[Keith Szymczyk]

I have a 2001 Honda TRX400 that fires right up and run for approx 5 mins then it just shuts down like someone hit the kill switch, it will fire right back up and run fine for another couple of mins and then dies. I have tested if the battery is taking charge and it is. What can I do to figure out exactly what is causing this? It does not have any pattern at all... I have wiggled wires around and checked wires while it's running and nothing seems to kill it, it kills itself at random but fires right back up.


Also it sometimes appears to miss a couple times but then goes back to normal idle before killing itself.

 

[SlammedRanger]

Could be a number of different things. But as always start with the easy stuff. New spark plug. Try putting fuel on reserve. Remove gas cap( Could be a tank vent issue.) There are a number of things common things that go bad when warmed up. Or cause random miss fires. When you change the plug try removing the spark plug boot off the wire and cutting about a 1/4 inch off and screwing back on.(It just unscrews off lefty loosy righty tighty). If none of that works i would start with coil. Then cdi. After i got a spark tester light and watched it act up with it on and saw the light flicker and go out when it shut off. That would confirm 100% its spark related. That should get you started in the right direction!

 

[Keith Szymczyk]

Could be a number of different things. But as always start with the easy stuff. New spark plug. Try putting fuel on reserve. Remove gas cap( Could be a tank vent issue.) There are a number of things common things that go bad when warmed up. Or cause random miss fires. When you change the plug try removing the spark plug boot off the wire and cutting about a 1/4 inch off and screwing back on.(It just unscrews off lefty loosy righty tighty). If none of that works i would start with coil. Then cdi. After i got a spark tester light and watched it act up with it on and saw the light flicker and go out when it shut off. That would confirm 100% its spark related. That should get you started in the right direction!

Things I have done so far:

Cleaned the carb
Checked for spark (confirmed spark)
Checked for fuel (confirmed it's getting fuel, quad floods itself out plug gets very wet after sometime)
Attempted to start it with the gas cap removed.
Checked timing
Checked Valve Adjustment (seemed like they were correct from my findings)
Checked all connections


An update the quad will not run at now anymore, it will turn over and fire once or twice every couple of cranks other then that it's dead in the water. I am running out of options here of what else to do. Before it would run then die, I got it to run for 15-20 mins no issues all the power in the world shut it down took it out the next day and that's when it died and never ran again since. It acted as it was running out of fuel or someone tapped the kill switch.


Here's a video of it trying to start.

 

[shadetree]

now that its dead in the water, is it getting spark to the plug at all ?. any lights on at all on the dash ?. if your getting lights..but no spark on the plug ?, then this tells me a few things, bad c.d.i. ? ( don't cheap out on a stupid china after market c.d.i. !! ), bad reg/rec ?, bad spark plug ?, bad stator ?, bad spark plug coil ?, bad/loose grounds anywhere ?. first things first, you must get dash lights, this means you must have a neutral light to fire the spark plug !!. if your getting dash lights, including a neutral light ?, then you must do the spark plug test, new plug in boot, laying on engine, crank it over ( if it has enough battery juice that Is ? ), watch for spark at plug. if no spark ?, then you must run test on stator, if stator passes, then move on to spark plug coil test, if that passes ?, then I would have to believe the c.d.i. is bad. AGAIN !!!, you must have dash lights before you go any further !. IF NO POWER TO DASH ?, THEN ITS TIME TO TRACE POWER FROM BATTERY TO IGNTION SWITCH !.

 

[shadetree]

also..and this is a trx400 what ??????????..fm ?, fw ?, trx400 does not tell us anything, cept ya got a 2001 trx400 !.

 

[SlammedRanger]

also..and this is a trx400 what ??????????..fm ?, fw ?, trx400 does not tell us anything, cept ya got a 2001 trx400 !.

Its a 400ex.

 

[shadetree]

also..and this is a trx400 what ??????????..fm ?, fw ?, trx400 does not tell us anything, cept ya got a 2001 trx400 !.

Its a 400ex.

was that in his first post ?, did I just over look it ?, cuz I did not see a 2001 trx400ex ?..i'm old ya know !..lol.

 

[Keith Szymczyk]

also..and this is a trx400 what ??????????..fm ?, fw ?, trx400 does not tell us anything, cept ya got a 2001 trx400 !.

Its a 400ex.

was that in his first post ?, did I just over look it ?, cuz I did not see a 2001 trx400ex ?..i'm old ya know !..lol.

No that's my bad I failed to mention that it's a TRX400 EX.

Yes it's getting spark, if you listen in the video you can hear it fire like once every couple of cranks. It fires and kicked the piston over like once and then goes back to cranking. Sometimes the starter even disengages. Now you mention about the dash lights the only light that this thing has to light up is the green neutral light and it does light up. Every once in awhile it does go dim like it has no power but then you let off the start and it comes back on bright. I have it connected to the charger when it does this so it's not a dead battery. Now one thing that does concern me is that it will engage the start while in gear. If you leave it in gear and hit the starter it will jump forward, have not hear it fire before in gear but the power from the start goes to the wheels. Is this normal?

The person I got the quad from told me that it needs a stator but I don't feel that this is my issue as it is giving me a spark. Unless the spark timing is off?? What's the best way to test for a faulty stator?

 

[Keith Szymczyk]

I have re adjusted the valves again and it is running but has a lot of noises coming from the valves, one thing that has me worried is that I by mistake turned the flywheel when top dead centering it I turned it clockwise and it's supposed to be turned counter clockwise. Can this mess anything up?

 

[SlammedRanger]

Nah only reason they say that is because you will be turning against the starter. It will usually be way easier to turn the other way. And very hard to turn the way you did it.