It was starting fine yesterday and I may have screwed up and left the fuel on overnight. Well anyway, today I went out to start it and it started for a brief moment and then shut down. No abnormal noises or anything. So I tried starting it and it just turned over. I left it alone for about 10-15 minutes and then went back out to try again and it turned over easily and backfired twice. Then the battery went dead. So I installed the charger to it and left it like that for right now. You think pulling the plugs may help? What do think may be the deal? I hope nothing major.

 

How many miles on it?

Changing plugs won't hurt. You may have some debris in your fuel line, if it started and then just died. When you say it turned over, did it actually start, or was it just cranking? If the battery is dying, you may need a new stator (alternator). But then again, how long were you cranking on it? A good 3-4 minutes of cranking can drain a battery pretty quick.

But the fact that it backfired... hmm. Timing? Have you installed a manual CCT recently? If not, do you hear a ticking in the top end of the bike? If you haven't replaced the CCT, and there are some higher miles on the bike (20K-25K), you may have advanced the timing, or whoever had it before you. You may want to check your valves if that's the case.

I would tell everyone who buys a used bike to do a few things to isolate any potential problems:

Check the inside of the tank for rust;
change the air filter (just spend the jack on a K&N);
change the plugs - and plug wires if you can;
change the oil and filter;
replace CCT with an aftermarket manual version.

I'm betting your problem isn't anything large - if it's the stator I've seen them go on eBay for about $80 for a good shape used one. If the tank is rusted, have the interior coated (not a bad idea to just go ahead and do it). Everything Ihave suggested will run you about $140 (unless a new stator is needed), and will help tremendously when troubleshooting.

If you have a manual on the bike, it also helps, here's one a member here hosts (thanks StephyGee!),

www.stephygee.com/F3manual.zip

Answer a few of the questions I asked and we can hep better isolate some of the possibilities.

P.S. There is a LOW COST manual CCT fix on here somewhere, I'll see if I can find it. It would drop that estimated cost above to about $90.

 

The tank is clean- it was clean when I bought the bike. It appears to have a manual adjuster on it. The motor has only about 6-7k miles on it. I was cranking on it a bit but the bike has been sitting- I rode only about 2 miles on it yesterday but have put about 1k on it since I owned it with no problems until now. I did change the slip on yesterday before the ride but it would idle and rode fine for the short ride. When cranking today, it was starting and popping like it was trying to start- sounded like a flooded fourwheeler or car.

 

Ohh, what kind of exhaust did you put on it? You may need to have the carbs jetted for it. What pipe did it have before, and what do you have now? It's prolly not getting proper backpressure or too much considering you've done no carb changes since changing it. Change it back and see if that alleviates your problems.

I would guess that's exactly what the problem is. And WTF?

6K miles! Who had this bike, what year is it again?

 

Well it had a modified GSXR750 slip on- don't ask as i have no clue as to why but it had the stock headers on it. I installed a Hindle slip on but like I said it started fine after installing it and ran fine for the short trip and then wouldn't start back.

6k miles on a 96 model. THe odometer read 36k before I bought it but the guy lost the motor- had a huge hole in the case and installed one from a wrecked 97. He had both bikes there when I bought this one so I was able to verify everything.

 

Plugs fixed it. I figured that would be what it was and sure enough it was. The plugs that were in it were cheap standard plug Autolites. I replaced them with a set of NGK Iridiums. It starts right up now without use of the choke.

 

Sweet!

It's amazing what a new set of plugs will fix