u/Kronopolitan

The long (sorry) story so far. Pulled my 2016 ruckus out of the shed to get it running for the season and it wouldn't start. Seemed like the spark plug and low gas was the issue. Replaced the plug/fueled up and it started right up.

Rode it off and on for a week or so with no issues. Then one morning I start it up and it revs up like crazy right out of the gate. Peaking over 5k. Given a couple minutes to warm up it evens out but is idling a little high. I adjust the idle screw and run some errands on the ruckus. No problems.

Next morning, same thing. Then it's idling too low so I have to adjust back up a bit. I research the problem and check the usual stuff. I look for vacuum leaks I make sure no hoses have come loose,etc. I find nothing obviously wrong.

I suspect the bystarter could have gone bad, and I've been meaning to clean the carb. So I pull the carb and clean it. I notice some corrosion, it's not really much but the bike is 10 years old so I figure all this is my cue to replace the carb entirely.

Bought a full OEM carb assembly from Partzilla and installed it. This includes the bystarter, so everything is new. Except for the jets. The jets on my old carb were spotless and unclogged, they were mods from stock because when I did an airbox delete like 5 years ago it came with replacement jets to help tune things for the new intake.

So now when I start the bike cold it revs up too high like before, but not as intense and immediate. It kind of climbs in stages. Revs hard and eases up, it repeats this until it fully warms up and then it drops into a relatively normal idle.

While it's doing this revving up and down cycle it runs rough. I tried recording it but I can't capture the sound it's making, the engine noise is cancelling it out.

TLDR: It's making a kind of dull quiet coughing sound. It reminds me of what it sounds like if you put the palm of your hand over the hose on a vacuum and then pull it back off. A dull puff of air sound followed by the rev down. Then it revs high, coughs and drops again.

I don't want to end up replacing every single thing one by one and not fix the problem. Does this behavior sound like anything obvious other than what I've already checked or replaced?

Sadly, my ruckus was stolen two years after I bought it and was gone for 3 years. The police recovered it when it was sold on Craigslist and the poor young naive kid who bought it without a title tried to register it. The asshole who stole it abused the shit out of it and I have no idea what he may have done to it. So I can't properly speak to its full history and what might have been messed with. That said, when I got the bike back I cleaned and repaired everything I could and it was all running fine for the last 5 years since. Now, all of a sudden, weird revving and idling issues for no obvious reason.

Any help or insight is greatly appreciated. I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets genuinely bummed out when my ruckus is sick. I can't get the problem off my brain.

Thanks!

I had a headlamp out so I replaced both with a readily available led bulb. But I didn't really think about the high beam function.

The lights work fine in standard mode and are clean and bright. But when I switch to high beam they don't change at all, but my turn signals dim.

Meaning, I previously replaced my stock turn signals with bullet style led signals and they have a default white daytime running light that is always on and they shift orange when the blinkers are engaged.

Those lights dim when I switch to high beam but there is no change to my headlights. I assume this means there is some increased power draw to the main lights but they aren't capable of getting brighter, so I'm basically juts diverting power away from the rest of the system for no benefit.

Am I correct in this assumptions or does this point to something else? And does anyone have a suggestion about replacement led bulbs that work on high beam for the ruckus?

I know I can just order the OEM/stock bulb but since this has happened I'm curious to understand everything involved.

Thanks in advance for any insight anyone can offer!

Context (v.5.7.4) : When creating an environment, I add a local fog volume and choose a saturated emissive color for my fog.

Before building the lighting it looks right, it creates the dense rich washout I am looking for but doesn't overpower the scene.

Reflective/wet surfaces show some of the color but not too much. Then I build the lighting and it really intensifies the colors on the objects in the scene.

I prefer the balance of things before the lighting build update.

Is there a way a way to exclude certain objects from being affected by the emissive fogs? Tho the pre build lighting may be technically less accurate to reality than the post build lighting, I prefer the muted version it offers.

Any help is greatly appreciated!