Firstly, I bought this bike last summer with 10.5K miles on her and she is currently sitting at 13.1K. It was my first inline 4 supersport, so I don’t have a lot to go off when comparing it to other 600cc supersports. I do the routine maintenance, and I’m planning on checking the valve clearances this winter, but I’m in no way a mechanical expert. I did screw up the oil capacity and for the first 800 miles I owned it, she ran with ½ qt over full. I’ve had some mechanical sounds pop up recently and I want to get some opinions on whether I should just ride it like it is, or what I should dig into to try to trouble shoot.
1st- I had a sticky clutch cable that resulted in 4 miles of clutch slipping and a noticeable louder valve train, cam chain, and what sounds like a metal fan spinning when the rpms get to 5K when I got her home. I reset the automatic CCT and the faint clicking noise was gone, but the top end is still noisier than before this happened. The other noise is only audible around 5K rpms and drowns out around 10K, but it sounds like a vibrating metal fan. My first thought was that the radiator fan was running all the time, but it’s not. The speed of the sound increases as the rpms increase as well. It doesn’t sound like a tick or knocking sound. I’ll try to get a recording of it. She still pulls hard(in my very limited opinion), and she gets to red line in 1-5 without sputtering and idles pretty strongly.
Is there common valve damage/top end engine damage that would sound like that? Where should I start? 2nd- I changed the spark plugs (NGK 6263 CR9E) and blew out the air filter(I think it’s OEM) and cleaned the airbox area. Now the exhaust is growling on decel when in gear and the intake is noticeable louder when accelerating. I can rev it in neutral and no pops or growls, but if I’m moving and the rpms are above 6K she growls when slowing down. I like it, but it’s never done this before the change. The bike only has a Jardine rt1 slip on(its what it came with) and there is no F1 light on.
Should I pull the plugs again and see if it’s running rich? If they are white, what is the next thing I should do? Last- In traffic or sitting at a red light on a hot day the radiator fan kicks on at around 212, and the bike will get up to 226 and then just stays there. It won’t go higher which is good, but it’ll pretty much just read 226 until I get moving again. Coolant level is good and was flushed in the spring.
Is this normal?
I feel like the bike is still running strong, and maybe it’s just getting louder as she ages, but I have no other bike experience to go off of. I’ll upload it idling and figure out a way to record the fan spinning sound.
Here is the bike idling; sorry for the shake, I had the phone in the mount
Here is a a run on the bike... you can hear it best around the 10 second mark... I took it with an iphone, so the mic isn't great.