I_Ride

Bump... If my spark is weak, how can I improve it? What should I check or maybe even replace? Also, the seal on my air filter (between the white plastic air filter snap on piece and the side of the air box) has started breaking down and coming apart. What should I replace it with? Something around the house that I could cut to fit?

I was leaning towards it being an electrical problem also. But I am not exactly sure how to go about checking it thoroughly. I have a Ohm meter and I have check a few components that I listed earlier. I found some good information at dfn.com with about 24 pages of electical trouble shooting that I have printed out. I have the banshee sitting in the barn with the plastics off ready to get to work but I am a woodworker and not a mechanic so it a bit of a struggle...... I guess I may need a second hand testing a few wires and such and also a second mind to think. Maybe it could be the spark though, I really didn't see it spark very many times when I checked it?

I hope it's not compression and I have to do all that work on it......... we will see, I'll have to check that. Not a strong enough spark? Well Driggs, whever I was checking for a spark I really only saw it maybe two or three times out of the thirty or more tries that I "kicked" it with my hand (which was a pain in the @$$ by myself. So I really didn't get a good test of it because I was never sure if I was "kicking" it hard enough or if I was jerking my body to much and missing the spark. How can I go about checking that better? What would be the problem be if my spark was not strong enough?

I was riding my banshee one day and after riding for about 5 minutes I was giving it hell like always and it just cut slap off for no apparent reason, it was running perfectly before it immediately died. I haven't had it running since that time. I first thought I'd just try new spark plugs, that didn't help. So then I started digging into the machine and cheking things out. I checked fuel, checked the spark, checked the ingnition coil on the stator and I have checked a few parts of the wiring harness for resistance but all seems fine. Then for fun I checked my air filter which was a little bit clogged but not very bad, just needed a little cleaning and I don't think it was my problem since the bike cut off so quickly. I did notice however that the foam seal around the air filter was coming apart. It was like it was rotting or something, it looked decent till I tried to rub a bit of dirt off of it and it just fell apart. It was pretty oily so I know it didn't dry rot, but it needs replacing. Then I got to thinking worse case scenario is that a piece of it "could have" came off and went into the engine. I think this is highly unlikely but, what would happen if that did occur? Would the bike shut off immediatly? Probably so.... If this did happen which I don't think it did how would I check for it? Where can I get that piece of foam or what would be something to make my own out of that would do the job just as good if not better? A bit of background on my banshee. I bought the mod and installed them myself but I couldn't ever get the banshee running perfectly, I would have to pull it off to get it going every time it was cold. So I got tired of that and sent ti to the local shop to a guy who builds banshees and drags them so I think he knew what he was doing. I let him play the bike and I got it back running great. I would start on the first or second kick for a pretty good while. Then gradually it got harder and harder to start. Sometime I would kick it 50+ time before it would start. Then this happened........ Thanks everyone for your replies!