Hi everyone! I recently bought a kawasaki ninja 250r, year 2005. I'm a first time rider and took a motorcycle training course and was excited to jump on my bike when it died on me at a stop light in traffic. I've had problems with it ever since. Mind you the bike only has 5000 miles on it.

At first the problem was the bike didn't like to start without the choke fully engaged, and one had to ride off with the choke on and slowly turn it off as the bike warmed up. Next I had the issue of my bike turning off when I released the throttle to downshift, by the time I came to a stop the bike was off, at first it was a minor inconvenience and I got used to always supplying a little bit of throttle even when slowing down to avoid the bike turning off. What came next was the bike started acting really crappy and stalled at almost every stop light and traffic sign, and at some point when I got the bike to run again and would give it some throttle, it would die again! In traffic! This was frightening for me being a new rider.

Anyway, I'm a fixer-upper, diy person (probably due to the fact I'm cheap), and I began trouble shooting my issues. I cleaned my air filter, it wasnt that gross. I put fresh gas in with gas stabilizer. I charged my battery. I changed my spark plugs - the old ones were white. Still wouldnt even run. I talked to this bike mechanic I'm acquainted with and he said it sounded like it could be a carb problem or a fuel pump issue. The last i checked the ninja doesnt really have a fuel pump so I thought it would be the carb. So I came to this site and found the carb cleaning site and pulled everything apart, got the carb out all fine and I cleaned it with carb cleaner. The carb was gorgeous on the inside, really, so I didn't even think about rebuilding it, I just took out the jets and cleaned them, and sprayed cleaner in all the little holes on the bike. I noticed the float height was at 21 mm, which means the engine wasn't getting enough fuel which made sense that my spark plugs were white. So i adjusted the float height to 17 mm by bending the metal tang, and I put everything back together.

I turn the bike on, and it worked! I put the choke at more than half choke, and the bike idles around 1K RPM, which is low and kind of rough. I let it sit to warm up a little to make an idle adjust. I wait about 30 seconds and all of a sudden, without any provokation on my end, the RPM's jump to 5K, I found it weird it would do that, and I waited another 10 seconds and then the bike just died out. After, I look at my carbs, and they are leaking fuel! I cant tell from where but it was from the bottom of the carb. At this point and i cant tell you why, it dawns on me to check the oil. I know. dumb. I hadn't checked the oil before all of this. It was seriously low (maybe 1.2 quarts were in there as opposed to 1.9). So I change my oil and oil filter and put the correct amount of oil in. I dont see how the issue could be related to the carbs leaking gas, so I figured I must have over adjusted the float height and I take the carb apart again, reclean it, though I knew it wasnt necessary, and I set my float to maybe 18-19 mm. I'll note that the little conical metal float valve is very nice, but has a small ring around where it sits in its holder, but it is not indented or warped the shape so i think it fine. I also adjust the idle mix screws and turn them 2.5 turns out like it recommends. I put everything back on my bike and tried to start her up, and now I get nothing. The bike turns, but wont start. I turned the idle mix screws 1/4 turn and still nothing. I even changed the spark plugs again fearing I had gunked them when it was leaking gas and possibly flooding the engine.

At this point, I dont really know what to do. Whether to take the carb apart a third time, and if I did what would I do differently? I bought a new air filter just in case and I'm currently waiting for it to arrive, but i doubt this will fix my issue.
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Any thoughts?