M900, run with no Fuel Pump

[Nasher]

All

Can anyone see any reason why I couldn’t run my 97 M900 with the fuel pump bypassed temporarily to prove a point?

It’s not got the Vacuum tap fitted at all, just a straight through inline tap in the pipe from the fuel filter to the fuel pump.
And I realise I’ll need a relatively full fuel tank to get the level above the carbs and let gravity feed them.

It didn’t run very well yesterday, OK at slower speeds and accelerating up to speed on the motorway, but then stuttering etc after a very short while.

It felt like fuel starvation, and I went through all sorts of things afterwards without finding anything.
It will start and idle, and run well at lower speeds, but my gut feel is the fuel pump isn't keeping up with the float bowls being emptied.

It could of course be one carb having problems, but the fuel in both float bowls was nice and clean and I’ve not touched anything recently.

It did completely cut out completely at one point, not go down on to one cylinder, which points to a shared fuel or Ignition issue, but by the time I’d coasted to a halt and pushed the starter button it fired up immediately and ran OK again for a short while.

So it definitely appears to be something that is effecting both cylinders at the same time, not just one, so at this stage I’m assuming it’s not individual carbs, IC Ignitors, Coils etc.

I did have a full tank of fuel at the time, so I might be barking up the wrong tree, as the fuel would probably gravity feed through a weak pump anyway, or maybe it would form a big enough restriction to slow gravity feed down.

Running it gravity fed for a test ride will at least prove or eliminate a weak fuel pump.

Nasher.