Dammit, I hit enter before I wanted to.

Anyways, title was going to be something like, 2003 Kawasake Bayou - How's your Idle?

I have a well taken care of 03 Bayou that I bought used from a friend. The thing never did have a smooth consistent idle. Lately I rebuilt the carburetor, very carefully, replaces fuel filter, valve lines, cleaned tank, all fresh ethanol free gas, cleaned check spark plug. Runs good, but not perfect. I get the occasional pop thru the carburetor, idle drifts up and down some. Idle mixture screw is out about 2.5 to 3 turns. I'm thinking these things are just a little inherently lean. I may try a new carb. Maybe I should try jetting up the mains also. What are you experiences?

 

I don't work on many KLF300s these days, farmers mostly have more modern stuff, but the 300 was always a bike with a smooth idle, much like the Honda 300. Check inlet manifold for air leaks and diaphragm for cracks.

 

My Bayou 220 had a real inconsistent idle. I finally realized it changed when I turned the handle bars, and traced it to the choke cable getting pulled around.

 

Ive been rebuilding a 1990 bayou and it was doing the boggy Idle as well I was able to get it to run and drive well once got it up to speed in my parents field then it refused to go past idle again. I just dumped the tank recently and removed the fuel petcock and found alot of junk in the fuel. I blew air through the petcock on both the run and reserve circuits and got giant mudballs out. I
had started draining the tank from the petcock line and observed the flow run was ok but reserve was a trickle. After dumping the tank and blowing out the petcock the flow off the line to the carb was a big improvement on both settings.

 

Mine idles smoothly, once I get it started. It is VERY hard to start when cold, but once she get's running and warms up, she runs great.

Do you have an idle mixture screw on that carb? Open it 1/8 turn if you have one.

You might want to check your valve clearance. They don't idle well if the valves start getting tight.

I'm mainly going by hearsay, but hope it helps.