I have an '06 stocker and I just adjusted the valves to the stock .002 setting and it seems to idle really high on me when it gets hot. It gets to the point where if I wanna ride for any length of time I have to adjust the idle several times. It's also not very smooth off the bottom on the throttle either. It feels dead until about half way up the rev range. I'm new to the fiddys but I know that what power it has should be smooth right off the bottom and I'm not getting it. Probably something simple but I am not good w/ carbs so any help would be much appreciated.

 

maybe wrong jet?

 

or could it be a leak in your intake gasket causing a vaccum leak ?

 

intake is good just pulled all that apart so i'm thinking it's all in the carb... D'OH!

 

If all you did was set valve clearance , then the carb is not messed up . You don't mess with the carb when doing that . But now you say you took it all apart so make sure everything is ok (like the carb to intake gasket .

And recheck the valve adjusment when it is cold . Then see how it runs .

 

My xr50 idles low when the choke is off any ideas

 

no i meant that i had checked the gasket and is fine....valves were done after bike sat for two days so was definitely cold and rechecked the adjustment when i saw that it didn't help....only think i can think for why it would be like this is carb setup....but like i said....that skill evades me....

 

So the bike ran fine before it sat for the 2 days?

 

both of those problems came with the bike when i bought it.... it was always sluggish off the bottom and idled high....i adjusted the idle and the valves thinking it just needed a little tweak and would be good but after valves it's still idling real high when hot and revving high after i let off the throttle and fells like from no throttle to bout 1/2 is weak on power.

 

hows the spark plug?

 

It's kinda grayish brown around the electrode with a bunch of soot all the way up the threads.

 

looks like you're running too rich, or the plug is too cold.

 

well i did the stock air box mod the other day and that added some power, evened out the powerband and made the plug look a little better....but i have run out of ideas on how to get it to idle normally...

 

mine was doing this until this morning when it died pretty shure its my intake thats leaking. The gasket may look good but theres an easy way to check for vacuum leaks i use it on cars all the time. i got it running like crap and sprayed a little brake clean on the intake and it should sputter down or die and well mine did so i pulled the gasket out and it looked like this it ran a little better with the gasket out but i can see a hole between the intake and the head when it back fires real back it shot fir out of the hole. well my gasket looks like this so mines obviously bad. i hope this is it for me.

 

yeah that is screwed up bad. i pulled that part. mine is brand new.

 

i made a ghetto cardboard gasket and it now atleast runs just like i got it but if i spray brake slean on it it stalls out so i'm going to look for a gasket today

 

gettin it dialed in....the problem was all in my carb setup.....thanks to all who contributed advice.

 

thats good news now hopefully i can get mine dialed back in since i had my carb completly apart finding an intake leak