Ninja 250 Idling

[somethingclever]

All,

I have a 2001 Ninja 250. It starts right up with no choke on warm days. However, after about 5-10 minutes of idling, the engine wants to die. The only way to keep it running is to continuously give it a little throttle. It has pretty fresh gas in it (1 week), fully charged battery, oil recently changed, etc.

Any ideas as to what could be causing this? Based on other threads I'll run some Seafoam tonight. Other than that I'm not sure where to start.

Thanks

[GregDDC]

Is your idle screw set too low? I set mine really low this spring and mine has been dying out on me after it warms up. I'm going to add a bit more back into it today before I go out.

[rexmitchell]

definitely check the idle screw, will it drive around before dying?

[GregDDC]

Yeah, my bike is really cold-blooded regardless of the outside temperature. Once I have pulled off the choke it tends to sputter a bit when idling and will sometimes die. Just twist in the screw a half turn and see if that fixes your problem.

[somethingclever]

Thanks to both of you for the quick responses. It will drive around without dying, but as soon as it's in the ~7 minute range it wants to die without throttle regardless of driving or idling. This happens in 1st and 2nd gear and neutral; haven't tried it over 2nd.

I'll check the idle screw tonight. I'm open to any other ideas as well.

Thanks

[GregDDC]

One other thought is that my bike gets a little grumpy when I put in premium gasoline into it. She likes the good ole regular stuff. If I put the good stuff in there she sputters and the valves click.

[somethingclever]

Yea I've read that. I went with 87.

/Noob question alert/

Which way do I turn the idle screw to raise the idle? The further it's screwed out, the higher the idle, correct?

[GregDDC]

The further it's screwed out, the higher the idle, correct?

It should be the opposite of that. The deeper the screw is in the more it will deflect the butterfly valve and allow more fuel to the engine. Just play with it. If you pull the throttle you want to make the idle screw push the carb more in the direction it's going when you rev it. Did that make sense?

[somethingclever]

Got it. Thanks again for the help. I'll give this a shot when I get home and report back with the results.

[somethingclever]

So I gave the idle screw a try. Didn't work. It did idle more smoothly and for slightly longer, but eventually it ended up dying again after about 12-15 minutes.

Any other suggestions? The carbs were cleaned about a month and half ago. Would it be beneficial to try and clean them again?

Thanks