she only runs when shes cold

i go to start the bike and it takes a bit then after about a minute its fine it will rev up fine and i can ride about four times around the block. while riding it hesitates till a certain rpm then bam! once the engine is hot thougit goes into this wierd idle thats kinda high for an idle and it pulls me around the neighborhood at a smooth 10mph but wont go any faster. engine proceeds to get really hot too (almost to red then i shut it off) and fuel light randomly goes off and on? im lost please help. :?:

 

What do the plugs look like? I'm no expert but it sounds like bad flooding. Look to see if the plugs are blackened. I'll assume the FEC (Choke) is off by this point - correct?

But, the fuel light thing is confusing...
I would check the battery first. Make sure you aren't overcharging or anything like that. While revving, the battery should peak around 14-15volts and be around 11-12 at idle.

 

In order of easy to difficult - start at the beginning and go through the problem...

Check your plugs first as Fraps said - heat usually means lean. What we're looking for here is that the mixture is good or bad.

Battery - will affect low speed idle if it's not holding a charge, but generally won't affect the bike at higher rpms.

Then, the carb sync - which affects idle

and then valve adjust which affects idle/tough start

Can we have more info on the bike? How many miles? When was the last valve adjust? When was the last time it ran properly? Was it winterized? Do you have winter?

 

12k miles ran before it sat for a long time. i dont know what or how with the valve adjust. and the idle once it gets in its funk is a little higher than normal and it wont open up. almost like something stops and starts working.

 

So far it sounds like the classic gummed carb scenario. Runs on idle because the choke supplies fuel. Not opening up also points to a lack of fuel to transition to the idle jets. A good colortuning is in order to know for sure.
I had this problem with my bike when I restored it. I cleaned the carbs several times until I was sure they were not the problem. I then discovered that the TCI was bad. I slipped in a spare one I had just out of desperation when no amount of carb cleaning and colortuning worked. Presto the bike left idle and ran like a raped ape. All this to make the point that once the idle is set and verified with a colortune then the TCI is suspect. Another advantage of the colortune is that you can verify spark during compression. So you know not to waste time on the coils or plugs.

 

On my old seca 550 when it got hot the engine would completely cut out. If you have ruled out everything else the everyone has offered check the pulse coils that are on the left side of the crank.
Sean