died twice. overheating?

[socialDK]

today riding home on the freeway my '99 started sputtering like she was running out of gas i pull over and she dies. i thought i hit an air bubble so i turned on the choke and turned the petcock to prime a went a while longer then the same problem. pulling over again i noticed my rpm were very low so i turned the choke on again and the rpm were very unstable 4 to 6 down to 1 back and forth. i was low on oil so i took care of that but have a slow gasket leak from the valve cover and left hand crank case. i pulled spark plugs then realized i cant read  them any one have ideas. the plugs are marked dr8esl i think is standard. am i overheating?  thanks for any help. ive been on this forum since i bought the bike 2 years ago and its a big help and info .   l

[Trwhouse]

Hi there,
I see you are new, so you should do some searches here on the site.
Many of us have had the "bike feels like it's running out of gas" problem.
It is likely due to a defective vacuum fuel petcock, the one on the frame under your left knee.
Search for "fuel starvation."
That's likely your problem.
You can replace the stock petcock, $60 or so for the part, replace it with a Honda CR250F petcock (no more vacuum problems, read the links when you search), or modify your stock petcock so it no longer operates with vacuum (again, see the previous links through a search of the site.
Let us know if those posts are helpful, but I think that's your problem.
Yours,
Trwhouse

[birdsGS]

what year honda should i be looking for as far as the petcock? i have a 98 gs500e. just trying to avoid any future problems that might come up like this one

[ben2go]

what year honda should i be looking for as far as the petcock? i have a 98 gs500e. just trying to avoid any future problems that might come up like this one

04 CRF250X

I'll give you $10 shipped for your old petcock.PM me if you wanna do this.

[DoD#i]

Many of us have had the "bike feels like it's running out of gas" problem.
It is likely due to a defective vacuum fuel petcock, the one on the frame under your left knee.

...but he still had the problem on prime. If it's not running on prime, it's not the vacuum petcock being defective on vacuum. Prime bypasses vacuum. So jumping to the petcock as a solution is dubious, at best.

And if choke is actually needed with the bike hot (it should not be - air bubbles should vent right out, regardless of choke setting, and choke won't "fix" an air bubble) then something very much else is wrong. Perhaps something minor like an idle speed adjustment, perhaps something more significant, like crud in the carb passages or jets.

Put the petcock on prime and attach a small drain hose to the carb drain (or put a can under the drain if you don't have a small hose handy) - run the hose to a gas can. Open the carb drain. Do you get gas? A nice steady stream of nice, clear gas? If you get brown nasty crud in the first part of the draining, don't put that back in the bike. Does the gas keep running out for a good long time? You'll put it back in, so you can drain it through as long as your can is not full. If so, move to the other side and check it. This serves to verify that fuel is making it to the carbs in a reasonable manner on prime. If you can get 1 cup / 250ml out in 2 minutes, you're flowing as much fuel as the bike is ever likely to ask for unless it's been highly modified and gets terrible fuel mileage. At 50mpg that would run you 83 mph.

If that works, and the bike does not run right when on prime, a new petcock is barking up the wrong tree, IMHO.

[ben2go]

Many of us have had the "bike feels like it's running out of gas" problem.
It is likely due to a defective vacuum fuel petcock, the one on the frame under your left knee.

...but he still had the problem on prime. If it's not running on prime, it's not the vacuum petcock being defective on vacuum. Prime bypasses vacuum. So jumping to the petcock as a solution is dubious, at best.

And if choke is actually needed with the bike hot (it should not be - air bubbles should vent right out, regardless of choke setting, and choke won't "fix" an air bubble) then something very much else is wrong. Perhaps something minor like an idle speed adjustment, perhaps something more significant, like crud in the carb passages or jets.

Put the petcock on prime and attach a small drain hose to the carb drain (or put a can under the drain if you don't have a small hose handy) - run the hose to a gas can. Open the carb drain. Do you get gas? A nice steady stream of nice, clear gas? If you get brown nasty crud in the first part of the draining, don't put that back in the bike. Does the gas keep running out for a good long time? You'll put it back in, so you can drain it through as long as your can is not full. If so, move to the other side and check it. This serves to verify that fuel is making it to the carbs in a reasonable manner on prime. If you can get 1 cup / 250ml out in 2 minutes, you're flowing as much fuel as the bike is ever likely to ask for unless it's been highly modified and gets terrible fuel mileage. At 50mpg that would run you 83 mph.

If that works, and the bike does not run right when on prime, a new petcock is barking up the wrong tree, IMHO.

The problem with prime is, the internal orifice is half the size of the petcock hose outlet,which leads to fuel starvation at sustained engine speeds and high rpm riding.This is even worse for a rejetted bike with a K&N lunch box and free flowing exhaust.I dunno if he has these modifications but I'm tossing them in just to cover it in case.

[socialDK]

i am relatively new but ive been watching for a while and look around alot but i definetly like this forums layout better the the forum i use for my 95 suzuki vs800 especially the search function. i didnt search for posts about fuel starvation because it didnt feel like that was the problem. ive run out of fuel before ive never had the rpm's go up and down so much. could that be because lack of fuel? i wasnt riding with the petcock on prime and the choke open i only do it to start the bike up when i run out of fuel and have to switch to res on the side of the road then i re set them. i bought the bike used so i dont know about any mods done to the bike exept the filter is a k&n but probably just drop in. but since the consensus is my plugs look fine maybe a little lean but ok ill check the fuel system. any thing else i should look for? thanks.

[ben2go]

Prime feeds the carbs from the reserve side of the fuel tank.If you run out of gas on prime the bike shouldn't run in the on position or reserve.The fuel hoses may be routed wrong.The vacuum part maybe bad also.There's no good way to check that for sure.A vacuum test will show it to be good when the petcock is actually bad.I struggled with a bad petcock for 700 miles before I was clued into here.