Kawasaki Concours Forum
The C-14, aka Kawasaki Concours-14, the new one :) => The Bike - C14/GTR 1400 => Topic started by: twozsforme on October 18, 2012, 01:24:08 AM
-
The Bike: 2009 C14
17776 miles
stock except for k&N air filter
Leaving work this afternoon I go out to my bike and start it. It starts but is idling really low about 900-1000 rpm. The exhaust sounded like it had a leak and smelled really rich. Luckily I have a very short commute (depending on how I feel 3 miles to 15 miles) home so I take off. The bike strains to accelerate granted I wasn't trying to accelerate that fast. I get home and leave the bike running so I can examine it. At first I figured maybe a spark plug had gone bad and I had a dead cylinder. I touch all of the head pipes and all were the same temperature and none of them were discolored in any way. As I was kneeling on the right side of the bike a caught a glimpse of something underneath the bike. And there it was the left bank cats were glowing red. I shut the bike down and let it cool. I wanted to see if it would do it again if I started it back up and let it idle. Sure enough after 5 minutes it was red hot again. I'm pretty certain that that particular cat is clogged. I am going to pop the muffler off and shine a flash light in there to see if I can see anything. The pics below are the cats cooled down and then the cats as the bike idles for 5 minutes.
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c79/mickeymofo16/IMG_0370.jpg)
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c79/mickeymofo16/IMG_0371.jpg)
More updates to follow.
-
- definitely looks like a clogged/failed cat. But your mileage is very low.
- some guys have saved money by going onto ebay to buy used manifolds taken off a zx14 (if you can't get a replacement for your C14).
.
-
Sounds like a bad stick coil as well....unfortunately they are a bear to get to.
http://www.zggtr.org/index.php?topic=10841.0 (http://www.zggtr.org/index.php?topic=10841.0)
-
Would it be possible to swap the two left coils for the two right coils to see if the cat discoloration changes to the right side? I would think that would be a sufficent test to see if a coil was bad. Then I would have to figure out which of the two on that side was bad. Also are zx14 coils the same as c14 coils? I live in japan and c14 parts are hard to find but zx14s are everywhere ::). Now I just need to find a spare header to swap out. :(
-
At first I thought this might be a reference to The Cat Joke (which has sort of a cat failure at the end) but I now see it is unrelated.
Given the low idle, the smell of fuel, the poor acceleration and that red exhaust, it would seem the bike is passing a lot of raw fuel through the exhaust. The most likely culprit is a cylinder spark failure (coil, plug or primary wiring) but it is confusing because you say all the exhaust pipes are the same temperature. ?? Perhaps you have a 'sort of' failed spark plug that works at higher RPM but not idle and the pipes were all warm from actually riding the bike? It would seem at idle at least one cylinder is not firing. Perhaps another test just starting the bike and letting it idle while you note the temperature of each header pipe to see if one does not get warm, or does not get warm nearly as fast as the others.
My best Internet guess would be one cylinder has partial or full spark failure. You should be able to find which cylinder doing the above idle / header pipe test and then you can swap that coil with another one and see if the problem moves to the other cylinder or not.
It is a fair amount of work (several hours at least) to get to the spark plug coils and / or the spark plugs. Unfortunately it does sound like you will have to do that (or have a shop do it) to diagnose the problem. Best of luck and let us know what you find.
Brian
The Bike: 2009 C14
17776 miles
stock except for k&N air filter
Leaving work this afternoon I go out to my bike and start it. It starts but is idling really low about 900-1000 rpm. The exhaust sounded like it had a leak and smelled really rich. Luckily I have a very short commute (depending on how I feel 3 miles to 15 miles) home so I take off. The bike strains to accelerate granted I wasn't trying to accelerate that fast. I get home and leave the bike running so I can examine it. At first I figured maybe a spark plug had gone bad and I had a dead cylinder. I touch all of the head pipes and all were the same temperature and none of them were discolored in any way. As I was kneeling on the right side of the bike a caught a glimpse of something underneath the bike. And there it was the left bank cats were glowing red. I shut the bike down and let it cool. I wanted to see if it would do it again if I started it back up and let it idle. Sure enough after 5 minutes it was red hot again. I'm pretty certain that that particular cat is clogged. I am going to pop the muffler off and shine a flash light in there to see if I can see anything. The pics below are the cats cooled down and then the cats as the bike idles for 5 minutes.
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c79/mickeymofo16/IMG_0370.jpg)
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c79/mickeymofo16/IMG_0371.jpg)
More updates to follow.
-
Thanks, Brian.
-
Would be a handy time for a temp gun
-
Thanks, Brian.
Your welcome.
-
Twit!
-
Thanks for all the advice. I am going to see if I can get my hands on a temp gun this weekend and do some more trouble shooting.
-
FYI to everyone, The C14 and ZX14 share the same ignition coil sticks (same part number). I have a friend back home who owns a kawasaki dealer, so I called him and he verified that they are the same. The reason I bring it up is that there are tons of used ones availible for the zx14 on ebay, but very few listed for the c14. One new one from kawasaki is 124 bucks :(
Just thought I would share. Dont know if this has been covered before.
-
I wonder why the zx boys are replacing them. And with what.
-
Just a thought but there are a LOT of ZX 14 parts flowing out of salvage yards while very few C-14's have made it through that process. ZX 14's have been around longer and I suspect they are ridden more aggressively (on average) and so may get wrecked more often. So to answer your question, the ZX crew may be replacing their stick coils with a new motorcycle.... :-)
Brian
I wonder why the zx boys are replacing them. And with what.
-
Just a thought but there are a LOT of ZX 14 parts flowing out of salvage yards while very few C-14's have made it through that process. ZX 14's have been around longer and I suspect they are ridden more aggressively (on average) and so may get wrecked more often. So to answer your question, the ZX crew may be replacing their stick coils with a new motorcycle.... :-)
Brian
Or a headstone. :'(
-
Just a little update: I ended up ordering a new ignition oil from the local Kawasaki dealer and just got it in today. Popped it in and turned the bike on same problem :-[. I had an extra spark plug laying around so I threw it in with the new coil and the bike started and ran like normal. Just to make sure I put the old plug back in and with the new coil. I started the bike again and it started running rough again. The spare plug I had was old so I went and bought a new one put the new plug and new coil in and started the bike and it ran like a champ. Got the bike all buttoned up and it started raining so I didn't get a chance to test ride it. I'll do that tomorrow. So to recap it was the number two cylinder spark plug. I have never had a spark plug give out like that before but I guess there is a first time for everything. I am going to take the old coil to work with me and test the resistance to see if it is still good. If it's good I got a spare coil. It cost me 125.00 bucks for a new coil. Do yourself a favor and buy some spare ones off ebay at half the cost.
-
I got 4 for 60.... Good reminder on checking them out, though. I need to do that on mine. Thanks for the update. I guess a plug can go bad at any point and you were just unlucky. I have 50k plus on mine and still going but I'm replacing them all soon. I took the diabolical liberty of updating your subject line.
It means quite a lot to me and the members if you follow up on issues and their eventual conclusions. So often we are told of problems and never hear back from the OP so we're stuck with a thread that has a high noise/signal ratio. Which is ok, but it's only good for entertainment purposes.
:goodpost:
-
It cost me 125.00 bucks for a new coil. Do yourself a favor and buy some spare ones off ebay at half the cost.
Deja Vu... I heard that somewhere before
JJ
-
I bought mine right after you said you bought yours... :)
-
How many miles were on the bad plug?
-
Sorry to drag up an old post but I have been meaning to give an update on what had happened to my bike so hopefully you guys won't go through the same thing I did.
Not too long after I had replaced the first bad spark plug a couple weeks later my bike begin began idling poorly had no acceleration and the cat turned bright red after warming up. Just like it did the first time except this time it was a different cylinder. so I pulled the spark plugs again. I check the manual and the spark plugs that where in it were not the standard ngk iridium plugs, they were the same part number minus the i for iridium. And then it dawned on me what happened, when I was in the process of getting my bike smog tested for Japan the mechanic had mentioned that he replaced the spark plugs because the exhaust gases were too hot. Well in a nut shell I blew two spark plugs within a month and I contribute this to the plugs not being the correct iridium one listed in the manual. I ended up putting the right plugs back in and haven't had a problem since.
-
Sorry to drag up an old post but I have been meaning to give an update on what had happened to my bike so hopefully you guys won't go through the same thing I did.
Not too long after I had replaced the first bad spark plug a couple weeks later my bike begin began idling poorly had no acceleration and the cat turned bright red after warming up. Just like it did the first time except this time it was a different cylinder. so I pulled the spark plugs again. I check the manual and the spark plugs that where in it were not the standard ngk iridium plugs, they were the same part number minus the i for iridium. And then it dawned on me what happened, when I was in the process of getting my bike smog tested for Japan the mechanic had mentioned that he replaced the spark plugs because the exhaust gases were too hot. Well in a nut shell I blew two spark plugs within a month and I contribute this to the plugs not being the correct iridium one listed in the manual. I ended up putting the right plugs back in and haven't had a problem since.
Good information. I still wonder why the manual calls for replacing iridium plugs every 7500 miles. I had the dealer do mine at 30,000 miles at the same time as my first valve check. The OEM iridium plugs looked fine after 30k. But I figure if I'm doing the labor for a valve check might as well replace plugs then. BTW: I put iridium's in my DR650 as well. They last a long time.
-
I did a run
to see how fast my bike will go with a passenger down the road once and pulled over to wait on the others. The grass caught fire under my bike. Teressa said "your bike is smoking" and I saw what was going on and pulled it up a few feet and onto the edge of the road and walked over and kicked it out
(http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j180/stevewfl/kneedragvl3.gif)
-
Sorry to drag up an old post but I have been meaning to give an update
There is absolutely nothing wrong with posting to an old topic (thread), especially when providing an update or averting creation of another identical or similar topic (thread). Thanks!