carb heaters....

bluelightning

bluelightning

New member
Joined
Nov 15, 2005
Messages
151
Age
40
Location
bristol CT
hey all

quick question for everyone. did some research on the forum but didnt find much of an answer. when is the appropriate conditions to use the carb heaters? im goin up to pittsburg nh on thursday, and its gonna be 5-15 degrees F every day with lows of below zero. all posts i found said "use the heaters when in powder or when its very cold". might be silly, butdoes that consist of being very cold? lol thanks in advance
 
I've never had to use mine until Friday night. I've ridden in weather as cold as it was here Friday night before too (around 0°) but there was tons of powder in the air and one of my carbs froze up. It started losing power and wanted to die on me but as soon as I turned the heater on it started running perfect.
 
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I've never used my carb heaters at all. Even when its -30 Celsius outside i dont turn them on, i just let the sled warm up good and its always ran fine for me. I dont do any powder riding hardly, mainly all groomed trails
 
Last year in michigan its was around 0 and my carbs were freezing. So i use them when it gets near 10 now. it doesnt hurt anythng to run them. and its just inconvient if you have to stop and turn them on mid-ride.
 
The manual says to turn on at 32*F and lower. I have never turned mine off since new, 4 years now. The machine has always ran great and had zero trouble. I have been told that by running with the carb heater on you increase your fuel mileage too. I am getting an average of 11.5 MPG and do not ride it easy either. A friend of mine has a 2002 SRX, two years ago we were riding in the UP in 0*F / -5*F weather. After we rode approx 5 miles his sled started missing and back firing, he thought it was a fouled plug. We changed the plugs and it ran ok for about a mile and started it again. I noticed that he had the carb heaters turned off, I asked him why they were turned off? He replied that he didn't even know it had carb heaters. We had to use a pair of channel locks to get it turned on, but once we did he said it ran better than it ever had. no more troubles since! -Ed
 
I would only use them if your in powder and or it's really cold out like
it has been here in the last few days...
 
One thing to remember, the carbs heaters will make your sled run a little fatter. So if you are jetted to 0, and it is -10, it will fatten the jetting up some for security. I run mine below 10 degrees. Maxdlx
 
mine are on 100% of the time. one less thing to worry about when it gets late and cold. i prefer to concentrate on missing the trees and suicidal deer then trying to remember if i turned my carb heaters on. better safe than sorry in my book plus my memory is fading as i get older....
 
ok thanks for all the imput everyone...so it seems as if it will be ok to run them considering it will be about 10 f? certainly won't hurt anythin right?
 
I keep mine on as well....you may loose some top end but I do not like the idea of possably freezing them up on a ride. Freezing means condensation which means water and water in the engine is not a good thing. I may be over-cautious but I would rather be safe. If I do radar passes I turn them off since I am only running 2000ft.
 
It's funny you think about it if it was really importaint why didn't
yammie put it on every sled(motor)??
 
YamiSmurf said:
Very difficult turning to the ON position when engine is warm.

YS
Click to expand...

I've read that on here several times and when I had to turn mine on this past Friday night I figured I'd probably need pliers or something but mine was extremely easy to turn.
:letitsnow :2strokes:
 
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i always have mine on unless spring riding, i forgot to turn them back on after working on the engine the last ride and it was about -30 with wind chill (blowing like 40mph). light powder snow and when we got back home and fired the sled up to get it off the trailer it acted kinda funny. then the next day i fired it up it backfired and ran like crap. i dont know if this was the cause of my problem but since i switched them back on the sled has run fine.
 
well i have always left mine off unless im in powder or its very cold .and last night when riding we were playing in the powder,did some trails .than did some open water and headed across the 40KM lake it was dark and the temp outside was -35 plus the wind chill plus the speed chill.anyhow all was fine .we stoped about half way across for a chat an (P)lol. wer had stoped for about 10 mins.my water bottle was freezing in my hand when i opened the bottle i got a drink and in a matter of mins it froze DAMMMMMMMMM. anyhow when i went back to my srx 1st pull it started than died.did it agn. ran really rough right away i knew my carbs were icing so i turned on the heaters started it idled it for 1 min and ran perfect all the way home so i would say anything below -15--20 turn em on .
 
Thumper1 said:
I prefer to concentrate on missing the trees and suicidal deer then trying to remember if i turned my carb heaters on. better safe than sorry in my book plus my memory is fading as i get older....
Click to expand...

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

And I thought I was the only one.
 
I usually leave mine off unless colder than -15C or not the lead sled(snow dust) , a few times i left them on when it was warmer than -10c and fuel milage went for a big dump...........James
 
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