Hell Hath No Fury Like a FJR Scorned!

[HotRodZilla]

I'd take that muffler off and be sure nothing made a home in there. That's crazy!!

 

[TomInPA]

I'd take that muffler off and be sure nothing made a home in there. That's crazy!!

I don't think so A.J. A flow obstruction would have the opposite effect. I bet they might not glow if he installed block-off plates on the PAIR, but the easiest solution is to get the Sea Foam out of the gas.

 

[tesla]

My mechanic brother is pretty sure that I have an injector or 2 that is stuck open and dumping fuel into the exhaust. I think the Sea Foam treated fuel is making it hotter.

 

[TomInPA]

Is the red on one side or both?

 

[tesla]

New development. I just installed a new battery and no longer have to jump it off from the car. The bike cranked up immediately, doesn't backfire and doesn't die when idling. However, the glowing pipe issue is still present. It appears to have improved but hard to tell in bright daylight. Need to get the Sea Foam out now or seriously dilute it with a full tank of gas.

Is the red on one side or both?

Left side only.

 

[ionbeam]

Is the red on one side or both?

Left side only.

Hmm, post #19 mentioned something related to left side only.

Glad you are down to this one issue.

 

[Salish1300]

That's crazy red. Almost like you used an IR camera to view it. My experience with this sort of thing (meaning, running rough due to some fuel related problem) is that it is rarely mechanical. And after starting over with a clear new tank of gas, I would be inclined to hop aboard, find some lonely roads, and run her at 80mph for a while. Amazing what an open throttle and heat and time can do.

Our bikes aren't diesels, but one of the greatest sins that sailors commit on their diesel engines is not running them hard enough. Too much idling and low RPM use where the engine doesn't heat up and burn off the carbon. Our bikes are not like that, but sitting for a long time can develop varnish in various places, and besides a proper treatment of a SeaFoam like product, heat and a good hard run are your best friend.

Good luck, that is really strange!

 

[erixun]

I agree with riding the piss out of it. Maybe just sitting idling in the garage with no air flow to speak of would cause the pipes to heat up and glow like that. I am not sure as I have not just let it idle for that long. If you are getting exhaust flow out of each exhaust, I would not expect a blockage. Any who, with pipes that hot you surely incinerated the pecker, if there was one to begin with.

 

[TomInPA]

One last question for Tesla, can you feel exhaust pressure equally from both sides, or is everything coming through the left side.

if there is a blockage at the right catalyst pack, the exhaust header may need replaced, or cut open and the cats removed. Seafoam is not your friend right now...get it out. If exhaust pressure is present on both sides, you're okay to ride. If not, then you might want to post to see if someone has a used set of headers available.

 

[tesla]

Exhaust pressure is the same. Matter of fact, when I restarted it again and let it idle when cold, it gave some minor backfires. I stuck my hand behind the pipes and the backfires were equal out of both pipes.

Pictures came out better than expected. No special editing or photoshopping. LG G3 camera rocks!

 

[Klubis]

When I got my '07 a couple of years ago, it ran like dookey. With the help of those in this forum, I tried many things to fix it, including Sea Foam, cleaning the injectors, stepping up the idle, PCIII, and probably a few other things.

It had the glowing exhaust pipes just like yours. I checked the plugs and they looked fine, but I went ahead and changed them anyhow. Problem solved. I wish I had changed the plugs first. It would have saved a lot of beer.

Here's what I reasoned was going on. The bike was not running on all 4. She was dumping unburned fuel into the exhaust pipes, which was being ignited at the cat. Changed the plugs, no unburned fuel, no glowing pipes, pulls like a freight train, if not like an FZ1.

Changing plugs is pretty cheap if you don'

 

[Klubis]

Ahem, as I was saying before I became a victim of rapid click syndrome, changing the plugs is easy and cheap. It worked for me. Also, I'm wondering if Sea Foam contributed to "fouling" a plug, because although it didn't run great before the Sea Foam, it ran worse after the Sea Foam. But I used a heavy dose of Sea Foam, much as you did.

 

[TomInPA]

Exhaust pressure is the same. Matter of fact, when I restarted it again and let it idle when cold, it gave some minor backfires. I stuck my hand behind the pipes and the backfires were equal out of both pipes.
Pictures came out better than expected. No special editing or photoshopping. LG G3 camera rocks!

I wouldn't talk you out of changing the spark plugs, but dude you need to ride this fire-breathing bitch.

 

[Salish1300]

Yeah, ride it hard first. I agree plugs are possible culprit for the reason given of unburnt fuel, but the plugs being fouled may be burnt off by a good 30 minutes at 5-6,000 rpm. Keep her in 3rd or 4th if you must, and push her hard. Then, maybe a cheap and easy fix happens. If not, go to plugs.

 

[tesla]

When I checked the iridium plugs they were all clean, dry and getting spark. They only have a couple of thousand miles on them if that and they looked it. That said, could new plugs really help?

I've filled the tank with gas so that the Sea Foam is much diluted compared to what it was.

The big question is how do I ride the snot out of it without the pipes overheating. It starts glowing at around 5 bars. I guess I could shut it down around that time, let it cool and repeat. Hopefully a cycle or 2 would do the trick. Would going through the gears while on the center stand do anything?

 

[mcatrophy]

... Would going through the gears while on the center stand do anything?

It'll do nothing, the engine isn't loaded, so not much through-flow of air. We're looking for some wide-open throttle work.
Personally, I haven't got a clue as to what is wrong, so I don't have an opinion as to whether this will help.

(Nobody takes any notice of my opinion even if I have one.)

 

[MrZappo]

Running it on the center stand is the worst thing you could do.

Get it out on the road in 3rd gear doing 80 or so. The wind from riding will go a long way towards cooling off your exhaust.

And if your actually moving, you should not see 5 bars.

Continually starting it and testing and trying to clean out a ridiculous amount of SeaFoam is part of your problem, not part of your solution.

Get her into her natural habitat and let her breathe.

 

[hppants]

It's rare to fuel foul a plug to failure since the invention of fuel injection, but I suppose it still happens. If it comes to it, you can pull all four plugs and ground them one by one against the engine and see what kind of fire you have.

I'm not sure I'd leave the driveway at WFO - if you have a lean or dry hole, then you are asking for irreversible trouble. Remember, the atomized fuel contributes to the combustion chamber metal cooling Just get into the wind and bring her up through the gears and ride a while. Vary your throttle as you accel and decel. The exhaust header can glow cherry red and unless it gets so hot that the heat it emits melts your plastic, it doesn't matter. What matters is watching your coolant temperature. Verify that your fan works at 4 bars, and then kicks off at 3 bars. Then go put a 100 miles on it and see if it starts running better. If after 10 miles of "at speed" riding, the engine doesn't start to run a little better, you have something wrong and you can head back home to continue the diagnosis. Based on the collective information on this thread, my best guess would be a clogged, stuck, or unenergized (electrical) fuel injector on the "red pipe" hole. But even if it improves a little, keep riding and hopefully it will continue to improve. IF this is the case, you probably flooded the crap out of the engine running it at no load repeatedly, along with a ton of condensation in the cans.

Stop every 10-15 miles and re-assess what is going on. Better, worse, or no difference? Problem moved to a different rpm, different throttle position, different ______?

At some point, you've just got to look the beast in the face and say "You are not the boss of me. I'm the boss of you."

 

[ionbeam]

All 4 header pipes go into that catalytic converter making one common plenum. The common plenum exits into two exhaust pipes. If only one exhaust pipe gets red, but the common catalytic converter does not sure points to something being wrong between the cat exit and one of the two exhaust pipes. The fact that it ran well the last time ridden and now has this problem, which is not common, is a bit of a conundrum. Catalytic converters can fail by breaking apart and by melting. The cat can break all on its own or if the cat con was struck. I had one break up in my car, the pieces would bounce around and just sometimes would clog the catalytic converter exit and limit my car speed to 40 mph.

If the problem is a clogged exhaust the engine will not be able to pull red line, it will hit a certain point and then simply fail to rev higher.

I wonder what would happen if someone were to pull the exhaust pipes off the catalytic converter.....

 

[hppants]

I think Ionbeam and I are fishing in the same hole. One red pipe IMO would not indicate a Cat converter, collector, or can exhaust restriction. I suppose it could indicate an exhaust restriction between the cylinder head and the collector for that one cylinder, but frankly I'm having a hard time buying that theory logically.

The likely reason that one header pipe is red is because that cylinder is running lean. The most likely reason this is happening is a (partially or totally) clogged or malfunctioning fuel injector. Given the bike has sat a while lends itself credibility to this theory, IMO.

That's why I don't think a series of drag race runs is a good idea. We don't want to overheat a dry hole. But if the injector has a piece of crap on it, running some fuel through it hopefully will dislodge it and the problem will fix itself. That's why I don't think we should throw the fuel injector out with the ethanol bath water just yet.

Am I way off base?

Does anyone know how to check a fuel injector electrically?