Quote:
Originally Posted by Minikin_Jo
Um, can someone explain what a petcock is?
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It's the fuel valve under your tank. Fuel injected engines have a fuel pump to take care of that but since the ninjettes are carbed, a fuel valve/petcock is needed to get fuel to the carbs when needed. On the older ninjettes, the petcock was manual, meaning you had to switch it on before you started the bike, and off when you shut it off( you may have seen mention of it in the MSF class, if you took it). Also, if you hear someone mention switching to reserve fuel, it is done with the switch, some bikes have a reserve portion of the tank.
However, the newgens, have a vacuum operated petcock meaning, once the engine starts to pull a vacuum, it automatically opens the valve letting fuel flow through and when the engine is shut off, no vacuum, it closes so you don't flood the carbs with fuel. The only time you'll have to worry about it is if you winterize your bike and drain the fuel from your carb bowls, so it doesn't gum up in storage, when you go to pull it back out in the spring you'll have to switch yours to PRIME, it allows fuel to flow through without a vacuum source so it will prime the fuel bowls and the bike with be ready to start, then just switch it back to ON.