milo2

whats up everyone, i just registered today. i own a beautiful 1998 superhawk. its my first bike and i really love it. ive had it for about 6 months now it has 51,000 miles, but very clean, and well taken care of.
about 2 months ago i noticed a small crack on the exhaust pipe, directley below oil window. (excuss by bike lingo im really not that familliar with all the parts). so i had that welded and it was fine.
now about two weeks ago it started kinda cutting out in first gear, like bogging out or wanting to die. past first it was fine. so i changeed the sparkplugs cleaned the air filter, i could tell it was running better but problem still persisted. so now its running horible it starts fine. and idles but driving it back fires boggs out, not just in first, but in all gears, cut out on me in fourth gear yesturday.
could this be my exhaust? and how do i go about checking that, and if it is my exhaust what would be the least expensive means of taking care of this problem. thanks for any hepl on this.

PUSHrod

Is it easy to start? Runs okay after you push the choke **** in? But not good after it warms up?

Just for a guess, measure the charge rate to the battery. Your symptoms could be a weak spark from a low battery caused by a marginal charging system. Also could be a partially plugged fuel circuit in one or both of the carbs.

But then, I'm long distance guessing.

7moore7

The exhaust is probably not causing all of this (mine runs without cans on it, although it's not ideal)...

Going down the first to check list after you do PUSHrod's choke test and battery check:

What kind of filter are you running?

Are your petcock hoses hooked up correctly? If you lift up your tank, there is a metal piece near the back. There should be two large hoses hooked up on either side (fuel hoses) and one small one on the very back... not coming out of the bottom... which is a vacuum hose. The other ones on the tank are vent/drain hoses and not really that important. Make sure that your vacuum hoses are in good shape too... at 51k miles you may find a crack.

If you really want to get into it, give the carbs a good cleaning and go through the carb setup that 8541hawk has written... there's a link in my sig. It sounds like you've got a fuel starvation issue which could be simple like the petcock fix or could be a dirty float valve or jets.

Edit: you could try to run cleaner through the carbs too before digging into them. Get some Seafoam or Techron... empty your carb bowls (there's a screw on the bottom of each one), re-tighten the screw, then pour the cleaner in each of the fuel lines after you disconnect them from the petcock. Let it sit in the carbs, and slosh it around back and fourth every 30 minutes or so. Then drain the bowls of the cleaner, re-hook everything up and start your bike.

Squid