Hello everyone! I recently bought my first Harley, a 1996 Sportster XL 1200 Custom and I have a question I was hoping to get answered. A friend of mine told me not to run it with the choke on for longer than a minute or it will foul up the carb jets. I have never heard this before so I was wondering if anyone knows if this is true? When I start it cold and run it for a minute or so with the choke it runs fine, but dies when I shut the choke off unless I give it throttle. Once it is warmed up it runs and idles fine. Should I leave the choke on until the bike is warmed up? I know this is probably a stupid question but this is my first Harley and I don't want to screw it up haha.

 

I run mine choke out long enough to gear up, check my signals and such, back it out of the shed, push the choke in 1/2 way, and leave it half in for the first couple of miles, then push it in. To directly answer your question, I guess I leave my choke out longer than a minute, and have no spark plug issues.

 

Thanks the response! Yeah I figured it was fine to let it warm up. I had a few dirt bikes when I was a kid and I have also had a few honda cruisers, I always left the choke on until the motor was good and warm and never had any problems. My buddy said it would screw up the carb and I would have to get it re-jetted, didn't make much sense to me but I thought I better look into it. Thanks again!

 

The choke is there to deal with a cold engine. Cold fuel does not atomize well and can on occasion condense out of the charge. Adding extra fuel ensures that the engine gets what it needs. Fuel injection bikes do this automatically.

When cold, you run the choke at full and progressively use less as the engine warms up. Once it can idle on it's own with no choke or throttle, it's good. This takes me a couple miles in the summer, or up to ten or more miles when temps are below freezing.

 

Generally speaking, use the choke only 'til the engine will run by itself at a high idle. Learn how to use the throttle friction screw to hold the throttle open to a 1200RPM idle while the bike's warming up. BTW - you don't foul jets using the choke, though, too much fuel for too long will make your spark plugs look a bit sooty.

 

Yeah it didn't make sense that it would foul up the carbs. This morning it was about 25 degrees out so I started it with full choke, geared up and rolled out of the garage, then ran it half choke for a little over a mile. When I got to work it was running great with a steady idle. Thanks again for the replies guys!