As I was coming in to work this morning I was cruising on the HOV at 75-80 mph when the engine stumbled and seemed to lose power. I immediately slowed down a bit but symptom remained. I eventually pulled in the clutch, revved it expecting it to bog down but it revved just fine and once I released the clutch it seemed to work just fine. I kept it to 60 mph max the rest of the way and had no problems. Once I parked it I looked it over and it had the usual bit of oil on the engine and nothing smelled weird. I intend to work on it as soon as I change the petcock on the Honda, but for right now it is my only vehicle (short one car at the house for the moment). Any ideas what I should be looking for, other than just keeping the speed down?  

Springman ,

I'm with Versey on trash in the carb.    It's not wasting a lot of fuel to flush the bowl by totally removing the drain screw and turning the fuel on for a flush .  

My last four cylinder bike had little jets in it.  Durning the winter trash would form in the bowl from drying gas.   Every spring I'd have to pull all four of them off and clean the jets.
Now , I know about "Sea-Foam" (thanks to somebody on this forum)  , it can dissolve the deposits from the inside and prevent them from forming in the first place .  

Good luck with it buddy !

I'd drop the bowl.
easier to get rid of a little bits that don't flow thru holes.

Thank all for the input. Hopefully I will get to play with it on Saturday.

Springman:

In the descriptions at the bottom of your posts - I don't see that you have yet installed a Raptor petcock.

One of the issues with the stock vacuum operated petcock, is that when the diaphragm gets old and stiff (kind of like us as we age) - the diaphragm can be hard for the engine vacuum to open the petcock and allow fuel flow.  This can show up most frequently at highway speeds - where there is low vacuum as you have the throttle opened up while at speed..........which causes the engine vacuum to drop.

One way to test this out is switch the petcock to 'PRI" and see if the bike runs normally.

If you are still running the stock vacuum petcock - I would suggest you start there first.  Either install a new diaphragm.....or put in a Yamaha Raptor petcock.

Dave, MM, looks like I have to update my description. Raptor petcock was installed a year or 2 ago. And I still seem to forget 90%+ of the time to turn off the petcock.

Speaking of petcocks, the one for the Honda finally arrived and so I will be installing it this weekend.