My 011 needs attention, but my bike is in the way..

[lateapex911]

I have to instruct soon at Watkins Glen,w whick menas the 911 sees the track at long last....and therefor needs to get cornerweighted, etc...

(Thats the Porsche tie in...)

But my Ninja 900, which has sat for a year or two is taking up the bay and I need help. I know this is probably the wrong forum, but I never look at the bike forums, so I have no idea where to start there...plus, there are lots of reallly bright guys here, so.....


My 84 ZX900 Ninja won't run on more than 2 cylinders....#2, and #3. #1 and #4 are non operative.

I have had the carbs out several times, and taken every needle and jet out that you can, and blown carb cleaner through it until I stink to the heavens...

I have great cranking power, with a new batt and an auto batt jumped in for good measure...

I have replaced the plugs and tested the coils and the ignition pickups, which met all specs per the workshop manual. There is an ignitor which is only testable by Kawasaki, so thats a bit of a question mark, but I have observed spark on all plugs when tested out of the cylinders....so i know it has spark on all cyls when cranking...

I've tried swapping the coils, as a long shot, as cylinders 1 and 4 are run off one coil, hoping the problem would flip into 2 and 3, but it remained the same.

New gas, and I've checked the float levels and they are very close to factory specs. I backed out 1/4 turn on all the idle needles, just to be on the rich side, but no difference was noted.

Finally, the biggest clue is that I ran it without the tank hooked up, and of course, it drained the floatbowls eventually, but I left a float level tube hooked up to the #1 cylinder (one of the non runners,) and it drew no gas down. !??!

That tells me something seems to be up with the carbs, but I'm coming up empty. Can anyone suggest what I might be missing? The 911 needs attention, and the bike needs to get to ebay!

Thanks for ANY help!

[stomachmonkey]

Uhm, you don''t say but do you get compression on 1 and 4? Do 1 and 4 run off the same cam?

[lateapex911]

Thanks for the input!

Yes, I do get what i would consider compression on 1 and 4. My compression tester doesn't fit that sparkplug thread, so I used a rubber plug, and compared all cyclinders to each other. I know it's not a number, but, they felt like they popped the rubber plug (as I held it) with the same force as the other known running cylinders.

Numbers would be better, of course, but the engine should run, even with broken rings or other compression reducing issues. Of course, with NO compression, it wouldn't, but I think we've got sufficient compression to indicate properly working valves, etc.

This is rather frustrating, as it's really a pretty straightforward setup. I have spark, good gas, cleaned out carbs, yet, no joy. I suppose another run through the carbs is in order....

[Joeaksa]

If the float bowl on that carb did not draw fuel, then you probably have some varnish from the old stale gas in the carb, either in the main jet or plugging one of the passageways.

Tried swapping a carb from one to another cylinder and see if the problem followed? Bet it will...

Joe