So... last fall I picked up a '95 F3 (former) Racebike. It's been a CRA race bike it's entire life (never titled or registered). Unfortunately it was low-sided by it's original owner (probably around 1999-2000), and was sold to the 2nd owner... who let it sit unattended. He then sold it to the 3rd owner last year - who decided he didn't have the time or money (due to a pending marriage), and I bought it. Yeah - that's probably a lot of time without any solid service or even regular running, but the 3rd owner told me that he had it running for about 20 minutes - but then couldn't get it restarted when I went to look at it... we noticed it was out of gas.

So here I am a few months later - we spend some time on it today cleaning and checking things out. We finally got it to "pop off" and "run" for awhile. "Run" is a loose term for making loud noises (alerting the neighborhood hoodlums) with the right-sided noismaker and smoking it up a bit. We cleaned the plugs, checked fuel lines, and replaced the fuel filter. But it doesn't start without a lot of coaxing (sometimes a spot of gas or starter fluid), and it runs like its bogging down the whole time.

My thoughts thus far: The Fuel pump is questionable - at first it didn't seem like it was flowing much... but then seemd to do better after the engine was running for awhile. Next thought: The carbs. The previous owner said he cleaned them, but I guess I'm not sure exactly what he considers "cleaned" - my plan is to pull them, tear 'em down, and clean them thoroughly.

Anyone have any experiences, thoughts, or suggestions? I'd like to hear 'em!

 

my advise is to replace the wires, plugs and if you dont have great spark the bike will run like poop second thefuel pump there **** pumps third clean carbs out and make sure all the right hoses are in there place like the carb air lines and any other carb/fuel/air hoses if one thing is disconected it will run like poop as mine did.just go over the basics. it could only be so many things that is doing what it is doing so good luck and keep us posted ooooo could be bad gas!!!!

 

Little updates:

The plugs are brand new (took them out for a brief cleaning when it was clearly flooded... wet tips - that was before we finally got it firing earlier). I believe the wires are also quite new (they show no signs of wear - or even dirt for that matter). How can I double check that the plug wires are in the right order? Any reference diagrams out there? It appears pretty self-explanatory, but no harm in checking. We also pulled the carbs off - I haven't been too far into them, but they're the cleanest ones I've ever seen (aside from brand new). I'm still going to crack 'em open to inspect & clean the jets & passages.

Gas is fresh - that also seemed to help us get a little farther along earlier in the process... along with some starter fluid.

Fuel pump? Any good way to test it? There is a hose port on the back of the pump... but my bike doesn't have any hose connected to it. Is it simply an "overflow/drain" hose of some sort - or should it be connected to something else?