Timing Issue?
 

Hello, I am new to the superhawk. I just bought one two months ago and am loving it. It is a 2003 and had about 3400 miles on it when I got it and now has about 5200 on it. I have read through many of the posts here trying to learn as much as I can. It is bone stock.

The other day I was pulling into the gas station and there was a loud ‘clunk’ very metal sounding from the engine I believe. No other sounds of clanging, it seems to idle fine. There have been no other clunks since then.

I don’t know if I’ve read too many cct posts and am being paranoid, but I feel as though it is not quite as smooth at higher rpms. It’s hard to say if it has less power or not for me because it has so much more than my other bike. I am trying to decide if perhaps the timing chain skipped a tooth or two or if I’m being nuts. Can anyone give me some other symptoms if that would have happened? It's hard for me to imagine that if the timing is off it would idle fine? I suppose it’s best to pull the valve covers, make sure the timing is correct, and install APE’s (from all the reading I’ve done), but I was hoping someone could give me something to look for that would be a better indicator then my paranoia since I haven’t had the bike that long to really tell how much of a change (if any) there’s been.

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks,
gordon

The clunk was probably from the carbs (they do that sometimes) but do get the CCT's replaced since at 5200 you would not be the youngest CCT failure recorded. (2800 miles is the winner so far)

Also there is that new guy selling CCTs on here for less, can't vouch for him, but he seems a nice guy and it can save you some coin. https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...al-ccts-25084/

I think that it's pretty unlikely that the CCT would fail and you would skip just one tooth and be able to keep riding... Once those things go, there's nothing keeping the chain from skipping more teeth and the notorious cylinder self destruct.

Thanks alot for your feedback! I appreciate it.

Yeah its a carb fart. Probably wont be your last since the ethanol is like 15% now. (this is my theory). But both my SH's do it occasionally.

Thanks for your compliment. There are a couple of riders here who now can vouch for the quality and that I am legitimate and reliable. There are also the riders at the Yahoo KLX650 group, the Kawasaki Motorcycles Forum, the ZL-OA (Eliminators) forum, the Concours Owners forum, and some on the ADVriders site who will confirm that too.

Using PayPal and their money request for payment is a safety stop for the buyer too. If I screw up they can file a complaint and PayPal will freeze the payment (aka subtract it from my account) until the customer is satisfied. It also allows full refunds without fees. I know, one UK rider got impatient after about 6 days and froze the payment, but unfroze it after he got the part (10 days), I screwed up and forgot to email that the part was sent. Still, all was good, the safety worked both ways. Then I had a rider who had a friend machine a part before I got information to make the part he'd already paid for. I refunded his payment, no problem (I hope he sends me the information to make the part though, not everyone has a machinist buddy), no fees, quick and job done.

I got into it because those other guys didn't list either bike I owned and apparently due to their lack of response, weren't too interested in helping me out either. Seems they now list one for the 550 Zephyr now, a bit late for me though. So i do it for the enjoyment and pay a few bills in the process.

I'm playing with doing brake adapters for the Eliminators and my own Zephyr right now. I've seen some doing brake changes on the Superhawks and read about it with interest, since the set up I want to adapt to my 550 is a full set up from a CBR900, including the master cylinder. Honda has some interesting stuff going on with the caliper piston/master cylinder piston relationships. It's kind of fun playing around and doing the CAD work.