EDIT 9.28.11 - I popped my flywheel off to see if the noise was coming from the starter clutch area. The starter clutch is working fine, no odd wear or anything. I'm curious if the starter primary gear should have this much play in it. Take a look at the video.

Video Here.

The reason I took everything apart is the noise got WAY worse last week. It's a clacking under acceleration, but I've noticed no loss of power, just the noise. I can't reliably reproduce the sound when it's idling, so my efforts with a mechanic's stethoscope haven't been useful thus far.


I ride my bike everyday, 70 mile commute so I have a good idea of what it sounds like normally. Last week it started making a distinct ticking noise when accelerating and when engine braking, I very very rarely get one little tick at idle. Bike has ~32500 miles.

Over the weekend I tore it down to check valve clearances, which were all in spec except for a barely out of spec rear intake valve. I also replaced all the seals in my exhaust, including the crush gaskets at the headers. Eliminated the PAIR valves as well. Manual CCTs were installed ~6k miles ago.

It is still doing the same thing after all of that, so I'm thinking it might be knocking caused by bad fuel. I added two gallons of Shell 93 this morning hoping to fix the issue, but wanted to run this by you guys first.

Uploaded a video, but the mic on my phone kinda sucks. You can hear it at 06 seconds after I let off the throttle.
VID 20110918 104005 - YouTube

 

Actually it kind of sounds like the carb slides bouncing around.

It is a rather common sound on a SH.

Though it is kind of hard to tell over the net

 

I guess it's just hard to hear from the video, but I've put over 8000 miles on the bike in the past 5 months and it's definitely a new noise. Most noticeable when slowing down.

Or I'm just paranoid, . Either way, thanks for the input.

 

I'd try to isolate it with a stethoscope. I hear it and don't like it, although it doesn't sound fatal at this point.

 

well,for ***** and giggles,try a lower octane,the superhawk is made for 87 octane.
these bikes have low compression,so it only requires 87 octane,89 at the most.
i use to run 91/93 octane when i first bought the bike.it ran good,but than i found out it only requires 87 octane,so when i started to use that,i noticed a little difference on the first tank,but it was noticable once the second tank went thru.
I did hear a ticking at first and it went away,the only other noise i think i heard was maybe the water pump bearing going bad,but never heard it again.
its a cheap route,and on full tank,put 3oz of sea foam.clean it all out.

 

Bump. Please see the edit to the original post.

 

Where in Washington are you?

 

I am in Port Orchard.

 

I'm about 10 minutes east of the Fauntleroy ferry. I'm not sure how soon I could get over there to take a close up listen. I do have an electronic stethoscope that can be pretty useful for isolation of the sound.

 

That would be a great help, whenever you can make it. The bike isn't my number 1 priority at the moment. I'm dropping a new transmission in my pickup this weekend, it's been on the backburner for a while but now that the bike is down I need to get it done.

I'm about 10 minutes off the Southworth Ferry and will definitely pay for gas/ferry/favorite beer

 

I'm mostly retired, so maybe mid week next based on your schedule.

 

Does the air box have the 2 small foam filters in the corners?

 

No it doesn't. I had a K&N filter that I recently replaced with a stock style but I didn't know anything went there. Looking at the fiche, I can see what you're talking about though

Did I suck something through that vent?

 

After looking at most of my internal components for the source of my noise, I happened to look down the intake on my front cylinder. I saw what looked like some serious carbon buildup. So I popped the head off today and look what I found. The patch on the piston is large and raised off the surface. What is the best way to go about cleaning this off without removing the piston?

 

Try just wiping it off with a cotton rag first, and a little oil if necessary. I was surprised at how much I could get off of mine just doing that.

 

I'll give that a try, thanks.