superhawk996

This is what the cooler salesmen tell you to scare you into buying their product. Tho your coolant temp may show 200, that's the temp leaving the motor. The cooler is always at the cold end of the radiator and way below that or the engine would overheat long before you could hurt the trans. Regardless, the trans and the fluid will not be damaged at all at 220. Externals can help if you NEED one, but hurt otherwise. You want the fluid to warm up as fast as possible and if the fluid always stays cold it'll accumulate water and other stuff and be a bigger problem. You want all your oils to regularly get hot enough to shed water or it will accumulate. At 207K miles you've proven you don't need a cooler. Would the solenoid have lasted longer with one, maybe. Would the fluid have accumulated water and possibly become acidic and attacked stuff with one, maybe. I have many cars & trucks, and tow regularly. I've never lost a trans and don't have any add on coolers.

It's probably leaking somewhere hidden and evaporating. Pull the tank and look at the hoses and stuff behind the motor. Some leaks will only flow cold then seal up as things expand and soften, some only with a hot engine when there's pressure.

Woohoo! I had a gut feeling (and hoped) the crappy idle might be carb synch and not plugged jets and it was. It was so far off I'm guessing someone did it, there's no way it could wear/shift on it's own this badly. At idle two throttle plates were fully shut, one open about normal, and one way open. I don't have a synch set so I used the force and some engine whispering. I can now back the idle under 400RPM before it chugs and dies out, at 1100 I can barely feel it running and the clutch clatter is entirely gone. I can now feel the normal off-idle lean spot, but I'm going to enjoy riding 'till it gets shitty cold then re-jet and do a major service at the same time.

I peaked out at 255 at about 23 years age and did a fast. I was loosing weight fast enough to step on a scale 2-3 times a day and see it dropping. I went down to 165 and crept back to 175-180 where I've hovered for about 20 years. I can't say I'd recommend my lifestyle of coffee, rum, and cigarettes, but at least the weight stayed off. The only thing I can attribute to keeping lean is activity. I don't do any gym type exercise, but I'm relatively active in day to day life. I eat all wrong; no breakfast and large dinners. I eat mostly meats but carbs as well, so keeping active is my only salvation in not being fat again. If you have a desk job you need a gym or preferably a hot chick(s), that's great exercise and a morale booster!

Yes it does but there is no point in revving it past red line. Cool. I know there's no point, just wanted to know I have back-up for when..I mean in case I screw up. Thanks.

Squeeze the clutch and the noise goes away, so yup, clutch rattle.

I'm excited to get to work on it, but don't have the time right now. I put some Techron in the tank; it works wonders on injectors, carbs not so sure. The idle is rough and the clutch rattles. The guy selling it said it's cuz it has 'some kind of wet clutch set up', I rolled my eyes and said "yea, like every other Japanese bike, if it had a dry clutch this would be ok". It rattles more than I'd expect for just having a light misfire, sounds similar to the Ducati 999 I had, so there may be something going on with the clutch too. The guy let the registration laps so I only get to stare at it 'till I get that taken care of. Ok, I had to take another test ride after unloading, but then back to just thinking about riding. Question, these do have a rev limiter right? I've only ridden mellow, no more than about 10K RPM so far.

Thanks guys. That is about what I expected. I took another short spin today and confirmed she probably needs some carb love. I'll wait 'till I've checked a few things out before stripping them, but it seems to be a carb issue.

I just bought it and I'm wondering what's considered normal or proper use of the choke and how long it takes the motor to run normal without the choke on. It has stock exhaust and I'm assuming stock jetting. It seemed to take a fairly long time running to idle without some choke and it was about 80 degrees out. I know some engines take longer than others so if anyone can clue me in to an ambient temp. and time to perfect idle or a position of the temp gauge when I should expect it to be running right I'd greatly appreciate it. The seller is not the brightest bulb in the box and was pretty clueless. The bike also sat a for an unknown time so it may need a carb overhauling, but getting some kind of baseline of what's normal will help to figure out if it needs work. THANKS!