a more "normal" setting and got a nice idle of 1000-1100rpm with (wait for it) a hot 3rd header! I was so used to it being tepid, at best, that I nearly burned my hand. I ran out of shop time, so I couldn't experiment any more but tomorrow, if it'll still idle at that setting and #3 gets hot, I may be in business.

Never under estimate the effectiveness of a BUMP!!!

A bit of a tip on testing the temperature of headers - have a spray bottle handy and spray water on the headers to see if they are all hot, if so the water evaporates off straight away.

[spadefoot]

Thanks for the tip on the spray, never even thought of that!

So, it ran well enough to ride it up to the local inspection place to get it inspected, but it's bogging down at low RPM's. Once the RPM's reach about 3k, it sort of "comes alive" and it's fine from there on out.

Still carbs, I'm guessing.