help!! glowing red hot header pipes!!

check jetting and timing. sounds like it's time for some maintenance.

Hi Andrew

That is not uncommon in the bergs, specially at idle and if you let them at idle some time.

That glowing is caused by a lean mixture, that curiously makes a very hot combustion, and it's a very dangerous situation !! Please pay attention to that !!!
It is a thin line between an optimum carb setup and disaster and it's not for everyone to go there and play with that, so if your not experienced mechanic, my advice is to play safe !

So if this is a new situation and you haven't been playing with the jetting of your carb or the pilot screw, you probably have a clogged carb in the area of the pilot circuit and you should clean it. If you never noticed and it was already like that, you can try first to open gradually the pilot screw and see what happens. Anyway I would clean the carb.

:cheers:
ZAGA

I would anticipate if you start the engine from cold and let idle, within 2 minutes they will be glowing, and i would also say that would be normal.

I think the owners manual says dont let it idle for more than a minute.

If you were out cruising around and pulled in and quick turned the lights off and they were red somethings wrong.

sounds to me like ignition timing is wrong.

secondly, the valve timing could be out or the tappets.

the line on the stator should be 1mm to the left of centre when peering through the hole in the right cover.

check the tappets with the 1/6th of a turn method. the 470 has the worst tappets by a mile...

as for cam timing, I would say that you may have a camchain stretched right out. I'd remove the headers and the middle section and then remove the centre nut on the tensioner and its spring and then remove the two mushroom headed screws and check how many chain tension clicks are left?

if this is good ok. the 470 won't run for more than a few minutes a tooth out so I don't think it is that.

regards

Taffy

My 03 FE400 was suffering from the same ailment years ago. The culprit was a dirty carb (i.e. reduced fuel flow vs. air flow = lean).

I did a FS650e 2003 yetserday with a 470 piston. did the usual "1mm to the left of centre" and the pipes glowed!

so I strobed the ignition timing and the damn thing wasn't firing much before TDC. so I went to 2mm and then 3mm and then got 6d BTDC but I only did that by imagining the white line to be back in the middle!

can you work that out? confusing isn't it? but if you advance the ignition you also advance the white line on the stator that you want to see the flywheel mark align up against!

anyway, 3mm of advance on this one.

a great reminder lest i should have forgotten that you should always strobe your timing and get it right....

just when you thought 1mm was safe...........

Taffy

Taffy rote

the line on the stator should be 1mm to the left of centre when peering through the hole in the right cover.

Click to expand...

this is at TDC? I always get confused setting the timing on these.

don't worry about anything else....just get the static white line on the static stator which you can see as being the lower half of your vision through the hole to 1mm left of centre.

simple as.

Taffy