superhawk996

For '01 Honda moved the connector up a little bit and maybe did a slightly better job of sealing it. For a very long time it was assumed that Honda's fix cured the problem, but all it did was prolong the inevitable. My '01 had the connector corrosion issue and others have reported it too. In my case it started out with the classic symptoms; occasional FI light flicker, engine sputter/occasional stalling, and quickly progressed to a point where I didn't trust riding it. Maybe it's what happened to yours and it got parked, maybe, just my guess. I think the pump ground is one of the several that are bundled with the test connector. If you find that the ground is why your pump won't run verify where it's ground is, it could be somewhere else. Either way, I suggest that you check the connector anyway. If you catch it before any corrosion starts it's an easy fix to keep it good. Left unchecked long enough corrosion can wick far up the wires.

What area do you live in? We have people all over the place that'll lend a hand.

The pump itself works and you have 12v+ at the connector so I'm guessing it has no ground. My guess is the wire loom test connector is the culprit. It's also possible that you're getting 12v+ to your meter with the pump disconnected, but there's a high resistance somewhere so that with the pump connected it doesn't get power. Test for 12+ at the connector with the pump connected. If you get power then it's the ground. You could run a jumper to the ground side to verify that the bike delivers power and the pump runs, then chase down the ground problem. I'm tired & lazy, but if you search 'test connector' or "wire loom fix" you should find more details.

That bike was more clunky than it should have been, my guess is that the clutch brake thing, whatever it's called, had worn out. I remember on your 2000 if the clutch was held more than a second or so the clutch would completely stop and sometimes wouldn't go into gear, like when the engine is off. My '97 was very clunky on Rotella, a little less on bike specific oil, and pretty decent on the current super special race oil. The shifts are amazingly smooth, like it just wants to be in the next gear.

Curious to see what that looks like.

Thermostat and housing both changed. Two fewer plates and a device to reduce/eliminate the clunk when shifting into gear from neutral, don't recall the official name of it.

Makes sense that they'd need it since they're so much more powerful than them weak ass fuel infected ones. What I seem to recall is that they're the same size but mounted a little differently. I'm guessing someone else will know for sure.

Very unlikely. Most of the heat issues with Birds is when stopped or moving slow and in those conditions there's little heat being put into the oil and the cooler is doing little or nothing since it doesn't have air flow. The oil temp will have minimal impact on coolant temp unless the cooling system is loaded to capacity which is very unlikely to happen, you'd have to be running really hard in very high ambient temp.

Ram air was added to the FI bikes to help compensate for them being slower.

I think the oil cooler is mounted differently on carb vs FI bikes, maybe because of the ram air being in the way.

I've played with front and rear sprockets a few times without replacing the chain, all used parts in seemingly good condition, and had no issues.

Pretty sure they just reach over the frame into an open space and aren't connected to ducts or air inlets. And the Professional hasn't spoken yet on why boats, carbed bikes, or cars intentionally designed with hot air intakes connected to the exhaust manifold managed to survive more than 5 minutes. I assume he's conjuring up some kinda super senseless babble that will be irrefutable proof.

They don't have ram air, and I believe you are correct. Except that the carbs don't have any way to adjust themselves for temperature so your bike should have an additional advantage.

The carbed Birds don't have ram air, they manage to survive. I made a hot air intake for my first Explorer and it gained MPG and power, and survived towing a boat to AZ and back in hot weather. 'Till around the mid 90's thermostatically controlled heated air intakes were pretty common. Damn near every boat engine, even with turbos or blowers, breathe the hot air in the bilge. But yea, CoLd AiR iS pArAmOuNt!!!

Also difficult to have a rational conversation with an irrational person. There is no doubt that directing the air to the cooler instead of the intake will lower the oil temp, it's just not needed.

"won't work as hard" meaning it becomes less important for it to have great air flow since it has less cooling demand on it. For mild commuter type riding I'd bet you could eliminate the cooler and no harm would be done, hell, it might even do more good than harm.

If they're don't show any obvious wear they should be fine.

I've never checked the oil temp but it's unlikely to be a problem, especially if you're not riding it hard. You'll be trading a hot oil cooler for hot intake air, also unlikely to be a problem, but there is a trade off to consider.

I'd probably use a garden hose, maybe a weak pressure washer. Then flush it out with distilled or RO water so it doesn't spot.

The price was enticing, 'till I added the shipping and $ exchange rate.

No, I refuse to disrespect our dinosaurs like that. I think it was Castrol motorcycle spec 10-40 dino oil, don't remember the exact flavor. '4T' stands out in my mind, but I use Rotella T4 in a lot of shit so that might be clouding my memory. The current Bird has some super duper fancy synthetic 'race' shit that was ridiculously expensive, but it looks and smells pretty. And it did make it shift much more smoothly.

Right after posting I remembered that I have a '97 airbox, there's no drain on it.

If the airbox has a drain, many vehicles do, it could be coming from that. I can't remember what they're called, but it looks kinda like a hose with the end smashed flat and acts as a check valve. Duckbill? If oil from the crank case vent accumulates enough and/or the K&N is oiled heavily enough the oil could drip out of the drain.

The bike had a little over 50k when I sold it and almost 70 when it died, I believe it was still on the oil I sold it with and it had never been checked.

Every engine consumes some oil, even if it's not enough to notice, and I'm guessing that at some point in the 10+ thousand miles of neglect/abuse the engine started using more oil than normal. I showed up to check it out 'knowing' that there was no fucking way the motor was blown and it had to be something else. There was nearly no oil in it and what was in it looked horrifying.