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[TucsonTRD]

Hi all, this is my first post.  I will introduce myself in the noob section in a bit, but I have a problem that I am hoping you folks can help with.

I'll try to explain.  At idle, the bike seems to be idling at too low of an RPM, which it didn't do until recently.  It is the worst when the engine is cold and for the first several minutes of a ride, and not as bad by the end of a 15+ minute ride.  Especially while the engine is still warming up, I have had the engine die on me.  When I restart it, I will give it a little gas and try to hold the rpm's at a slightly elevated level to keep it running.

I would think the idle speed just needs to be adjusted, but even when I manually keep the rpm's slightly elevated, the bike is running rough.  During acceleration and cruising, the bike runs fine for the most part.  I do get an occasional hesitation and then surge that occurs very quickly and happens when I am cruising at low rpm's.

So does anyone have any ideas?  I don't know if it's bad gas, fouled plugs, or something else. 

Thanks for any help
Braden

[TucsonTRD]

I suppose it may be a waste of my time providing more info given all the responses I got on my first post, but I'll give it a shot.

I have since filled up from a different gas station and replaced the plugs.  It seems a little better, but not completely gone.  There have been a couple different occasions where I can smell raw gasoline in my garage after parking it in there after a ride.  It doesn't seem to be extremely overwhelming, but definitely noticeable.  My wife even noticed it the other day.  I can't see any fuel leaking from anywhere.

Any ideas what might be causing the fuel smell or running problems?

[miker]

Braden, I would just guess it may be a cracked fuel filter shell...The 08 bikes had a recall...Just a guess mind you.

[Unbalanced]

Have you checked for intake leaks?   Is your bike Delphi or M&M?  Have you checked with a feeler gauge that you have enough air going in with the butterfly closed?  On some of the bikes it has been found that they close to tight.

When you changed the plugs what did they look like  white, tan, brown, black ?

When was the last time you cleaned your air filter?  Does it do the same thing if the air filter and cover are off ?

[TucsonTRD]

Have you checked for intake leaks?   Is your bike Delphi or M&M?  Have you checked with a feeler gauge that you have enough air going in with the butterfly closed?  On some of the bikes it has been found that they close to tight.

When you changed the plugs what did they look like  white, tan, brown, black ?

When was the last time you cleaned your air filter?  Does it do the same thing if the air filter and cover are off ?

I don't know what Delphi or M&M are.  I have not used a feeler gauge on the butterfly, what should the gap be?

It's hard for me to describe what the plugs looked like.  They didn't look too bad, a little tan color i would say.  The plug from the rear cylinder seemed a little worse than the plug from the front.

the air filter was changed at the last service, about 500 miles ago.  I have not tried running the bike with the filter off.  I did look in the intake with the butterfly open and saw some black, greasy looking build-up, almost like a light spray of something on the wall of the Y split.  I don't know if that is normal or a sign of something wrong.

I am currently wondering if it could be a fuel line inside of the tank has developed a leak from rubbing the tank.  From what I have read, it seems to match the problems I am having, except I also have decel pop.

Thanks for the help so far.
Braden

[Unbalanced]

Look for 25 to 28 thousands on the gap between the bottom of the butterfly and the opening in the intake.   Looks like one cylinder is really lean and the other is pretty good from the pictures.  Delphi is the fuel deliver system from part of 2002 up.   Some of the early 2002 might have had M&M fuel injection system.   Delphi is still what we use today.   As far as the decel pop did you always have it or has it recently occurred?   Do you have an open air cleaner on your bike or is it the stock closed box on your bike?   If it is open was the bike ever tuned and if so with what type of system.  for example
Power commander, Screaming Eagle Race Tuner, Fuel Pak, Thundermax etc.

Does your bike ever die or come close to dying when it is warm?  Like when you come to a stop sign, traffic light?

[TucsonTRD]

I'll check the gap for the butterfly valve.  The decel pop is a new problem that has accompanied the other running problems.  It is a stock air cleaner and there is no tuning system on the bike.  I just added rush 2.0 pipes, but that didn't change any of the problems.  Obviously, it makes the decel pop more noticeable though.  But the decel pop was still there with the original pipes.

Yes the bike has died a half dozen different times.  Once while it was idling to get warmed up (had been idling for about a minute), and a few other times at the beginning of a ride when i come to a stop at a light.  It doesn't seem to die at idle after i have been riding the bike for 5+ minutes.  But the idle speed seems too slow, but i think that is a product of whatever the underlying problem is.

Thanks for all your help so far unbalanced.  I took it to the local HD stealership and $200 later my bike is the same as it went in.  I think I am going to try a local bike shop next unless I can get it worked out myself somehow.

[sadunbar]

I had a similiar occurance on a former bike - my 2004 SEEG. 

A bracket broke of the header pipe on my rear cylinder header (a mounting tab) - and it opened up a hole in the header.  The idle RPM dropped, popping insued, exhaust tone changed.  Idled so low that it died a couple times.  The change in the exhaust tone caused me to look at the headers...  I found the broken tab - welded it back on - and all was fine...