I just recently bought my 98 Sport. A few weeks later i ran it and wide open throttle i could barely hit 30 down hill! At first if i cracked the throttle from a dead stop it would give about 90 percent and hit the power band and pull to about 20mph or so, but when i try to punch it from a 10mph roll it won't catch the power band that it would. Now it won't hardly hit rap up and runs full throttle like 1/4 throttle was the weeks before. I talked to some people who own polaris where i live and they said they have experienced the same problem and deamed the problem to be the carb.

Are polaris carburetors notorious for acting up? And do these characteristics warrant a problem in the carburetor??

 

well if you just bought the atv and also its a 1998 model and you dont have in your hands paperwork indicating previous recent work maintenance on it, i for sure would take out the carburetor and at least tear it apart and give it a great cleaning or install a rebuilt carb kit.

 

My ATV was acting the same way, Is fuel consuption higher than normal? We found that my choke was always on, this will make it run very doggy. Also check the compression of you cylinder, it may be time for a top end.

 

when you say you ran it wot and couldnt do more then 30, is it because the engine wont rev up and no power or is it because it revs up and deosnt barely move? how does the spark plug look? that would be a good place to start to tell you if its running rick or lean. if you know how to i would also pull carb off to clean it and replace fuel filter and maybe even the fuel to rule these out. just a thought.

 

It's won't rev up to get power and a few days prior it would. There is a new plug in it now and that didn't fix it.

 

yea but how did the plug look that you took out. was it al black and wet? how does it start? is it hard to get started, if you use the choke while trying to rev it up does it make it worse or better?

 

The plug was black but not really wet. It used to start up perfectly. Now it takes a little throttle to get it to start well. It doesn't idle well when it did just a few days before.

 

Does it matter when the machine is running if the choke is on or off, Will it idle the same no matter what position the choke is in. This sound almost identical to my machine problem.

 

It kills the motor when i turn the choke on.

 

How did you fix your problem??