Can fuel additives cause poor performance?

Hey all, I just bought an 82 XJ 650. Rebuilt the carbs and had the bike running great. However, I recently put some "Gumout" fuel additive in the tank and now it's running VERY sluggishly. Can this be caused by the additive? or is it likely that I have something else going on? any advice would be greatly appreciated.

-Thanks

 

sounds to me like either you loosened up something that you missed in the carbs, or maybe even the tank or fuel line. I think you would have to put a lot of additive in a clean system before it caused problems. These bikes can be sensitive (even though Fitz doesn't like that term)--I simply changed from a Uni Foam filter to the stock paper filter and now it runs poorly.

 

+1 on that

 

Depending on the additive, yes it can.

The suggestions above are probably more of the situation though.

 

Thanks for the advice, sounds like I'll be going through the carbs one more time. At least I'm getting my moneys worth out of my tools!

 

Before I pulled out the carbs again I'd drain and refill the tank with regular fuel and see what happens...

 

The same thing happened to me on my old KZ. I dumped some fuel system cleaner in the system, went for a ride, bike died 3 hours into it, and I tow-trucked home. The next morning the bike started and ran like a champ, so whatever was the issue melted away over night. Perhaps a chunk of the tank melted away? who knows...

 

An inline fuel filter would be a good idea.

 

Update: finished off the tank of bad gas and things seem to have turned around. The old gal seems to be herself again.....note to self....easy on the gumout!

Thanks everyone for your help!