Ok so I'm hoping I can get some insight from the brains trust on here...

Just have a few niggling issues on the RVF that are preventing it from being absolutely perfect.

Firstly, the bike gets rapidly hot when stationary...I mean it would jump from 80 to 110 degrees in heavy traffic in well under 50 seconds or so. I've had the coolant spurt out from the rad cap at 120 (at the point where I don't even ride the bike to work anymore since peak hour traffic would spell the worst).

Now coolant does overflow into the overflow bottle and gets sucked back into the rads when it starts to cool down and with the rad cap off the coolant does move with throttle blips.

I am yet to check to thermostat and fan...I'll also replace the rad cap, anything else?

Secondly, bike needs choke to start all the time...even when its been sitting outside on a hot day, dunno if that's normal? It does require a blip of the throttle too but that I'm not too phased with. On choke the bike will warm to 75-80 degrees and when you try to shut the choke off it can't drop down to a normal idle, it will gradually drop revs and just cut out.
After it dies I can generally start it back up instantly with no choke and some throttle and it will hold its idle.

What I'm having to do to prevent the dieing is to gradually shut the choke off but surely it shouldn't be like this? And should the bike be ready to go around 50-60 degrees or would you say 75-80 degrees is normal? Also I wouldn't think 5 minutes of choke is normal right?

Aye. Rad cap for the first one I reckon. not keeping the system pressurised enough. Possible air lock/low fluid - it should get bloody hot bloody quickly once you are stood still.

No fan?

Running pretty lean overall if it needs choke all the time - so get them carbs off and check them.

is the induction all standard?

Yup induction is all standard and it has a fan. The rad cap does look like it needs replacing.

Tomorrow I'll test out the fan to see if its working and see if I can grab a new rad cap and thermostat too from the stealership.

Don't leave the choke on too long maybe 1 min, you might have flooded it, so when you take the choke off its already flooded so wont idle,

when i first got the bike i thought it needed more choke but infact its the opposite,

what i do is full for about 5-10 seconds then bring it down to about 2.5k roughly half choke then after 40-60 seconds no choke, it may settle to a rough idle, then wait about a minute before any revving just to be safe. roughly the choke should be off by 55 degrees. try it

Hope this helps

CMSMJ1 wrote:Aye. Rad cap for the first one I reckon. not keeping the system pressurised enough. Possible air lock/low fluid - it should get bloody hot bloody quickly once you are stood still.

No fan?

Running pretty lean overall if it needs choke all the time - so get them carbs off and check them.

is the induction all standard?

Sounds like the jetting is to lean or you have a modded air filter thats not working

thanks for the replies peeps.

air filter is stock standard. will try correct the overheating before i tackle the choke issue.

quite certain the bike is not flooding but 5-10 seconds of full choke and then down to half...i doubt it will give me that without dieing instantly.

i'll try out the suggestions and let you know how it goes