More woes from a 23 year old bike

So I'll get right to it...normally, my old 87 VFR is the perfect example of age-old Honda reliability. Lately though, it's been giving me plenty of grief. I can ride it around for about 15 minutes or so, be it around town or freeway riding, and it acts and feels just fine. After about 15 minutes though, the bike just sputters and dies. It almost seems as if its starving for fuel, though I can't confirm nor deny this suspicion. It has done this to me twice now, the first time it died on the freeway (scary to be cruising at 70mph with a dead engine that won't start), and the second time I was lucky and right by the house. The first time it died like this from the freeway, I pulled it over and it wouldn't start to save its life, though the second when I was by the house, I quickly garaged the bike and was at least able to get it started up with full choke engaged.

Does this indicate a carb issue? What in the world am I looking at? I've already replaced a pretty nasty looking fuel filter, so that's brand new...the fuel pump still pushes gas into the carbs, and I don't see or smell any fuel leaking anywhere.

Any ideas or suggestions guys? I'm totally at a loss, here.

 

Same EXACT thing happened to me and oddly and stupidly enough, it was a kinked fuel line. I spent a good part of the day checking fuel pump, checked the filter, went all over the lines and I noticed right under the tank the fat fuel line going to the pump looked like it had recently been kinked. Put my tank back on and when I peeked through my side fairing, I notice it was kinked between the rear head and the tank. Positioned it differently with my fingers, and problem solved. Other than that, I would try running a 1/3 bottle of SeaFoam through it with a full tank of gas, and if that doesnt do anything check your jets. But this issue sounds exactly like my line kink problem I had.

 

Are you getting spark to the plugs when the bike stops running? The easiest way to check is to remove the spark plug and put it back in the spark plug cap and then ground it to the engine while turning over. I also recommend checking the carb boots to make sure you don't have any leaks and also check to see if the carb bowls are filled with gas when the bike stops.

Rollin

 

Or you could just hold on to the end of the wire and wait for the jolt. heehee:crazy:

 

Dont use the plug from the engine, it may have petrol on the tip and poof-seen it happen! Doesn't sound like a sprkin problem to me, may be a vacuum issue. Is the vacuum line from the fuel tank blocked? Usually a hole just inside the filler cap that runs through and under the bike via a rubber hose!

 

i had an issue just like that too....it ended up being my fuel pump was starting to go bad. it finally bit the dust and i put a 3-5 psi universal one from napa. no problems now

 

If you're not getting sparks when it stops, test your pick-up coils' (a.k.a. pulse generators) resistance at the plug cuz those are components that may work OK at first but fail when engine reaches full operating temperature.

 

Any changes to your tank venting recently? Ive had this happen when I put a california gas cap on a 49 state tank.