KDXRIDER.NET

Bike has been sitting (fire season) since July 2

It took me 3 WHOLE KICKS to get it to fire up today

I'll cry you a river.

Keep leaving that stuff in your carb and it just may ruin it.

Ethanol is hard on pilot jets. I don't like a dry float bowl but if the bike sits for more than a couple of weeks it will eventually clog the pilot, especially on small bores like 110/140s.

It's also wreaking havoc on marine motors. But the boat repair shops are having a field day!

Last owner of my YZ250 let the bike sit a few monthes with ethanol gas, the carb bowl is mangled, and the seat isn't sealing correctly. The worst part is that the seat is pressed in, and its nearly impossible to find a replacement seat let alone pull it out..

Not my KDX, but I've also had a time with my daughters XR70 sitting up for a month or two without routine start-ups.

That lil b*tch does not want to wind out, "pop - pop, pop - pop", so I guess it's time to pull the carb and soak the jets in some muratic acid yet again.

My kdx seems to tolerate better than my little 4t's. The z50 has to have it's carb cleaned if it sits more than a couple weeks. Not kewl....

XR70, Z50, I see a trend

All the years I've fiddled around with this stuff, I've only had it happen once, and that was in a Chinese Honda copy. Sat for a year, then wouldn't run worth a ****. took the carb apart, blew everything out, and it ran great.

Since I crashed really hard in July, and haven't been riding, I recently had the same experience as Wibbens, except it was 2 kicks.

juliend wrote:My kdx seems to tolerate better than my little 4t's. The z50 has to have it's carb cleaned if it sits more than a couple weeks. Not kewl....

Hmm, my 50 can sit for months

It'll still fire right up, but won't rev out. I guess the pilot gets clogged up easily. I just make a point to start it once a week or so.

Don't run automotive gas. Run AV gas. AV gas doesn't "go bad" nearly as quickly as automotive gas does.

Closest place for me to get AV gas is over an hour away, and not in the direction of any of our riding spots. Not worth paying for the gas in my truck to go get the AV gas.

I have been using nothing but Chevron premium which contains ethanol and I have had no problems with it. When I broke my hand the KDX sat for over a month with the same fuel and it started on the second kick. I'm really not that worried about ethanol.

juliend wrote:Closest place for me to get AV gas is over an hour away, and not in the direction of any of our riding spots. Not worth paying for the gas in my truck to go get the AV gas.

I can see where that isn't practical for you. I can get to two different places that sell AV gas (a "bulk" station and an airport) in 20 minutes or less and my son and I both go near them regularly anyway. No problem for us.

I have to run AV gas or race gas in our two CR250s due to the way I had RB Designs set up the heads. I choose to run AV gas in everything else I own except my truck - motorcycles, boats, lawn mower, weed eater, chain saw, generator...

Wibs maybe you aren't getting gas with much or any eth in it? Take a glass jar full of gas and put some water in it, shake it, and see if the water dissapears. If it does, see how much it takes before it won't dissapear. Just curious. I haven't seen incidents where it only takes two weeks to do damage, but I've pulled apart dozens of small engine bowls that have chalked over with aluminum corrosion. Could be worse with the '87' that's really like 84 octane gas bumped up with ethanol.

All our gas is sposed to have it

Carvr has tried running clear in his KDX but swears it runs better on the e10 (his Banshee prefers clear)

SS109 wrote:I have been using nothing but Chevron premium which contains ethanol and I have had no problems with it. When I broke my hand the KDX sat for over a month with the same fuel and it started on the second kick. I'm really not that worried about ethanol.

I think it is more in peoples heads than anything

I heard nothing but horror stories before all the gas stations here had to start selling it...

And have yet to have any problems

I told a buddy that my truck sat for a year with half a tank of gas, and he told me I need to get rid of that gas somehow, it's just going to cause problems...

My father just wrote a paper over ethanol with an open mind, and with actual data. Kind of shocking really. I'll post it tomorrow if he agrees, should get a kick out of it.

Here is something to ponder, I was looking around on google to find ways of making my Astro more efficient, and this guy filled his tank with ethonal gas for the first time since replacing the fuel pump/filter and cleaning out the gas tank(He had been using ethanol free gas after the rebuild), and he immediately starting getting bad gas mileage(4-6 mpg difference). He then freaked out and refueled again with the regular gas he had been using, and it didn't change anything. Makes you think doesn't it?

Another instance was when I was at sand lake, and I had some spare non ethanol premium and decided to fill my friends bikes as they were empty. Their bikes ran cooler, and ran longer with it than with the ethanol premium. Bikes included a Predator 500, CRF450R, and a Banshee.

I had a suburban in IL and let it sit 1/2 tank all summer and in the fall it wouldn't start...Would sputter and try to fire, that's it....Ether helped. I tried 5gals of fresh e10 with no luck. Put in 2gals of e85 on a gamble, sit overnight, fired up, ran like **** until all of that gas was gone. Once it fired I threw in a qt of marvels in hopes it would help combat the excessive alky in the system. It ran fine after that. That's my worst e10 story personally.

If you keep a full tank it's bound to help A LOT as the h2o in the tank is coming from the AIR left in the tank.

Again, I think 87oct e10 is the worst as it is just plain **** gas to start with.