Surging at idle and lots of smoke

Guys,

I got my '06 VFR out about 2 weeks ago from its winter hibernation. It fired right up, despite not putting it on a battery tender. I noticed that it was surging a bit at idle when I first started it up, but once I started riding, it settled in and felt great. Over the past couple days I've had to have it around the garage/driveway about 2-3 times where it was running for only 1 or 2 minutes. When I was moving it around yesterday, it stalled and was then hard to start back up. I finally got it restarted and there was heavy smoke coming out the back, and it sounded rough. I cut the engine and just pushed it into the garage.

Any suggestions on next steps? I'm wondering if running it a few times and not letting it warm up let too much oil into the cylinders, and it's just burning it off. I appreciate any insight.

Thanks
Andy

 

Oil smoke is blue, gas (running rich) smoke is black, coolant smoke is white. Which color is it?
First tank after winter I would expect it to run bad. Take as much gas as you can out and put some fresh one in. Add some injector cleaner.
Is the check engine light on (bad oxygen sensor)?
I would also take out the air filter off and check it (and the throttle bodies/plates) and lastly, take out the spark plugs and see which cylinder runs rich (to make the difference between a localized (injector) problem and generalized (sensors of some sort).
I hope this helps!

 

Good info from curi.

If the gas was not treated when she went into storage, and you had that shitty ethanol fuel blend in it (which is all we can get in NJ), its quite possible you have may have suffered some phase separation.

 

Guys - Thanks for the good info. I'm going to double check the color of the smoke first - I was too surprised to note the exact color. To clarify, I had ridden the bike without issue last week. I added 5 gallons to the tank, so the fuel is fresh.

 

Stations in cold climates are probably still selling winter blend fuel..something to keep in mind as you diagnose