Sooty Mufflers

[organfixsing]

Re a V7II. For a while there I noted black sooty marks out of the left hand muffler.
The right hand muffler had them too to a much lesser extent.
It seemed to me like over fuelling, however, it didn't make much sense to be different left to right.
I recently did a 20 thou K service on the bike and the bike seemed to run better and the black crap out of the exhaust pipes seemed to have ceased.
The only thing I can put this down to is that this time the oil level is struggling to meet half way on  the dipstick.
 I am wondering if the 'windage' plate from Peter Roper would make a difference on these motors too.
I can't remember the dipstick level from the prior service but I assume that is was greater than now. Any comments welcome.
Cheers
Brian 

[pete roper]

Small block has a cast in windage plate. If you are in the northern hemisphere it's winter and if the temperatures are low the ECU will enrichen the mixture mainly due to the crappy signal from the ETS.

The reason one side is richer than the other is the maps for each cylinder are pretty crap and because of the firing sequence there is a 'Lazy' cylinder that will run richer.

Pete

[Dofin]

Pete, that is what I guessed on my 15 V7.  The Cat. converters are turning my mufflers brown over time, guess its extra fuel getting to the Cats.  I noticed when the valves and plug gaps are set perfectly the browning was minimal.  At 25K I am not able to clean them up much, so I just ignore the brown rings at the Cats.  I still get a little soot on both pipes but not much.  I get the engine warm on cold days and run the snoot out of it once warm and the soot seems to me minimal.

Keep thinking about doing the Map upgrade but just havent.

[oldbike54]

 Beetle Beetle Beetle Beetle Beetle .

 Did I say Beetle ?

 Dusty

[organfixsing]

Since last oil change where I finished up with a little lower oil level, the sooty crap seems to have gone. There was a small quantity of oil in the airbox when doing the service but not significant. Seems oil level has a lot to do with it.

Cheers

Brian

[Huzo]

Beetle Beetle Beetle Beetle Beetle .

 Did I say Beetle ?

 Dusty

Beetle mania.
How much proof does a person need ?

[Fontain25]

Have you looked at the spark plugs for proper burn? Have you run the bike on an exhaust gas analyzer? Soot on a muffler is not the way to diagnose a runability issue.

[rodekyll]

Soot could also be dirty condensation or smoke particulates carried in steam and deposited on the ends of the mufflers.  You say it's more on the left, or "lower" muffler as it sits on the sidestand.  A lot of bikes steam or smoke more from the low side in cold weather or after long periods of sitting, and that can coat the bore and end of the muffler.  So I don't count on it as an indicator of anything.

[pete roper]

Have you looked at the spark plugs for proper burn? Have you run the bike on an exhaust gas analyzer? Soot on a muffler is not the way to diagnose a runability issue.

It's a useful first indicator.

[organfixsing]

Did a service on the bike recently. Put 1.7 litres of oil in the motor. Checked the oil level, seemed sufficient to prevent problems.
I have run the bike for about 300 Km since and no soot on the mufflers, minimum soot on the spark plug body, centre electrode appears to be OK.
No more soot on the mufflers. The airbox did have some oil in it but not a great amount.
Seems like the engine oil level played a great part in this. I have not changed the fuelling from the 1st Beetle map, so oil level!

Cheers

Brian