Neonblue

96 vmax 500 (xt I believe)
Just turned 3000 miles

I bought this sled last year for my wife to ride with me. Due to the lack of snow last year, I didn't get it out on the trails until this weekend.

My main sled went down so I decided to try out the 96 vmax 500. It started nice at from 8 above to 25 below (4-6 pulls). The handling was great, the performance was excellent. I definitely felt a lot of power in that little 500 as I was almost able to keep up with the 600's on the lake.

One bad thing... I put on about 200 miles on that sled on that day of riding. I had to stop 3 times for gas and my tank was completely empty each time. (60-70 miles / 8 gallon tank). There was another person in the group that had a 96 600 vmax that was about 2/3 full when I was empty.

I was not riding the sled hard and was not on the throttle around the corners. As a matter of fact, it seemed the faster I went, the better the gas milage I got. There was one 25 mile trail that we were on that I couldn't get the sled over 10mph (it was bumpy like a teenager's face). On that leg I used the most gas in the shortest distance (full tank on about 35-40 miles).

Any ideas on what would cause this extreme full consumption?

It really hurts to be gasing that much.. Could almost buy a new sled after that long weekend! =)

schulzr

I've got the same issue with my 95 Vmax 2up except I think my mileage is even worse. She has good power when I'm up to speed, but smokes really bad when starting out. I know it's running way too rich, I guess the carbs need the jets cleaned (?)

Roland

lhanscom

Check for gas leaks.

__________________
Luke
89 Yamaha Exciter EX570E

dano

nope, that milage is right. You got a 500 doing alot of work, especially at low speeds. it will be a gas hog. my 700 gets better than a 500 because it is more power doing the same amount of work. If you are getting 70 miles, that is 8.75 miles to the gallon. That is right on in my opinion. It may be running a little rich. You could look and the c-clip position on your main needle and maybe thin it out a little with the air screw ( be carefull) but i would be really surprised if you get more than 10 mpg ever. Again, i think you are doing fine, especially with an 8 galon tank. good luck

dano

Neonblue

Found two problems last week and today.

I brought my sled in last week to a local repair shop:
Motorsports Plus
Jeff Fisher
651-455-5657 (St. Paul, MN)

He knew right away what the problem was; the engine was running too rich due to a design "flaw", for a lack of a better word. It seems that carb intakes on the yamaha's twins get clogged with the dust from the belts. He says that usually after about 2000 miles or so it's normal for the performance and gas milage to take a dive (From the dust clogging the intakes). The shop owner was a complete genius with what he did with my sled; it's like I have a brand new sled. Among the other things he did to check out my sled, he took the carbs out and cleaned the rubber dust build up out of the intakes. He said that it was really bad (I've got about 3k miles on it). His price was VERY reasonable to fix this; under $125. He also took out my clutch and verified everything was ok, the track alignment, track condition, and a few other things. He was very complete with his examination and very reasonable with his price.

I did also notice today on my other sled that the clutch is engaging at about 5000 rpms. I remember the previous owner mentioning about changing out a spring in the clutch. This is causing some gas problems on that sled when travelling slow for an extended period of time.

I drove up to N. Mn today from the twin cities to try it out and I was astonished with the change. Actually up by you Dano. We took the state trail just north of Duluth then got on 302 and stopped over at a bar about 14 miles up. Excellent riding in that area, I'm going to explore it more. I really just wanted to try my sled out quick. (2.5 hours up, 5 hours of sledding, then 2.5 hours back)

schulzr

when starting out before you got the carbs cleaned Neonblue?

Roland

Neonblue

Yes. Very bad. It also smelled like gas - more so than other sleds.