Plugs?

[Ribo]

Pulled my plugs and they look pretty good to me... they do have a very fine black residue on them.. what do y'all think? Is this normal?

Sorry the picture is a little blurred..

 

[mwm1977]

From the pic they look good to me. Should be a chocolate/off-white brown color. The bike is running well?

 

[Ribo]

Yeah, it has some issues with a high idle but obviously that's not the plugs.. just wanted a sanity check on these. Cheers.

 

[Sonreir]

If that's what they look like after idling, then you're running lean. I suspect an air leak as that is also a common cause of a high idle.

 

[Ribo]

Naaa, I just took them out to see if they were busted up.. I wasn't really checking for lean/rich, the bike was cold and hadn't been run for a few days... still starts ok though..

 

[Sonreir]

That's kind of the point I was trying to make. If the bike is just sitting idling for a bit, plugs are usually black. Not enough heat to burn off the soot.

 

[Ribo]

Right but I took these out with the bike cold and it hadn't been started for a few days.. ( when I said it still starts I'm presuming it does - it did fine 3 days ago).

I should have it on the road on Friday so I'll check em again after a bit of a ride..

 

[ILoveThumpers]

The plug will stay black until the engine heats up to the point that the soot is burned off.

Listen to Sonreir, he's trying to tell you something important.

-Deek

 

[Ribo]

Ok Dad,

I was listening, there was soot on the plug some of it got knocked off and/or didn't show up very well on the photo but there wasn't much cos the bike went from a long ride to sitting in my garage with only being turned over for 10 seconds 4 days age... but I'm keeping an open mind and going see how the plugs look when they've warm so get a balanced view...

 

[Rich Ard]

You're not listening, though. The question you asked was "how do my plugs look?"; they look like you're running lean.

If they were sooty - like they tend to be at idle - 4days wouldn't do anything. It takes a sandblaster to get that stuff off. You may be experiencing a high idle because you are running lean, which would explain the condition if the plug.

- Rich Ard, father of five

 

[Ribo]

I guess it appears as though I'm not listening - I got that part...

Perhaps I'm just confused... it was said that if the bike was idling and not getting hot enough then there would be soot on the plugs and if not then this could indicate lean... what I'm saying is that the bike has NOT been sat idling for any period greater than 5 seconds prior to it being ridden for a long enough period of time that the plugs would have been hot enough to burn off the soot.... would you expect there to be soot here after 5 seconds?

Am I missing something here? I do occasionally get a case of the dumb so feel free to slap me.

 

[plagrone]

Go idle the bike for a minute and take a picture that's in focus. Then, go spray some wd40 around your intake and see if you have a leak. No more confusion

 

[xb33bsa]

no the plugs look fine for 5 seconds of idling they are starting to get some soot which is normal at idle

 

[xb33bsa]

Go idle the bike for a minute and take a picture that's in focus. Then, go spray some wd40 around your intake and see if you have a leak. No more confusion

starting fluid spray works much better checking fer leeks

 

[Maritime]

IF you rode it long enough to get warm and shut it right off when you got back those plugs look fine. the 5 second idle would be the little bit of black soot. If you fire it up and idle it 2-3 minutes and pull the plugs they should be pretty black. Then if you do a proper plug chop at like half throttle, hit kill switch, pull clutch, pull over and look they should be like that minus the soot. Plug colour is only useful when you have 100% of the context required to make a decision. Just pulling the plugs randomly and saying do these look ok kind of doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

[Ribo]

Fair enough! thanks for the help guys, I'm sorry if I was a bit vague with the question. I do appreciate people taking the time to answer and help edumacate me.

Cheers.
R./