| Author | Message | ||
     Typeone |
had service done on my bike a looong time ago and rode away with insane popping on decel. confused the hell out of me... old thread here: http://www.badweatherbikers.com/cgibin/discus/show .cgi?tpc=32777&post=459400#POST459400 two years later i run into this scenario again (my own service this time) and realize what the answer was. simple plug gap. hah! when i yanked those Pro Series plugs out in '05 the gap was way too tight on one of them, the other was fine (careful tech performed the install. grrrr). i went and replaced never thinking plug gap would make that much difference. it does. fast forward to last weekend, new NGKs installed, left the pre-gap since they were Iridiums. ive never trusted gap but did this time becasue i couldnt find my damn gap tool. result from new plugs.... TONS of popping on decel, good power overall, lots more fan running. i thought my headers came loose again. nope. curious, i pulled the plugs again and measured, they were gapped at ~.025 out of the box. realizing this was too tight a gap, i regapped at .040 like my last set... the result... NO popping at all, but, TONS of pinging! power seemed a little off and the fan barely ran at all. i'm going back to Buellistics recommendation of gapping at .030 (which i used to do) and see where the popping and pinging end up. interesting.... so why the huge difference in running condition from a gap of .025 to .040? i figured the ignition system could handle .040 since i've read some of the shops use .040 for Buells. FSM recommends .035 but i'm thinking .030 might be perfect since the bike ran pretty great with the gap at .025 except for popping and more fan. | ||
| Punkid8888 |
Yea you would be surprised what gap can do for power and stuff. Although I never related it to poping on decel. Another thing you might want to look into is indexing your spark plugs. I will be doing this soon on my project truck just to see what if it helps at all. | ||
| Typeone |
i just regapped 'em to .030, going to take a test run in a few, i'll report back. regarding indexing, i remember asking about that on the Buells and I think Slaughter mentioned it doesn't gain you much on these bikes... if anything. not sure from my own experience but would be interested to hear of others who've tried it. i was thinking about that as i was seating my new, but now three times installed, NGKs. wondering how the spark would change just from its slightly new index. EDIT: by the way, the ping looks to be coming from the rear cylinder, tiny flecks of metal on rear plug, none on front. (Message edited by typeone on October 03, 2007) | ||
| Typeone |
back from the test ride... wow, what a difference! same test loop, a little higher temps today, .030 gap, experienced none of the ping i experienced with the .040 gap yesterday and my AFV is still planted at a nice 100%. did have a tiny, tiny bit of ping twice when getting on it from lower RPM on the highway but couldnt reproduce consistently. thats back to normal vs. the way it was pinging yesterday which was awful AND consistent. so psyched! | ||
| Unibear12r |
Thanks. Good report! Something to keep in mind. |
