I have a three-and-a-half year old Kawasaki ER-6F, aka Ninja 650R to you americans. It's always been a bit sensitive about operating temperature - if I started riding it before the engine had come off the automatic choke, it had a tendency to die after acceleration and when stopping at red lights. This would last until the engine got to operating temperature and came off the choke, then it'd operate normally.
As it's my main means of locomotion I don't always have the time to let it idle about two minutes when I start it up before I go (though I do always let it idle for 10-20 seconds to avoid thermal-shocking cold parts of the engine), so this has always irritated me, but it was usually not a big problem.
As time has gone by, however, this has become more of an issue. Now the cold has come again, and keeping the engine running has become troublesome - it now has a tendency to die even after it's come off the choke, for a while at least. The dying doesn't stop until it gets properly hot; then, it works properly - but in the cold months and in short-range city riding, it can easily happen that it never gets hot enough. I've actually developed the instinct to never let the throttle off completely when riding in the city, but I often forget.
The bike is soon due for maintenance, and I'm planning to ask the trained monkeys at Kawasaki to check the injectors - I suspect they might have become clogged - but I'll so not be surprised if they apparently fix it, and then it resumes this irritating behaviour after two hours.
What do you think could be happening here?
Thanks.
As it's my main means of locomotion I don't always have the time to let it idle about two minutes when I start it up before I go (though I do always let it idle for 10-20 seconds to avoid thermal-shocking cold parts of the engine), so this has always irritated me, but it was usually not a big problem.
As time has gone by, however, this has become more of an issue. Now the cold has come again, and keeping the engine running has become troublesome - it now has a tendency to die even after it's come off the choke, for a while at least. The dying doesn't stop until it gets properly hot; then, it works properly - but in the cold months and in short-range city riding, it can easily happen that it never gets hot enough. I've actually developed the instinct to never let the throttle off completely when riding in the city, but I often forget.
The bike is soon due for maintenance, and I'm planning to ask the trained monkeys at Kawasaki to check the injectors - I suspect they might have become clogged - but I'll so not be surprised if they apparently fix it, and then it resumes this irritating behaviour after two hours.
What do you think could be happening here?
Thanks.
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