Header pipes colouration

L

llaen

Well-known member
Site Supporter
Hi all,

I've noticed the header pipes of my yamaha having different amounts of colour. It's a new bike at around 8,000 km. Is that normal?
As you can see pipe #2 hardly has anything. I'm not the proud owner of the first 3 cylinder fz8, am I? :p

XIS34kZ.jpg
 
it's normal for them to be coloured like that. It's essentially heat annodizing the metal. As for the one not being coloured, does it run rough? if not, it could just be there's a bit more surface rust or dirt on the one pipe.
 
Yeah I know it's normal to be coloured but was worried about the difference of colouration levels.
Runs fine so I guess it's safe to assume everything's alright.

Thanks!
 
To be safe just feel the 3rd header to make sure that its as hot as the others. Ive had this issue with my cb 550. The discoloration wasnt the same as the others so after a 5 minute ride i tapped all of the headers. Ended up being a fouled spark plug. Cleaned it and swap with another spark plug and everything was good
 
Just don't touch it with bare hands. a piece of wet newspaper or paper towel works good for this, don't burn yourself.
 
Yeah, don't touch it, it's so hot it takes a second to realize that "yep, it's hot". Be a good burn!

Polish those pipes up (grey scotch brite then wet sand up from 800gr to 1500gr) and you'll see it will colour like the others. Plus shiny pipes really make the bike look good, they look like art when they are like mirrors.
 
Haha sorry. I didnt mean to literally touch it for a second. I meant to say tap it quickly once or twice just to know how hot it is. I would suggest tapping header 1 with your right hand, header 2 with left etc.
 
Just spray water on them, you'll know which cylinder isn't firing. My race R6 idles on 3 cylinders. Whatever
 
you're right but you can also run into that partially hot header. you'll never know if it's operating 100% unless you feel it or use a temp laser
 
That is pretty normal due to the heat it produces. You can wrap it with thermal wrap if you want to cover it and helps cool down the engine heat.
 
I tapped the pipies after a short idle (and after making sure they won't strip the skin off my fingers) and, from what I can tell, all 4 of them were more or less equally hot.

I think things are just fine and I'll be on the lookout for any spark plug issues when I'm going over things in the winter.
Thanks again for all the suggestions.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom