breakaway
12th July 2010, 18:19
Intermittent problem with cylinder # 3 misfiring. If I give it heaps of stick, it picks up and goes (especially above about 4-5000 RPM). But lower revs / idle, it bogs down like you wouldn't believe.
It started on friday on my way in to work. It started easy like normal, and ran fine up until I got off the motorway (work is about 15 minutes from motorway). At this point I'd been riding about 15 minutes and the bike was already nice and warm. Suddently, it was running on 3 and farting around, but as long as I kept the revs above 4000 RPM it seemed fine. After work, it started very easily and there were no misfires at all. Rode it all the way home, no worries, so I forgot about it.
Until, now, when I started it for a nice evening pootle at about 6PM, and it ran on 3 cylinders right from the start. I let it warm up to 75°C (normal operating temperature) and it was still running on 3. Took it up and down the road, and it was still running on 3 cylinders.
I know its cylinder 3 being shit because I sprayed cold water on the headers and 1,2,4 dried of significantly faster than 3.
Things I think are worth mentioning:
Thursday (day before this misfiring started) was a rainy day, and bike was parked outside with rain falling on it pretty much all day.
There is no service history with the bike, other than the fact that I've done an oil change about 500 km ago.
I've put less than 1 tank of gas through it in the past 2-3 weeks - it's been parked up most of the time. Is it possible that there has been condensation on the inside walls of the fuel tank and now there's water in the fuel? (Bike lives in covered shed, but its been damn cold recently)
I'm going to put in some new iridium spark plugs tomorrow and see if that solves the problem. I guess it could be a bung coil but I'd like to rule out the cheaper courses of action first.
Any help appreciated.
It started on friday on my way in to work. It started easy like normal, and ran fine up until I got off the motorway (work is about 15 minutes from motorway). At this point I'd been riding about 15 minutes and the bike was already nice and warm. Suddently, it was running on 3 and farting around, but as long as I kept the revs above 4000 RPM it seemed fine. After work, it started very easily and there were no misfires at all. Rode it all the way home, no worries, so I forgot about it.
Until, now, when I started it for a nice evening pootle at about 6PM, and it ran on 3 cylinders right from the start. I let it warm up to 75°C (normal operating temperature) and it was still running on 3. Took it up and down the road, and it was still running on 3 cylinders.
I know its cylinder 3 being shit because I sprayed cold water on the headers and 1,2,4 dried of significantly faster than 3.
Things I think are worth mentioning:
Thursday (day before this misfiring started) was a rainy day, and bike was parked outside with rain falling on it pretty much all day.
There is no service history with the bike, other than the fact that I've done an oil change about 500 km ago.
I've put less than 1 tank of gas through it in the past 2-3 weeks - it's been parked up most of the time. Is it possible that there has been condensation on the inside walls of the fuel tank and now there's water in the fuel? (Bike lives in covered shed, but its been damn cold recently)
I'm going to put in some new iridium spark plugs tomorrow and see if that solves the problem. I guess it could be a bung coil but I'd like to rule out the cheaper courses of action first.
Any help appreciated.