Does Heat Suck Gas?

[zen_kick]

I have an absolutely new 2004 Ballabio. 1500-ish miles on the clock. Tuned at 850 miles (late for my 600 mile service). Love the ride, way comfortable, reliable etc.

 

I am finding as of last week, my new 2004 Ballabio stuttering and losing power when riding on hot days. Is this a problem anyone else has seen? The wizards at MI are looking into it but I wanted to get informaiton from the commuity to see if anyone has seen and solved this problem already.

 

More details:

 

Last week the heat finally arrived to Seattle. I rode home in stop and go traffic at about 75-80 temperature and, once I got off the freeway, the Ballabio exhibited intermittent stuttering behavior whenever the throttle was opened all the way home. Figured maybe the "tank-suck" problem wasn't really fixed by 2004 and I let the bike cool off wanting to check it in the morning.

 

Morning came and the Ballabio sat in the driveway in the sun while I took care of some chores at home. About lunchtime I hopped on to get a sandwich and found the problem again. Open throttle, bike stutters, really open throttle and it feels like it tops out on acceleration at about 4000 rpm. If it was a carburetted bike I would assume something was blocking a jet on one side.

 

I took it to Moto International and a couple of the techs rode it. They figured out that the problem really shows up climbing hills. Rolled the bike inside, pulled the tank to be sure there were no kinks in the fuel lines, found nothing wrong. Reset the computer, test rode it again - worked fine. Rolled the bike out front (because it looks so stunning it just begs to be shown off of course!) where it heated up in the sun for a couple of hours until I could come to collect it. I hop on, head for home and of course bog down on the first hill I try.

 

Seems to be heat related. Seems to be a fuel flow problem. Anyone have trouble running their V11 in the heat? If so, what was the behavior and what did you do about it?

[docc]

Look for a fuel line lying too close to the cylinder fins, especiaaly on the left side.

 

Otherwise, a cracked or loose intake rubber could give these symptoms . . .

[zen_kick]

Thanks for the advice. The MI wizards declared it a bum fuel pump and I do say that the new one appears to work much better - including cold starts. Weather has cooled down here though so the true test will be when we hit the 80's again - for two whole days in August.

 

This means I am back on the Ballabio again - 1600 miles in a month.