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white smoke from exhaust

13K views 33 replies 9 participants last post by  Stu Pedaso 
#1 ·
over the last week or so my baby has been running kinda funky. When I would really get on the throttle, white smoke would come out of the exhaust. Upon firing it up it smokes pretty good too. What are possible reasons for this?
 
#4 ·
A similar thing happened to my friend while at a taqueria. some yougsters were on a field trip and they thought it would be funny to pour a coke into my friends arrows. nothing really happened though, just spit it out and smelled like burnt sugar, the monster now has a sweet tooth!
 
#7 ·
Ya sure.

White smoke is the classic symptom of a blown head gasket: coolant leaking into the cylinders.

I forget whether your ride is water cooled.

If it's air cooled (we don't call our bikes "airheads" do we?),
then I haven't got a clue.
 
#10 ·
Did you change the type of oil you're using? Mine did this when I mixed some 5W 30 in with the 15W50. When I changed the oil back all was fine. It still burns a bit of oil but not much (about 0.3 litre/1000 km). You may also have damaged valve seals, any possible overheating or dyno run recently?
 
#11 ·
good call. I had my first service a month ago or so. They changed the oil from Shell to Shaefers. Also did a Dyno run because it was running pretty lean. I have put on about 1100 miles since the work was done. It may have been happening before last week, and I just didnt notice it. Thanks for the input.
 
#19 ·
pull the spark plugs and look for oil fouling. i would suspect valve guide seals as the culprit. while the plugs are out, do a compression test, or better, a cylinder leak down test so you know the condition of your rings. cheap fix: if you are not already using 20w50, switch to it.
 
G
#20 ·
By chance did they install a new pipe or adjust the fueling? I'm thinking your running too rich. I had the same trouble on my 900ss when I was playing with carb settings. Pull your plugs and check their color. If they are darker than tan then your running too rich and might be causing the thin cloud your seeing.

This leads me to another question...when is it putting out the cloud? Is it only hard on the gas, on deceleration, or steady? If it isn't the fueling, then seeing when it smokes can help you nail down the trouble. I forget the combo of events, but it goes something like this..."if it smokes on decel then oil is being pulled past the valve guides, but if it smokes on acceleration then oil is getting pulled past the rings." It might be the other way around, so chat your mechanic up.

Last thoughts while I'm rambling. If you changed to full synth oil before the motor is broken in then your rings might not have seated yet and oil would get pulled past them and burn, aka smoke. So, switch back to a good dyno or blended oil until you get at least 6k miles on the bike. If your oil is good, then change your fuel grade and choice (try a different brand). Check your plugs and make sure your not running too rich. Take it to the dealer and have'em take a look, if only just to document the trouble.

Good luck
 
#21 ·
rubberduck, you've got the accel/decell rule right. some experience is needed to really apply that rule so i generally don't mention it. what it boils down to is high manifold vacuum, which is highest during idle and decell pulls oil in through the intake valve seals.

rich=black smoke. or, at least usually. an exception would be if it is rich enough to dilute the oil.
 
#22 ·
ok here we go. o3 620ie got it in dec of last year put remus pipes on it. white smoke... i was told to run it because the bike was sitting. fine, now the bike has 1077miles on it change the oil (motul)at 600miles still white smoke. remus pipes definately have oil on end tips of pipes. is this a warrany issue? should i take it back to my dealer or to nichols. also have we voided our warrany due to the power commander install. my dealer knew about the smoke comming out the pipes before the powercommander. wheres the leak comming from? i watched the bike while riding beside my wife. there was white smoke ideling and white smoke during heavy acceleration. ??? help please
 
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