Motorcycle Fuel Pump Testing: Honda VT1100 

After a bad driver tore the front end off my Dyna putting me in the hospital with a broken leg I bought a 2002 Honda Spirit 1100. Had it delivered much to the delight of my wife.😮 Still on a cane. Got lucky, it's a hot rod gem. Well, after I massaged the engine a bit 😅

I like the knowledge you have on the subject of Honda motorcycles !!! You are straight forward… humorous at times and enjoy watching your videos… I always get something out of all your videos !!! Big Thanks for information that no Honda dealership would ever share with anyone !!! Thank you for your time and have a blessed day.

Great explanation and presentation. Thanks for sharing your expertise. I’ve got a ‘07 Shadow Spirit that won’t start, so this was not only helpful, but fun to watch

Thanks a million. I was searching for a manual, found one, then searching for the wiring to the pump and relay. After much frustration, i pulled up your video, then reached the section where you jumped the wires to the pump. The pump is working fine. So now I can ck the ground to the relay, and if it's good, then order a relay. I am working on a vt750dc black widow for my niece. This bike has been sitting for over 3 years. I just installed kits in the carbs and found that the pump was not kicking on with the key activated.

Awesome video Cody. One thing I learned many years ago; buy once, buy right.

I can attest that the Amazon pumps aren’t a forever fix. In October 2020, I replaced the pump, filter, lines, and rebuilt the carb. It ran great for a year. Only use ethanol free premium. I got married and life happened so I didn’t drive it for a year. October 2022 I was ready to ride again and wouldn’t start. Towed it to my new house and left it in the garage. This week, 3 years since fuel system replacement, I got back in there. Rebuilt the carb again, which appeared to have had some corrosion on the float needle which made it stick and I thought I found the problem. Just installed it and no start. I replaced the fuel filter, Amazon 2 for 1. First one leaked like a sieve! Immediately put the second filter on, good. No start. I listened for the fuel pump and there’s nothing. I’m pretty sure it’s been crapped out since October of 21, which means it lasted a whole year. Now I’m back at it! I need my bike running for a group ride on Friday, so I did just order an Amazon special pump for a quick 2 day fix. I have an OEM pump on the way. Needless to say I’ll be a master at pump replacement lol Your video was awesome btw!

Cody, you save lives in the form of the money I save as a result of your videos haha. I can’t thank you enough for what you do!!

Fantastic video! This was very helpful to me as a first time bike owner. Keep em coming!

This vid is of great help. My bike (04 Spirit 1100) is dying every 2 or 3 minutes on highway speeds. I’m doing this as soon as I get home. I’ll update when I can

Thanks Cody, always interested to see how things work.

Just ordered the pump and filter for my VT750DCB from (bikebandit) the pump was about $110 and the filter was around $10. For what looks like the same exact pump and filter in this video. Thanks for the advice, I knew something was off.. but that just nailed it down for me. Mainly because I didn't know the bike had a fuel pump until just now lol, so I wasn't sure why it was doing what it was doing but now makes perfect sense to me.

Hi there Cody,Excellent demonstration ,on how to change the fuel pump & how important the Manuel's are,thanks again friend 🙂🙂🙂

Good job explaining how fuel pumps on these bikes work , not on easy job replacing them , just bought a vt1100 for my son for his birthday, it's a surprise, so I am going thru the whole bike , carbs , spark plugs etc ,I think I will test the fuel pump since it's a 2003 , keep up the good work , your earn a subscribe 👍

Thank you very much. Plan to test the pump on my 2002 shadow spirit 1100, today.

You are amazing, man!!!! That's the problem I have.... still learning so reading the manual step by step on how to diagnose and fix this issue.

THANK YOU 👍 My 99 C3 Aero wasn't ridden much before my back injury in 2009 and very little afterwards, so it only has 5600 miles on it, and it's beautiful. I had drained the tank and stored it in an insulated shop where it's been sitting since 2017. I had it fully serviced at a Honda dealership before I parked it, and I had to clean up the start button contacts to get it to turn over after putting in a fresh battery. First I removed the tank and checked the coolant level, because I don't think the dealership did that, and I swished around some gas and ATF and let that and a little crud drain into a into a jar for inspection, and also I removed and cleaned the petcock. I knew there had to be a filter and the fuel pump somewhere, and I knew that I needed to test several things in the right order for a proper diagnosis. I have a no start situation, but power and turning over isn't an issue. It's trying and it wants to run! The bike is 24 years old and it's been sitting for nearly six years so I'm sure the fuel filter looks much like this one. Now I know how to jump the relay to listen for the pump. I did turn off the fuel and I let it run completely out, so it wasn't parked with a lot of gas left in the carburetors and lines I knew where to come for more information, so thank you!

Within the first minute you describe the exact issue on my bike, bogging down. I just ordered a new filter. Gonna try that first. Thanks for the advice for buying cheap amazon parts

The fuel pump on my 1100 died at about 32k miles at about 10 years old. At that time I was having a hard time actually even finding a factory replacement that wasn't "refurbished" and also under $200. I ended up buying a Facet cube style pump and mounting it under the right hand side cover. It's been working great for the last 7 years and the bike now has just over 50k on it. If it ever does fail, it's a $50 pump and will literally take 5 minutes to replace. Facet is a well known quality brand though so I doubt I will have any issues.

Dude, you killed me at 4:30 haha That is awesome, we have all been there and I like how you made it funny as you explained the best way to do it. Awesome video.

I've been having this acceleration issue for a month now and took it to a shop. All they did was replace the spark plugs and rev it and say it's good. Picked it up and still did the issue at heavy acceleration where it pops and doesnt have ass to it anymore. Rides completely fine any other way I have the throttle but full. I will definitely have to try this fix out before taking it anywhere else! Thanks for the video man!

Always enjoy watching your videos. Learn all kinds of useful information that helps me on my Honda. Thanks so much and keep up the great work.

This vid helped me a lot with a fuel pump issue, thanks

Thank you again Kodie.

Thanks for the info. On fuel pump

Thanks for sharing your knowledge man!

Thank you! great vid

And thank you for the comments on chinese-made fuel pumps. I did just order one on Amazon for like you said 20-23 bucks. I'm going to return it. It's a pain to get to and I don't want to replace it twice. I will take your advice

Your videos are great man any chance you could do one on converting old mechanical wire speedometer to electrical?

Great video Kodie, thanks a lot. Gus

mate, lov your videos. helped me a lot already with my 30 year old VT1100. But i seem to have a problem and that is finding a place to buy original parts like the fuel pump or a indicator handle switch.. I find all sorts of other original stuff. Do you have ago to site?

Thanks Cody, good work

Ok cody, thanks for the heads up on the cheap pump’s, they sell a replacement kit for the virago 535 and it’s got good reports on it so what do you think about me going down that route, thanks for the videos 👍

Can you just bypass the fuel pump for carbureted bikes? Running fuel line straight to that splitter?

Okay so i did the same thing you did on the carb tuning video, listening to the engine and i did open up those idle mixture screws a half turn. And it runs and sounds nice now. BUT i am getting some black smoke now. At the same time i also did sync the carbs. The sync was way off.

Great tutorial!

I chased my tail over the entire winter on my 2000 Tourer. I ordered an Amazon fuel pump, put it on, it tested fine, but didn't fix the terrible bogging and dying anywhere off idle. rechecked the pump, tested well over what the factory manual said, so I just about bought Japan trying to fix the thing. Went through the carbs, replaced the stator, rectifier, coils, pulse generator, and even the ultra rare and expensive CDI module. Nothing made a bit of difference. Going back to the basics, I bit the bullet and bought the OEM Honda pump. Installed it and now it runs better than new. I'm forever sold on getting OEM parts for may biker now, if they are available. An expensive lesson I bought, for sure.

great video more more more!!!

hey cody, love your vids. i followed all your instructions when doing my first carb rebuild..i was wondering if there anyway to contact you and send you a video of my honda st1100 and maybe you could have an idea of why it isn't starting? i did everything right and took it apart multiple times but now i don't even know what else to check i checked everything! nothing is clogged, float height set properly, air fuel mixture screw set properly..im so confused

Well, being that mine didn’t do anything when I turned the key, I’d say we found the issue lmao. Thank you so much. Working on my first big bike. 86 Honda shadow vt 1100

Fabuloso !! you re the best !

I love your channel, I have a 95 Vt110 pulled carbs,cleaned, runs better, but now my back cylinder runs ice cold ,front one was hot could it be the pump causing this? Pops also both cylinders were working before.I will tray testing the pump .What do you think?

bro thank you so much!!!!

You suggested the old fuel filter was most likely the original. I wonder if you had just replaced the fuel filter if this would of pumped enough fuel. On the second test you installed a new fuel filter along with a new expensive fuel pump. I guess the only way to tell would be to run that old fuel pump by itself with no filter.

Very Good & entertaining!

New to bikes and trying my hand on a 2008 Honda Shadow Spirit 2008. What book are you talking about? Honda Shadow technician manual or are you referring to a maintenance manual or something I'm not familiar with? By the way, subscribed because of all the great things I'm learning from your videos. Thanks so much for putting these out there.

Great vid. Thanks for the info. Are those numbers good for all of the Honda v-twin 1100s? I need to check my 04 1100 sabre fuel pump but haven’t been able to find any specs on minimum pump volume.

Thanks for this

I am replacing the pump on my suzuki vs1400, because when its hot out, it sounds like the pump after you took it apart. On the plus side, the pumps easy to get to on my bike.

@themotorcycleMD I have a 1988 Shadow VT800C that needs a fuel pump, however Honda discontinued the part. Do you know of a aftermarket pump or another Shadow model that will come close in quality and PSI of the OEM pump for that bike? The OEM part number was 16710-MK7-000 which is also the same pump used on the VT700. I have been told the original pump worked at about 3 to 4 PSI. Thanks! PS great video.

Can you do a video on your experience at MMI.

I actually have a question as my bike is doing the opposite when I ease the throttle it bogs down when I gun it the bike will get up and go carbs are clean and synched

@TheMotorcycleMD Hi, I was watching the video about rejetting carbs you did for : For The Bold. And have a question about the importance of changing the Air Jet, for the right air/fuel mix. Im building my own Cafe Racer (Suzuki Gsx 750 1980) and switched from stock air box to four K&N air filters(pods) Im not sure if Honda use air jets, but isnt it important to change size on the air jet to get the right mix? Mine are 150. Hope you have an answer :) Or any other who reads this. Thx

Good one.

Thanks Cody

Going by some symptoms my 02 was having before it died on me last there’s a high chance I might have a fuel issue, gonna test voltage at the battery while it runs and see if that’s an issue but if it isn’t it definitely has to be the fuel system because when it died last it felt like I had ran out of gas

The points are the first thing to go on those old Honda pumps. You can replace the points without the need for a whole new pump!

Here's your award 🏅

Hey Cody, I have a question for you about my Honda PC800. I know, its a weird bike but I love it! So my question is about my clutch master cylinder. I recently changed out my brake pads and and fluid for the front rotors and also changed and bleed my clutch. My clutch has alsways been soft but consistently engaged. When I bled the air out and sealed everything back up, the clutch was nice and stiff. First time I rolled it out for a test ride, the transmission engaged almost immediately when I let my fingers relaease the lever. It felt great for about the first 30-40 mins of the ride. Then the clutch began to loosen and is currently back to how it felt prior to the work I did. Is this normal or should I start looking into pulling the slave cylinder and inspecting? Your thoughts?

I have an 04 1100c highway speeds, anything above 50mph, when throttle is applied falls dead on its face... new fuel pump, new fuel pump relay, carbs cleaned, rebuilt, and synced.

Question! So is the pump supposed to be triggered by the gas when connected to the relay? Because when i turn on my accessories i don’t hear the pump go off but it does go off when i take the relay off and jump the connector like you did in the video

So I did the fuel pump test and it’s pumping enough based on the 5 second test. My bike is still having issue with sudden throttle up. I did notice it throttles much better with choke partially on. So I’m gonna start messing with fuel/air mix screws to get it a bit richer. See how it goes. Anything else that might be the problem ? I did clean the carburetor and sync then the best I could.

Hey man! I have a 78 Honda gl1000, runs great, but after doing a carb sync, it will dip below idle speed for a second then pick back up to normal, also, when slowly reving the engine it will stutter for a sec around 3000 rpm, but doesn't do it under load when moving, any idea?

Dude, Di you mind if u use a clip of you explaining how crappy aftermarket pumps are in my channel. I have just learnt about them the hard way!

I have a technical question and need advice. This might make for a good video? What’s your protocol? Andrew

Here in Brazil, twin-carbs Shadows VT600 had a common issue on their fuel pumps, probably because of the bad quality of our gasoline, which deteriorate the pump's membrane and in some cases, set the bike on fire. My bike had a pump malfunction and I had this problem solved by just deleting the fuel pump and it runs great, just like when the pump was good... The only different thing that I do, is run the bike always with the tank on the 'reserve' position, because it gets the fuel from the lowest point of the tank, so it has a little more fuel pressure.

I think I fixed my no fuel problem on the non-running 2002 1100C I just bought! Relay! The pump wasn't running, insert the paper clip and now it does! Thanks for the video! Update. No, I didn't! New relay and the pump won't come on. Jump the wires and it comes on. There was a very small amount of gas in the tank and the pump might have been dry. Will the brain of the bike prevent the pump from coming on it there is no gas in the pump?

Was there any noise on the new pump? I couldn't hear it

I just got this bike model 4 weeks ago. Fuel pump just started clicking (15:19) but bike runs perfect. Hmm, maybe I'll replace filters but at 18k miles, i dont think they're clogged.

Hi Cody. As always, excellent material. But I’ve been asking and asking and cannot seem to get clarification on the very simple question of exactly what you are doing with that bottle you’re feeding gas into the fuel pump with. My simple questions are as follows: 1) Where can the bottle you’re feeding gas into the pump be purchased? 2) How are you using the bottle and where are you routing that rubber hose that seems attached to the bottle? 3) Basically, I’m just looking for a bit more of detailed description of how you’re using the bottle so I can perform the same test. Thank you. Sarah

97 shadow ace 1100... 14k miles. Come out, push button, no choke, fires first stroke, runs perfect. sits and idles great for 2-3 min, drops to 1 cylinder for maybe 10-15 seconds before it dies completely. And then it's done, won't crank again for a couple hours or more. I managed to ride it once, went 8 miles at 65-70mph, then dropped to one cylinder and slowed and died. And had to trailer it back. Any idea where to start? For the 2-3minutes it runs, it revs great. Can make a loop around yard riding it. idles great. All gas is new, drained tank and replaced it all with fresh. No change. I haven't had time to change fuel filter, or check spark plugs, or check for spark when it dies.

Replaced the fuel pump on a 96 vt1100c w a Mr gasket fuel pump. Turned over before the replacement but now it won't turn over, acts like a sidestand or neutral safety switch when hitting the start button but haven't touched any of those. Also, gets no power through the factory fuel pump wires. Any ideaz?

Iv got a BT1100. Intermitantly it stutters we accelerating normaly when warm. Is this systamatic of the symptoms youv explained?

How would I go about finding the factory fuel pump and filter for my 1994 shadow vt1100? What site did you use for your factory pump?

When it’s up there around 120 and I give it all it will do this but is this anything to worry about right now or can I just avoid dawging it out and be fine

Can you do a tutorial about by passing fuel pump or fuel pump delete on the Honda shadows?

Question, so if it works with the harness jumped but not with the relay connected then it means the relay is bad right?

Helpful video, thanks. I'm having an issue with my VT1100 and I can't seem to diagnose it. Seems to run fine until I hit 80mph. Hit 80mph and the bike stops responding to the throttle. Let off the throttle a tiny bit and it sputters, let off to 70mph and it's fine again. Any ideas?

Will this fuel pump work on 1987 VT1100 shadow cause the one you listed dosent have that year I need ..

I installed a mr gasket 42s it works fine pumping gas but I think it drawls too much amps and my battery wont charge I think. I think its over taxing my charging system? I have a 06 1100 shadow spirit

My 05 Honda cbr 600 randomly died out on me while on the free way. Will crank and has a really rough idle before dying out. Fuses are good. Relay I believe is good and battery is good. I'm finally coming to the conclusion my fuel pump is bad. Fuel pump still primes. Although my bike only has 10k miles on it, so has it sat? Yes a lot

That's not the way that pump works, the half part with the diafragm has a solenoid and a switch, when the diafragm is puled in the switch it is open, no energy, and the spring will send it to the rest position, the switch it is closed and the cicle goes around. The other half has two valves, one for sucking the fuel and the other to send the fuel. As the diafragm it is pulled in it will causes a low pressure in the chamber and the fuel goes in, when the diafragm it is released the spring will try to compress the fuel but the exit valve will let it pass, Sorry for the bad English.

you should have made a video on replacing the fuel pump :-)

I know you recommend OEM parts but Honda no longer makes pumps for my '92 VT1100C. Any recommendations?

That's pretty good on your fuel pump 101 class...now what do I do ..I drank the piss looking fluid. .I have a slight stomach ache hahaha

I have an old Shadow vt1100. Ive changed the pump.Its no original pump but it fits. The problem is that its fail. I wonder if a pump from a newer modell will fit my old Honda?

I really wonder why some people delete/remove the fuel pump all together from carburetor motorcycles. I have a shadow 750 ace and wanted to know if it is best to remove it or replace the pump.

Is that "relay" pwm -modulated or on/off ? Your electrical diagnosis there was a bit lacking, saying "jumping it will full throttle it" makes me think it is load dependent.

QUESTION...would a bad fuel pump cause a dead spot in the throttle about half way up....full carb rebuild done but when throttling up there is a dead spot and then past that there is ridiculous acceleration. The carb rebuild fixed a few problems but this one has remained...and yes there was bad old gas in the system before the rebuild which the reason for the rebuild.

So the inside under that plastic cap is like a pressure switch that's spring loaded it pulls this tiny rod up and down I'm imagining it connects to the larger one on the diaphragm

I am 100% agreed with you but if you can not find the original part ??? I have a 32year old yamaha and i cant find the original :/

Just trying to find out why my 1100 has poor low speed operation, 😕 after carbs were done n fuel pump is good ? This is the 8th one, I've come across that I have come by, otherwise it does highway just fine 🙂

Hey Cody I had black sludge leak out of the fuel pump breather tube. What do I do?

just swapped the puel pump on my 96 ace 1100 is there a proper way to prime the pump before starting it

Question: Fuel pump won't start on start up, but when I jump it, it runs like a drum roll. Checking for voltage Clymer manual I have says "measure voltage between the fuel cutoff relay harness side connecter black terminal and engine ground". I wish they described this better but I think I did this correctly and no voltage. Book then recommends checking for open circuit, damaged connector. Connector seems fine. How do you test for an open circuit? And then clymer says checo ignition system subfuse, fuse contact, and ignition switch. Thoughts on what to rule out or likely issue? And thoughts know checking the ignition switch, not sure what Clymer is getting at when I check it? Working, not working?

Hey Kodie im having a fuel problem. When i crank my 01 VT1100c2 it pours gas under the stator cove along the bike frame. Can you point me in the right direction?

The diaphragm that you cut is the main part, the pump has two one way valves working opposite to each other, diaphragm by going up and down creates suction and pumping action and that is how it works. Pouring water in the electrical part is not a good idea, probably that was what doomed the pump by the way of leaking gas into the motor.

What is the voltage that would go in to the fuel pump for a 2004 model?

I love you for this video; in a clean, manly sort of way of course.

So what would you think vt1100 shadow spirit idles fine but when you give it throttle it dies out

Any thoughts on QUANTAM FUEL SYSTEMS?