Highway Speed Help

[Bakmatj]

Hello everyone!
I am a brand new member of XS11 and I just purchased my first XS11 Special about a week ago and love it, but am just trying to figure a couple of things out.

Quick question...
When I take a highway speed ride (55-60 mph), after about twenty minutes of solid riding my bike begins to "lose it's juice" and is unable to perform the way it normally does otherwise. When I give it throttle it lets off more of a shake than anything, and when I pull off the highway to see whats wrong it tends to almost stall if not stall (It almost sounds like its running out of gas, when it isn't). After about 10-20 seconds of rest, I fire it up and it runs perfectly again.

Just wondering if anyone else has had a problem similar to this, Thanks!

-Matt

[bikerphil]

Welcome. First I'd try running the bike with the petcocks in the "prime' position. This will bypass the fuel shutoff valve (octy) which is prone to fail, and take that out of the equation.

And yes, I've had that exact problem. Good luck!

[Bakmatj]

bikerphil, I have not tried that yet but I will first thing tomorrow morning and post again with the turn out. Thanks for the reply!

[CatatonicBug]

My first thought is that the fuel tank vent is plugged. There is a vent in the filler cap that can get plugged over time. It allows air to replace the fuel that is let out the petcocks. The seal will slowly let air back in when you pull over or ckeck the fuel level, but not fast enough while going down the road. Try talking the cap apart and cleaning the vent hole.

[Bakmatj]

CatatonicBug, Thanks for the reply!
I will have to take a look at that tomorrow, and post back with anything I find.

[jmnjrpa]

Two more

The fuel lines may be kinked or your filters (on top of your petcocks in the tank) may be trashed up.

[nutwister]

Cbug has a good point. When it starts to act up open the gas cap (the key will come out when the ignition is on) and see if it goes away. That is the Quickest test.

I've seen and heard of this quite often.

[cywelchjr]

Just a point, to get to the valve, you MUST disassemble the cap, as the valve is buried in the middle of the cap, there are a couple of disks with holes that don't line up designed to be a one way valve, they can get crud in ANY of the holes which will make it not work anymore. There is also a piece of cloth in there as a filter that I GUESS could get such that it wasn't porous anymore, but I doubt it. But I swapped caps between my old tank and the new, and the vent was clogged on the other cap, but it has a MUCH better seal and such, as well as actually closing more securely, so i cleaned it and put it on, and so far, it's working great, but it does sound like the valve, which the easiest fix is to make sure you have an extra key and have it in it, ride till it starts to have trouble and reach down and open the cap, if the problem goes right away, that is the problem, if that doesn't fix it, then you need to look at the octy, as if their not working right they can not stay open under higher load (such as higher speeds) and cause fuel starvation, but I'd check the cap first, and then try running it on prime if that doesn't work.

[Bakmatj]

Hey everyone,

I took the bike for a longer ride today and messed with the gas cap when the problems occured, Including fully opening it. Nothing really seemed to change, and if it did it didn't bring it back to full power. Tomorrow I'm taking the bike to work which I will try running on the prime setting to see if i can get it to work.

Thanks again for all the input, and I will post back with what I find.

[natemoen]

I just moved from Hopkins about 2 months ago. Would have been great to have another XS right nearby, too bad I am now 5 1/2 hour away. Good luck man.

It does sound like your having a fuel delivery problem though.
Could be the screws on the float valve are a little bit plugged and it slows down the fuel flow into the bowls.

[cywelchjr]

Well, if it's still doing it with the cap open, then I'm going to guess at partially plugged screens on the needle valve seats. I've not had that happen with my 11, but my 400 had that problem. Had to clean the crud out of the delivery area. Took the seats out and flushed liberally with carb cleaner and used a q-tip to work the stuff out. Took a while, but fuel delivery is great on those carbs now. Of course I've not been into the carbs on my 11 yet, as they just work great, the only thing I've done was tweak the idle mix slightly and sync. Must have something to do with never being parked for more than 3 days, and that is rare even.

[Bakmatj]

The Results Are In!

So with a 76 degree day and not a cloud in the sky I took my bike for a little cruise... That lasted about an hour longer than I was planning! After trying opening the gas cap to check if my gas cap vent was the problem again, I then switched my petcocks to the Prime setting. The bike ran beautifully the whole ride, cruised steadily at highway speeds, had no problem with hitting the throttle, and no shakes at all. Now what I'm wondering is if it is my octy, can I run my xs on the prime setting as a normal setting, or should I look at getting it fixed?

Natemoen,
that's a bummer man!
It would have been to see another xs and cruise around with another xs in Hopkins.

Thanks again for all the help everyone,
I'm planning to check every suggestion I recieve, and really appreciate it.

[Bakmatj]

Cywelchjr,

haha I'm with yah!
Ever since the day I brought it home it hasn't sat for more then the time at work...

[bikerphil]

Remove and bypass the octy, JMHO. If you run prime all the time, you'll have no reserve.

[nutwister]

Are there fuel filters on the main fuel lines? Maybe clogged? Vacuum line to the octy leaking? Vacuum line to the octy plugged into the intake boot and NOT the carb?

Don't just jump into surgery, check EVERYTHING that could cause the symptom.