That pesky ping thing!

[quazi-moto]

Welp, it just started on Sunday when I overtook another vehicle (cage) on the road. I clicked down into fourth and cracked it open. The bike accelerated hard, but also pinged noticeably. Not violently, but it was certainly audible. I thought maybe she was running lean so when I returned home I let her cool off, then I pulled the plugs. To my disbelief both plugs were black and sooty so I gave 'em a shot in the sandblaster and re-gapped 'em and screwed 'em back in. I test rode it and it seemed okay, but this was later in the evening and it was cooler outside. It has never pinged before, even after installing the Staintunes which I thought might lean out the mixture. I'm a little perplexed by the plug condition which would indicate a rich mixture. Hmmm, any enthusiasts have any light to shine on this? I'm all ears.

 

BTW: I don't really lug the motor, but sometimes I cruise along with the tach needle just past 3,000 RPM.

[Guest jimjib]

You cant really tell your plug condition like that. You need to run it along at a steady state...at the rpms where the problem is... switch the key off and coast to a stop and then pull and read the plugs.

[Guest hyper]

Any engine that is running properly will never have black sooty plugs no matter how you check them.

[dlaing]

Keep in mind that you could be too rich at one part of the map and too lean at another.

The stock map is less than ideal, because of emission laws and the adherence to the manufacturer's philosophy that one map will work for all bikes of a given model.

The PowerCommander and FIM's UltMap

http://www.fuelinmoto.com.au/fimprods.html#umflash

can adjust the mixture so that it is nearly always optimized. Variations of temperatures, air pressure, humidity, fuel quality, and the positions of the stars can always keep you from getting it absolutely perfect, but 99% perfect is good enough.

Getting the bike set to spec is the first step and then using the PCIII or the Ultimap. Either of these products can fix most pinging problems, optimize fuel efficiency, power, and driveability.

Of course you may have bad compression, faulty fuel injectors, wacky sensors, insufficient ignition or a neighbor switching your premium for his low octane, but, I kind of doubt it as many of us have fixed the same problem with the PCIII.

Of course I could be wrong and something is very wrong with your bike that should be fixed under warranty.

Changing spark plugs and testing compression is easy enough. Diagnosing other potential faults may be more difficult.

I believe the problem occurs because there is a combination of lean spots in the map and carbon build up from rich spots in the map.

My experience has been, no pinging at first, then after a couple thousand miles pinging started, tune up helped, but not enough. Got PCIII, pinging went away, but fuel efficiency dropped. Several thousand miles later, pinging returned, enriched PCIII one notch with the buttons, pinging gone. I attribute the pinging to the map being incorrect. I definitely need to follow my own advice (and others) and have the bike dyno tuned. My goal is to average 40 MPG and never ping.

For what it is worth, I say stay away from ARCO and gasohol. I tried ARCO twice in my bike and noticed a drastic change increase in rough riding(popping and missing) at low rpms.

[emry]

My Scura also pings, sometimes loudly. I raised the fuel pressure by 10 psi and the pings are almost completely gone. (It was running very lean at 3500+ and 3/4 to WOT throttle settings) The increase in fuel pressure has not even reduced my fuel mileage noticably, suprisingly. I would prefer to have gotten a PC III but this will have to do for now. The bike is bone stock.

[Guest HI-TECH-CHECK]

Do you have the stock air filter? The staintunes won't help efficiency if your air box is stock. I installed the air box eliminator in conjunction with the mistral cans and my mileage shot up to 40.mpg from 29mpg. It also starts much easier.

An old mechanic once said

"if you can't get it in,you can't get it out"