02 katana 600, weird problem please help if you have anyidea

[spitfire_inferno]

I just bought a 2002 katana 600 its my first bike and im still learning, ive had it about a month now and its ran pretty good to my knowledge anyways. the bike is totally stock, its been serviced regularly, and 91 octane gas is all it has ever known. anyways i went for a ride with some buddies from work the other day and i was going about 120-140km/hr
when i cracked the throttle to giver some more.... i felt nothing... really weird and it stayed like that, so i down shifted and it sputtered and had a burst of acceleration, then nothing again.... so i ended up slowing all the way down due to lack of power and as soon as i shifted into 2nd gear it just died.... and would not restart for anything.... after about 10 minutes of screwing around and cranking the hell out of it i switched it to PRI and it started right up, i turned it back to ON and continued on my ride...
on the way home the same thing happened but this time only going about 110km. but when i got down to 2nd gear it didnt die, it just was running very rough, and sounded like it was bogging and the guys i was with said it smelt like gas so it must be running rich.... and my gas milage has been shit too. needless to say when i came to a complete stop it died , but i got it going again within 2 minutes and carried on my way home.... but im totally lost with bikes and i hope someone can help me out, possibly lead me in the right direction, thanks
Bryan

[md86]

Well , it sure SOUNDS like you either ran low on gas , or the petcock is getting funky . See if it'll act right running on prime . But don't park it and leave it on prime . Easiest things first ...

[jgalar]

I had the same problem with mine. It would only get gas when on prime. I checked the price of a petcock and it was around $85 so I thought screw it I'll just use it manually. I turned the selector to prime to run and run when I stopped.

One day, about a week later, I rode to work and realized I hadn't turned the selector to prime. It has worked fine since and that was about 3 years ago.

I believe cyber sells kits to rebuild the petcock, but you might try using the selector manually for awhile.

[Teh_K]

Could it be a float height issue? Maybe the floats aren't allowing enough gas to go much beyond the speeds/load stated above...

[md86]

I really doubt that , otherwise when he slowed and downshifted it wouldn't have die like that . Sounds more like it just ran out of gas altogether .

[thyrdai]

Finally found someone with the same problem..

Like in the other posts talking about proper octane, 87 is DEFINATELY the way to go. If your running 91 or 93, i can guarantee you that problem will persist. so run 87 and do the pri thing and you should be golden.