My 2002 Vstar Classic needs help. I am in China and having trouble finding a place to take it for adjustments. When acclerating the engine misses, pops/backfires severely. After I back off the throttle it does not back fire as much but the missing and popping is not good. It cannot be ridden far at all. I removed the plugs and the front left plug appeared to burn clean or maybe a bit lean. The right rear cyclinder plug was loaded with carbon. The intake hose was not good so I replaced that with another hose but had to use part of the old hose to make it fit as I could not find an orignal hose. I filled the tank with 95 octane this time in hopes that would help but it has not. Not being at mechanic I can only assume there must be some problem wit the carb. If someone could tell me what to do I can follow your advice but don't know what to do on my own. ANYONE! Thanks, Paul

SOURCE: My 2002 V-Star 1100 Classic

G'day.
I can't solve this(there are litaraly hundreds of things it could be) BUT I can give you a way to narrow it down a bit.
I'm thinking it may not be running on all cylinders and an easy way to check is to start the bike from cold(do this test in the first few seconds after starting from cold DONT BURN YOURELF),put a bit of spit on your fingers and quickly touch each exhaust header in turn, to see that they are all warming up equally together.This will narrow down if your problem is related to one or more cylinders.
If one or more of the pipes is cold/er than the others then you know which cylinders are causing the problem.
If you find that this is the case- one or more of the headers are cold then.
Remove the spark plugs-Keep in order.Examine the plugs-used plugs tell a story.How do they look?clean?black & sooty?Are they all the same colour?
Re-fit plugs to caps,sit plugs on metal of rocker cover,press starter - cheack for spark on all plugs.DO NOT HOLD OR TOUCH PLUG/CAPS WHILST CRANKING-WARNING - HIGH VOLTAGE- CAN KILL.
I can also suggest a few common problems that bothered the v-stars/viragos.
They were notorious for open circuiting their spark plug caps on either cylinder.Having the coils tested will confirm this. If you have a multi meter let me know & i'll guide you through testing them.

Air leaking at the inlet manifolds-where they bolt to the cylinder-test this by spraying with wd type spray with engine running-if engine revs change-has air leaks(sucking in wd & affecting mixture.)
They even pop the carbies out at the front some times & **** air there.
The inlet manifolds also have hoses & plugs on them(for checking the carbie balance/vacume fuel tap)Check all these for splits & tears-common depending on the condition of the bike/milage/fuel used.
This will not solve your problem but may help you to isolate where your issue lies.


I hope this is somewhat helpful & I'm happy to help if you need after following these suggestions
Kind regards Andrew Porrelli











I hope that this is in some way helpfull.

Testimonial: "Thanks very much for that information. I plan to continue working on it this weekend, and I'll definitely use these ideas. Take care...Danny O."