BobFrapples

Hello everyone, I have had my 2002 SuperHawk for about 4 months now and absolutely love it! It's totally stock with 20,000 miles on it, 4,000 of them mine, yeah I've been riding like crazy, it's hard to stay off of it. A few days ago I got the idea to clean my carbs, no reason other than I dont know if it's ever been done. I removed the carbs, opened them up and they were clean as a whistle. I didn't change anything, settings etc...I reinstalled the carbs and have had a world of trouble since. I dont know what I did wrong, if I bumped something, crossed a hose, I have no idea. I took pictures as I removed them so I could hook everything back up but some of the connections aren't clear in my pics so I I did the best I could logically considering hose size, length, curvature, etc. My acceleration is gone, it feels like I'm towing something, it heats up EXTREMELY fast and shows no signs of cooling down. I'm really freaked out, btw this is a "California" bike. Can anyone help me at all PLEASE. This is my only transportation and I need to get my beautiful baby back in good health.

kenmoore

Pictures would help.

also download a manual

E.Marquez

Your fastest and best bet would be to hook up with a fellow VTR owner that also can wrench. Likely an experienced owner will "see" the issue.
Another thing to keep in mind, good diagnostic procedure is to never assume....Just because it started running bad after you reinstalled carbs does not mean its the carbs.. could be something related like a loose spark plug cap you knocked off, or completely unrelated and just a coincidence it failed after carb work,,say a stator pick up coil.

For sure double check your last work done... did you get the wrong jest in the wrong carb? did you mix up the emulsion tubes which are different front to rear? are the carbs fully seated in the manifold insulators? Do you have a vacuum leak from a line you did not connect, did not reattach, has a crack now that it was removed, twisted around a bit and reinstalled?

E.Marquez

Your fastest and best bet would be to hook up with a fellow VTR owner that also can wrench. Likely an experienced owner will "see" the issue.
Another thing to keep in mind, good diagnostic procedure is to never assume....Just because it started running bad after you reinstalled carbs does not mean its the carbs.. could be something related like a loose spark plug cap you knocked off, or completely unrelated and just a coincidence it failed after carb work,,say a stator pick up coil.

For sure double check your last work done... did you get the wrong jest in the wrong carb? did you mix up the emulsion tubes which are different front to rear? are the carbs fully seated in the manifold insulators? Do you have a vacuum leak from a line you did not connect, did not reattach, has a crack now that it was removed, twisted around a bit and reinstalled?

And what did you actually do to the carbs? Bit confused by the "opened them up " and " I didn't change anything, settings etc."
What did you open up? just take the fuel bowl off? that and removed the jets? Take the caps off? remove the vacuum valve and needle assembly?
None of the above? All of the above ? More then the above?

smokinjoe73

You will need to dig through the posts on here to gain knowledge of carbs in general and these in specific.

Does the bike start easily? does it run for more than a few min? Also you say its hot meaning the motor/coolant temp rises?

You may have botched the coolant lines that go thru the carbs or maybe the vacuum line that opens the petcock PVLR maybe you put it on the wrong nipple since that is easy to do. Then its starving for gas one carb first then the other.

Maybe its worth making a video of the stuff you did and putting it on utube for us to look at.

The carbs setups are not identical front to back so only disassemble them one at a time or be real careful about parts.

BobFrapples

I removed the carb assembly, I removed the bowl caps one at a time and on each I removed the emulsion tube and pilot jet, both looked brand new, anyway I ran a thin wire through all of the jets holes, nothing clogged or dirty, I did one at a time so as not to mix anything up. I put the bowl cap back on each carb. I also took off the short coolant hose that runs between carbs, the nozzles where kinda cruddy, I cleaned all four coolant nozzles as well as I could. I didn't do anything else to the carbs, I didn't change the idle setting, a/f mixture, anything. I then reinstalled the carburetors. Most of the hose connections are pretty obvious because of hose size, length, position and the curvature from being connected so long. But a few of the thinner hoses, I want positive about, so I made my best logical guess. Starting took a couple tries(gas was working it's way to the carbs) it fired right up but sounded different, hard to describe though but it was quite than normal.. The bike was sitting there idling, after only 30 seconds or so the bike was already at 95 degrees, a minute later 120, a minute later 150. Usually it takes 5 minutes or so of riding just to register 95, a few miles down the road I would normally hit 130, and my normal running temp is about 185. So for this bike, it was heating up EXTREMELY fast. So I got on, rode away and it felt super bogged down, it wouldn't let me rev it higher than 6000. And the heat this whole time is climbing rapidly, 5 miles from my house I was already at 230 degrees, previously I had never seen it so hot, on the hottest day here at 115 degrees in the summer idling in traffic, the hottest the bike has ever been was 224. So I pulled over, let it cool down, then road home hitting 240 by the time I got home. I know now, after reading the manual that I downloaded that my hose connections are indeed correct. I am thinking that maybe in the process of trying to clean the two pairs of nozzles that connect to the coolant hoses that I may have jammed them up preventing coolant from flowing. I am considering bypassing the carbs all together and just connecting the two coolant hoses together. But I'm not sure.

smokinjoe73

Nope that's not it because you can clamp those 2 hoses off completely and it has almost no effect on anything. I rode for years that way.
I sounds like in technical terms you "screwed something up" on reinstall. Remove them and do it again. The temp thing is weird and I don't know if super lean running would even cause it to heat like that so you can also imagine cavitated coolant or low oil or a combo of that.
If it ran OK previous just redo your work. DId you remove the other side of the carbs? If you tore a diaphragm that would be bad for running. Check that you are getting strong fuel flow when you put vacuum to the petcock. If its a dribble then yeah lean running would torment you.

Like Erik Marquez said, never assume that what you think Is the problem is really the problem. Just cuz you touched the carbs doesn't mean its them (although I think it is here) but realize it could be elsewhere.

BobFrapples

Can anyone tell me which hose connects to this nozzle right behind the idle screw?

smokinjoe73

That's a vacuum port. Provides vacuum to the petcock to open it and flow gas. If its blank then your not getting gas flow.

Do you own a repair manual? Diagrams in there.

BobFrapples

Neither the paper copy nor the manual I downloaded show this nozzle, I've spent hours searching.

superhawk138

I came across this thread that shows that nipple on California models. In the post it's referred to as "C" which should be capped. https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...routing-18484/

BobFrapples

Thank you so much! I've been dumbfounded by it.

smokinjoe73

Oh yeah cali model comes with that on each cylinder. I put one on mine for carb sync. Yeah cap it with a good quality vac cap or the fuel will make it fail & youll be chasing gremlins forever.

BobFrapples

Wait a sec, doesnt the one on the rear cylinder go to the gas tank?

smokinjoe73

One to tank one capped if you have 2. If one then just to tank. They are the same as each other.

BobFrapples

Oh ok, cool. So I followed the same steps that the other Cali bike went through on that thread you linked me to. The bike is running back to normal, no power lag, no problem getting up to red line, but it's still overheating. I know for 100% sure all of my hoses are now correct, but still the bike heats up super fast and shows no signs of cooling down. My normal running temp is about 185 to 190, and it takes a good 5 minutes of riding to get there. Just now I was up to 240 in about 3 minutes. I pulled into my driveway and felt my radiators, the left side felt hot but cool enough to touch, the right side radiator was room temp. I dont understand, it's been doing this since I first had the stupid idea to clean my carbs. Could it possibly be air in the line? I dont see how that could cause such and extreme change in temp.

superhawk138

Quite possible it's trapped air in the system or a bugged out temp sensor.

BobFrapples

Trapped air in the system!! Got her going back to normal now, thanks so much for all the help!

BobFrapples

My baby

Wicky

Looks like it's been in a fight or two

You can get Carbonadi carbon fibre engine covers that will hide the previous damage and offer protection if it goes down again on the tarmac. And you might want to think about upgrading to manual cam chain tensioners.

Carbonadi - clutch protector VTR1000 Firestorm clutch protector HONDA VTR1000 Firestorm

VTR1000 S'hawk/F'storm