A surprising gas leak on the PC800

Tonight when I came home from seeing The Hateful Eight at our local Alamo Drafthouse, I smelled some gas. I went down and checked on my fuel injected PC800 to find a small puddle of a mix of gasoline and oil under the bike. I immediately started draining the tank while I removed some plastics to try and determine what was going on.
 
No leaks around the fuel sensor. No leaks around the fuel pump/filter/gas tank outlet. No leaks around the piping going up to the throttle bodies. No leaks on the injectors. But wait a minute…
 
When I took the airbox off, some gas sloshed out of the airbox! It turns out there was quite a bit of gas in the airbox. Some of you might remember that I connected the vent line from the high pressure fuel pump to the airbox. It appears that the airbox and air intake were sucking gas up from the pump the last time I ran the bike (a couple weekends ago). This gas stewed in the airbox eating away at some RTV sealant until it leaked. Or maybe the gas got into the engine oil via the crankcase breather hose and leaked out somewhere lower on the engine (I’ve got a slow oil leak that’s been with the bike for the last 30,000 miles).
 
I’ll do a little more sleuthing tomorrow once the residual fuel evaporates around the bike to find the place where the leak came out to make sure it was some RTV that I had used to seal a hole on the bottom of the airbox and not something else.
 
Luckily I have a California-style gas cap (the one with the hose barb) laying around that I can plumb the vent line from the fuel pump to. That should solve that problem, assuming that was the problem.
 
Always something exciting in my garage!

The complete fuel injected PC800

I made a 20 minute long video walking through all of the many modifications that I have made to my PC800 over the years including the custom fuel injection system running on a MicroSquirt ECU. I’m contemplating selling my bike or the fuel injection system to get ready for the next big project that I have in mind.  If you’re interested, please get in touch with me.

A partial list of the modifications includes:

New LED Headlight for the Honda Pacific Coast

20151205_133811

I pulled off the HID headlight bulb that I had installed several years ago on my Honda Pacific Coast PC800.  While the light was good, I was never very happy with the color.  Also I was having some trouble with noise on the tachometer sense line for the fuel injection conversion I’ve been working on.  I figured the HID system might have been introducing some high frequency noise to the bike.

20151205_133817

Removing the HID system required me to take the windshield off to gain access to the area above the headlight housing.  I made quick work of removing the HID system from the bike.

20151205_133827

There is a little voltage regulator and controller that comes with the LED headlight.  I zip tied it to the front structural member.  Not too hard to do.  Also this kit doesn’t require any new electrical wires run to it (the HID did).

20151205_133842

The light looks really nice and white when it’s turned on.  No spilled light anywhere.  Not too bad!

20151205_133847

Great light pattern.  I’m looking forward to testing this out at night once the ice melts a bit.  For those interested, this is the light: http://www.cyclopsadventuresports.com/3800-Lumen-H4-LED-Headlight-bulb-_p_83.html