Vacuum-less Fuel Petcock Setup

[ivany]

So, on the last trip I took, I had some fueling issues on the freeway. There are a few steep and fairly long hills on the 101 going up the Southern California Coast. It seems like if I took these with anything less than 3 gallons in the tank, the bike would start missing about halfway up and I'd have to slow from 80 to 60 or so. Not a huge issue but definitely un-nerving. The advice I got was to replace the vacuum-actuated petcock with a manual one.

My left-side engine cover was leaking oil a bit so I figured I'd get to some motorcycle work. I ordered the petcock, the gasket, and an oil filter, and got to work. The gasket went OK (took FOREVER to scrape the old one off) but I ran into issues with the petcock. See, the orientation of the ports on the CRF450R petcock is different than on the stock one, so the hose going to the carbuertors needs to be extended. I was exhausted from the gasket and was running short on time, so I just stuck the old hoses on and let the petcock hang free. It bothered me but not enough to touch it until the next weekend.

I went to the local autozone and picked up a Fram GS3515 filter (or the AZ equivalent) and a few feet of 5/16" fuel line. Turns out I only needed about 9 inches. I "used" the filter to splice together the fuel line coming from the carbs to the fuel line connected to the petcock. I zip-tied the filter and some of the lines to the frame, just to keep them from moving around. I couldn't quite mount the petcock into the same hole the old one was in, so I zip-tied it nearby; the petcock is held securely by the three lines on it and the tie and does not move around.

Here's pictures of my setup. Does anything look amiss or iffy with this?

[tucsondude]

how well does the petcock work there?
if it were screwed in would you have any issues with the lever hitting the body panels or anything?

currently have mine free floating, dont like that very much.

[the mole]

Here's pictures of my setup. Does anything look amiss or iffy with this?

It looks fine, the only likely problem with a free floating petcock like that is it'll be harder to switch quickly to reserve on the move. Depends how tightly it's held by the fuel lines. You're also going to have to get in the habit of turning it off when you stop for a while. (and back on again!).