[fiveminutes]

So, I just bought a 2006 Kawasaki Ninja 250. I picked it up in Tampa, FL on Saturday, and rode it all the way home to Jacksonville, FL just fine, keeping up just fine with all the other cars on I75. I didn't ride it on Sunday, but today, getting ready to go to school, I noticed that when I started the bike, with the choke fully open, it only rev'd to about 5000RPMs. I didn't really think anything of it, and honestly, being a new bike owner, I don't really know much about bikes. While on a local highway, I tried to accelerate past 55 MPH to no avail. I thought maybe I wasn't in 6th gear, but a double check showed that I was. I thought maybe I was running off my reserve tank, pulled over, checked that, was in the ON position. I noticed that in first and second gear, I can get it to rev to about 8000RPM, but any gear higher than that, nothing past about 5000 - 6000RPM. I'm not sure when the carbs were last cleaned, or when the spark plugs have been changed, but I plan on at least running a carb cleaner through the gas tank and changing the spark plugs on Friday afternoon (The bike is my only means of transportation and I go to school every day, so unfortunately, I can't attempt to fix anything until Friday afternoon), changing the oil, basically doing routine maintenance so I know when things were last changed/checked. I went to Cycle Gear and asked one of the guys there and he said it sounds like an ignition coil problem? I don't notice any sputtering, so he doesn't think it is a carb problem. Has anyone experienced this or have any insights on what the problem might be or what kind of troubleshooting I can do? I'm somewhat cager maintenance inclined, but this is my first bike, and I am completely bike rider and maintenance noob, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[TheRussian]

Honestly I doubt it's the coil, if a coil is dead, you get no spark, it's not intermittent like that

 

[nevada]

does it need the choke to start in florida?
and revving it to 8k on a cold start isnt such a good idea.

 

[STiEX]

It needs a choke on some cold mornings in Florida, I'm here in Jacksonville as well, with an 08 250R.

About your problem, hit up Jacksonville Powersports on Atlantic, they're genuine guys and have helped me out with a few problems.

Once you get everything working lemme know if you wanna ride man, I'm always down to go out and about.

 

[VeX]

You MIGHT have something like a vacuum leak. When the bike starts to run really lean it'll act like it's hitting a wall at higher RPMs. I'd check to see if possibly a hose is not connected to one of the carbs or if you can hear a sucking noise around either of the carbs.

 

[fiveminutes]

Ok, update on the problem. I was riding home from school tonight, throttle maxed out just to get it to 55, and then it felt like it sputtered and came to life. I took it on the highway to check it out, and I easily got it to 75-80 MPH, with the RPMs between 8 and 9k. Since the power literally "kicked in" I noticed that it feels much more powerful than it did when I was struggling for it to get to and stay at 55 MPH. It literally felt like I had a ninja moped when I was struggling to get it to 55 MPH Can this be an indication of dirty carbs? I'm going to change the spark plugs, oil, top fluids, etc. this weekend, and I'd rather only have to hopefully drain and remove the gas tank once, so if it's the carbs, I'd rather take them apart and start breaking them down on Friday so I can hopefully have a better running bike on Monday.

STiEX - I'll hit them up tomorrow before class and see if they might have any insight on the problem.

 

[fiveminutes]

does it need the choke to start in florida?
and revving it to 8k on a cold start isnt such a good idea.

I didn't rev it to 8k on a cold start/choke, it wouldnt go past 5k on choke, but I wanted to see what gears it would go past 5k and 1st and 2nd were the only gears it would do it in. I guess it was squid troubleshooting?

 

[JBird]

Maybe you just had a clogged line? Regardless you should definitely clean the carbs, change the oil, etc.

 

[tanabe350z]

Suggestions:

It's either getting to much or to little of fuel. Cleaning the carbs could help. Try to buy a rebuild kit for the carbs.

The motor isn't getting enough battery juice to the ignition coil. Check CDI box or any other rectifier's on the engine harness.

Check the valve cover where the spark plugs go into. check to see if there's oil at the bottom. Sometimes the gasket starts to leak oil and it will collect in the cavity.

If nothing helped above: Turn on the bike. Take off one spark plug wire and notice for an idle change. This will be normal. Put the spark plug wire you removed back in and do this to the rest of them. If you pull a plug out and there's no idle change, this will indicate the cylinder is not working. DOn't panic. It's prolly a spark plug, spark plug wire, or coil. Worst case would be the cylinder is loosing complete compression.

 

[reddoak]

Just a heads up... don't grab a spark plug wire on a running bike without gloves. Very low amperage... but plenty of voltage. I did it once. On a bike with bad wire.

Once.

 

[nevada]

Ok, update on the problem. I was riding home from school tonight, throttle maxed out just to get it to 55, and then it felt like it sputtered and came to life. I took it on the highway to check it out, and I easily got it to 75-80 MPH, with the RPMs between 8 and 9k. Since the power literally "kicked in" I noticed that it feels much more powerful than it did when I was struggling for it to get to and stay at 55 MPH. It literally felt like I had a ninja moped when I was struggling to get it to 55 MPH Can this be an indication of dirty carbs? I'm going to change the spark plugs, oil, top fluids, etc. this weekend, and I'd rather only have to hopefully drain and remove the gas tank once, so if it's the carbs, I'd rather take them apart and start breaking them down on Friday so I can hopefully have a better running bike on Monday.

STiEX - I'll hit them up tomorrow before class and see if they might have any insight on the problem.

change the plugs to start.

 

[slev]

My 250 did the same thing at the start of the year. I had run some seafoam through it to try and clean up the dirty carbs to get it to simply run nicer, it would only go about 90kph, wide open.

After a little while (less than a minute) it started snorting a bit, cleaned itself out, and powered up back to normal.

Been fine ever since.

 

[fiveminutes]

Well, I believe I found the problem of my 250 Ninja Moped I had earlier this week. When I pulled the tank off to change my spark plugs (which were a lovely color of brownish-black) and changed the air filter, I noticed some excellent clanking sound in the tank after I completely emptied the gas. The latch for the gas cap (new one is on order and should be here soon), was dropped/pried off and left in the tank. I'm assuming this is the reason why I was not getting enough power, but I could be wrong. So far I've changed the oil, air filter, spark plugs and fixed my turn signal problem. I threw some seafoam into the gas tank to hopefully clean the carbs. I didn't want to pull them off, because I was not comfortable pulling them apart and putting them back together and syncing them. Hopefully this has fixed my problem and it might help someone else who runs across this unfortunate problem as well.

 

[warlordK]

Hopefully you have it sorted.

In case you didn't, my impression is that you're not getting enough fuel to support high RPMs. I would remove the inline fuel filter and replace it with a clear plastic high flow fuel filter. Of course cleaning out the gas tank at the same time would be advisable.