A Pile of Odd Symptoms

[airbornespud]

so, today i left work in a less-than-good mood, so i took a different way home than i usually do and i took it out on the '82 GS850GL a little bit. ran it up to redline a couple times taking off from stop signs and ran a little faster than the speed limit (maybe 10mph). when i got into traffic the bike started running on only 2 or 3 cylinders and popping at steady throttle, but as soon as i would gas it a little, it would come back to life and stop backfiring. this continued for a couple minutes until i was almost home, at which point it seemed to settle back into running like it should. the battery was new this spring, and the oil was just changed, plugs are not new, but the last time i checked them they were gapped properly and in good shape with consistent coloring across all 4. i've never had a problem before, just running back and forth to work, and going on a few short rides.

not sure if this is an ignition issue or coil starting to go on me, or if i need to dig into my carbs and do some work there. any thoughts?

[surviverguy]

sounds more like a carb issue than ignition to me.

[airbornespud]

that's kinda what i was afraid of. i really don't want to get into the carbs until the end of summer, but maybe now is as good a time as any...

[surviverguy]

Rebuilding the carbs would probubly fix it. You could try pouring some carb cleaner in the fuel tank with some higher octane gas and see if gets any better. Carb cleaner lowers the octane. Might be worth a try?

[bbytes]

Carb cleaner lowers the octane.

Really? How much? When I first got my bike, it ran horrible. I ran my bike straight off Seafoam to clean the carbs. Bike didn't stall, but it did give off a sweet smelling white smoke. It couldn't have been too low, or the bike wouldn't be able to burn the pure chemical.

I've since had my carbs properly cleaned.

[Nessism]

What's the status off the basic maintenance like valve adjustment, air filter cleaning, air box sealing, etc. It's hard to diagnose running problems unless all the maintenance is up to date.