2005 Katana 600 starting problems and upgrades

[nemesis_morte]

I am in the middle of purchasing a 2005 Katana 600. She has been laid down at low speed on the left and right sides. The owners replaced the right fairings and decals already but the engine covers on both sides are scared up and so is the muffler but not bad just on the bottom and top ends of it.

Now for the major issue. It started just fine with a little throttle given to it about 9 days ago. Now when i went to pick her up she will not start period and the pipes are dead cold. I have been driving 1 hour and 30 mins every night for the past 2 nights to try and get her to start up but she is just not wanting to work. The first night she tried to start a few times with a low rumble and a spit, sputter fart then backfire that about made me mess my pants it was so loud (then again i was in their garage so things tend to echo). I did check the choke and turned it on and off along with the fuel supply valve to make sure she was getting gas and with the choke on you can smell the rich fuel so I know the choke is working and she is getting gas.

Last night i brought a buddy of mine out that knows enough about bikes and engines to tell me what needs to be replaced. We spent the majority of the night carefully removing the fairings from the left and right sides to take the tank off in order to take a good look at the spark plugs. Once we got to the plugs we found they were fouled something serious very black and soak in gas. We cleaned them off as best we could with a wire brush and we can get a pretty good spark off the plug itself if we hold it away about 1cm from the metal frame. Once we touch even a thread to the frame or something metal it doesn’t do anything but just lightly spark up it doesn’t. We only pulled 3 and every time the same results.

Also the battery is pretty much toast on it. It doesn’t hold a charge the owner charged it before we got there and it turned over well but still nothing and just trying to get it running within about 3 tries the battery was so dead it was having serious trouble just turning over much less firing off. While we charged the battery again that’s when we cleaned the plugs off as best as we could. Again we were able to get a very light spit, spatter and fart out of but nothing near needed to fire her up.

I spoke with the suzuki dealer and they tell us that its just the battery, i have a feeling its also the spark plugs if not something in the electrical system somewhere. Like i said itll give a nice arch if the plug isn’t touching anything and is close enough to something metal nice big blue spark. So id assume the electrical system is fine its just the spark plugs being fouled up and shorting out inside themselves from the flooded engine being they are soak in gas.

Does this sound about correct or am i missing something?

Upgrades:

Once i get her purring again i am looking to start replacing parts on her such as the engine covers and left fairing. I can’t seem to find fairings for under 400.00 anywhere. I am wanting to bolt on a rear fender removal kit and the big kicker would be an undertail dual exhaust system like twin brothers or something. Does anyone know where i can one, find fairings at a good price and two the one i am most interested in find a undertail dual exhaust kit for her?

On another note the owner doesn’t have the owner’s manual so i am mostly going into this project blind on trying to figure out where everything is, does anyway know where i can get an replacement owner’s manual from?

[GregS]

Plugs that look like your describing seldom clean up properly so I'd recommend replacing them. If you could put a good battery charger on it or get a good jumper setup working you could eliminate or condemn the battery.
When I bought my 04 with 300 miles on it this year, it had set for 2 1/2 years. It did similar things as yours. With fresh plugs and a battery charge it started well. The original owner had replaced the battery a couple months earlier though.