The Reasonably Priced Used Motorcycles for Sale Thread

How many CC were the bikes you were ice racing?

Like I mentioned, it was never a deal with the 250ccs. The 150cc did okay. Both 50ccs were really prone to freezing and sending me home on a bus lol
I had a Suzuki TM250 and a Honda SL125
Since leaf/snow blowers with tiny engines work well in winter I suspect you where having water in the gas issues.
I always ran a small percentage of 99.9 percent Isopropyl alcohol in the gas in the winter to take care of water.
Water will form a ball in gas that can act as a check valve in a jet.
The alcohol is attracted to the water lowering the freezing point & making it "wetter" so it can be sucked thru the jet.
Water can also collect in petcocks, filters and low points in the fuel line creating grief.
 
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The half-assed way he loaded that was verging on rage-bait, but impressive nonetheless. Perfect way to ride somewhere and strand yourself through over-fuelling, at least until a day layer...
I guess we all know how well cans of beer travel when their allowed to rub up against each other. Hmmm this can is very light and my topbox smells like a brewery.

When I had my Wing space was so abundant one year I showed up at Ride 4 Sight with a saddle bag full of beer on ice. That's how you transport beer on a bike!
 
I had a Suzuki TM250 and a Honda SL125
Since leaf/snow blowers with tiny engines work well in winter I suspect you where having water in the gas issues.
I always ran a small percentage of 99.9 percent Isopropyl alcohol in the gas in the winter to take care of water.
Water will form a ball in gas that can act as a check valve in a jet.
The alcohol is attracted to the water lowering the freezing point & making it "wetter" so it can be sucked thru the jet.
Water can also collect in petcocks, filters and low points in the fuel line creating grief.

Interesting. Would the fact what I was on were scooters, using CVT transmissions, and auto chokes (or auto not enough chokes), basically the same setup as the Navi I think, make any difference?
 
Interesting. Would the fact what I was on were scooters, using CVT transmissions, and auto chokes (or auto not enough chokes), basically the same setup as the Navi I think, make any difference?
Scooter motors mounted low and back likely means they ingest a lot of water/snow/slush. My guess would be carb and/or air filter icing. If you rigged up carb heat from a custom exhaust, I suspect they would behave better (although be down on power).
 
Interesting. Would the fact what I was on were scooters, using CVT transmissions, and auto chokes (or auto not enough chokes), basically the same setup as the Navi I think, make any difference?
I have never had a motorcycle with an automatic choke but have had plenty of grief with them in cars.
Yamaha had a very complicated auto choke system on some scooters that had issues.
Toward the end of carb use the engines where run lean to pass polution standards and that caused cold running issues.
I had to increase my 2003 KLR250 jet size to get it to run on a cool morning (10 degrees)
Electronic fuel injection has solved those problems but created others.
 
Interesting. Would the fact what I was on were scooters, using CVT transmissions, and auto chokes (or auto not enough chokes), basically the same setup as the Navi I think, make any difference?
Small 4 strokes (59cc) can be tough in real sub zero weather for a few reasons:

Tiny carbs are susceptible to ice blocking. Pilot and small passages. A little gasoline antifreeze (alcohol, sea foam and such).

Fuel is harder to vaporize sub zero - this narrows the window of starve to flood, finding a good starting procedure like full choke and 1/8th throttle helps lot. A shot of ether will also help.

Oil drag. Small 4 strokes lose power to thick oil, and take a long time to warm the oil. Step down to 5w or even 0w to help with cold winter starting. A 50cc motor will need at least 5 minutes at high idle to get up to temp.

The hardest part is starting. Once the engines reach operating temps, 50cc engines will operate fine in the cold.
 
Change your spark plugs for a hotter heat range.
 
Small 4 strokes (59cc) can be tough in real sub zero weather for a few reasons:

Tiny carbs are susceptible to ice blocking. Pilot and small passages. A little gasoline antifreeze (alcohol, sea foam and such).

Fuel is harder to vaporize sub zero - this narrows the window of starve to flood, finding a good starting procedure like full choke and 1/8th throttle helps lot. A shot of ether will also help.

Oil drag. Small 4 strokes lose power to thick oil, and take a long time to warm the oil. Step down to 5w or even 0w to help with cold winter starting. A 50cc motor will need at least 5 minutes at high idle to get up to temp.

The hardest part is starting. Once the engines reach operating temps, 50cc engines will operate fine in the cold.
My BMW K75 hated starting in the cold. I carried a torch under the seat. If it was much below zero, I'd pull the plugs and heat them with a torch until glowing before I bothered cranking it. Once running it was happy. I never could track down the root of the problem. Injectors were cleaned and tested with no effect.
 
Small 4 strokes (59cc) can be tough in real sub zero weather for a few reasons:

Tiny carbs are susceptible to ice blocking. Pilot and small passages. A little gasoline antifreeze (alcohol, sea foam and such).

Fuel is harder to vaporize sub zero - this narrows the window of starve to flood, finding a good starting procedure like full choke and 1/8th throttle helps lot. A shot of ether will also help.

Oil drag. Small 4 strokes lose power to thick oil, and take a long time to warm the oil. Step down to 5w or even 0w to help with cold winter starting. A 50cc motor will need at least 5 minutes at high idle to get up to temp.

The hardest part is starting. Once the engines reach operating temps, 50cc engines will operate fine in the cold.

Mine would start just fine in the cold, but freeze along the way home sometimes.

If anything, the more common starting issue was if I forgot to cover the bike the night before, I sometimes needed to hit the ignition key switch with a blow dryer for a while to unfreeze it.
 
Freezing
Mine would start just fine in the cold, but freeze along the way home sometimes.

If anything, the more common starting issue was if I forgot to cover the bike the night before, I sometimes needed to hit the ignition key switch with a blow dryer for a while to unfreeze it.
freezing up happens if the engine doesn’t tea ch operating temps or if you have water in the fuel system. Proper warmup and gasoline antifreeze fix those issues.
 
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