Hi hub,

Thanks for the reply. She is a 2009, first owner had a harley and bought the 14 as a second bike, did less than 800km with her and parked her for over 2 years at which point I managed to convince him to part with her (around May this year).

With regards to your above points I agree completely. I strongly doubt it is compression due to it only occurring when the bike is hot and even then it clears depending on throttle position and rpm.

I will purchase fuel cleaner today and try ride the tank out by Sunday and provide feedback. Thereafter I will try the injector swap around.

Any reccomendations with regard to fuel cleaner brands?

Sea foam, if you can find it.

So, basically you need compression, proper fuel mixture and a properly timed spark to get power. When you say "fouled plug" can you describe it better? You mentioned the plug being wet with fuel, are you sure its fuel? does it STINK like gas? I ask since it sounds like there is SO much fuel going into the cylinder that its not able to ignite at all. My first motorcycle had a somewhat similar issue, turned out to be a hole in the vacuum diaphragm for the fuel petcock sucking fuel past the carbs straight into the cylinder. Obviously that's not the case here but as Hub suggested, a clogged injector causing excessive fuel to leak into the cylinder could be the cause.

You've replaced the spark plug and coil but if the plug isn't firing at all this could explain the symptoms as well. Perhaps the coil isn't getting power from the ignition module. Do you have an ignition module for your PCV? Try taking it out of being inline (its the small inline connector on the right hand side of the bike).

Try putting the bike back to stock, I know its a lot of work, but if you put the flies back in, put the stock exhaust back on and remove the PCV and its accessories. Problem goes away? I'd guess the PCV.

I'm assuming the only way you have been checking which cylinder is misfiring is by pulling the plugs, alternatively while the bike is misfiring, hit the kill switch, and touch each of the headers using a WET finger (or rag is probably safer), whichever doesn't sizzle is the dead cylinder and yes I've done that before and no I didn't get burned.

...and parked her for over 2 years at which point...

... #3 injector is clogged up and the others are in bad shape too. Here is another reason you want to eliminate compression first. A ring could stick in its groove by sitting too long. A valve being open will cause rust by the condensation creeping in. This will cause a chemical reaction to begin to deteriorate the metals to dust. So this is more or less how a ring will lock and not create the compression that needs to float in that ring groove, move out and press against the cylinder under compression. If this scenario is part of the sitting process, this too will lower compression to a fouling point.

So chasing your tail by not checking compression first: eliminates the injector. See how simple a compression will tell a whole lot of things? Saves lots of money like: throwing parts at it like the stick coil.

Try any quality fuel injector cleaner, so buy the gas stations cleaner in a can. Chevron/Shell/Exxon-Mobil. Read the proportions needed per liter. Keep riding till it cleans itself, meaning, keep adding cleaner every tank fill till it cleans up. No need to swap injectors because sitting is a killer, if you do not dry that injector out, or clean it with a cleaner only [and park it dry for years], here is your sitting scenario.

That means you'd have to have a remote battery to spray the injector so you could feed the cleaner at the back of the body itself. Electrically, you just want the plunger to open so the cleaner washes out the gas, evaporates and is clean of fuel: to varnish while sitting. And one spark exposed you go messing with that chemical, well, you figure out the what happens next. You are seeing the results of a bike sitting with fuel in it. 1 year is pretty bad. 2 years, I don't know, short of sending the injectors out to have them cleaned with an industrial chemical you can't buy in a can.

Maybe you'll get lucky.

It may have a leaky injector.
You say the previous owner parked it for a couple of years.
It may have some fuel gum/scum causing it to leak.
You say the plug on 3 is wet.
Remove it and check for fuel mist on crank.
Leave it an 1/2 hour then crank it again.
If its starts misting number 3 its either fuel or coolant/water.
With the kms that low I'd guess and say an injector.
I would either remove the injectors or get them removed and properly cleaned if the mist smells of raw fuel.

Hi Guys,

Just to give feedback, I havent pulled injectors etc as of yet because the misfire seems to have gone away, well I havent been able to get her to misfire anyway. So I have decided not to scratch where it doesnt itch. If the misfire returns I'll have to look into it. Hoping it was just some bad fuel and the damaged coil.

Great.

I'm not a big fan of the "If it ain't broke ....fix it til it is" method.

Thanks, Guy. The gas may have washed out that #3 injector? Gas is a detergent so maybe?

Glad that hopefully worked;)I've used the concentrated sliver bottle of gumout...but from some advice from a tuner guy...he recommended the yellow clearish bottle of gumout (also highly concentrated.Run two taknfuls back to back....half in one tank,half in the other.I would also make sure you use 91 octane,,,and open her up to full throttle on a long high end run....a few times.Just to get full fuel pump push and higher velocity flowing in there.It has worked on mine at times.....Techron is another very good cleaner.Two tanks of cleaning.Some low speed hard openings(on throttle) will help as well....Just stay on the throttle when doing these.Just so you're 'in the know with you tank interior..I'd get a good flashlight and look inside at the sides in there...when she's at a lower point...verify no scale or anything either.

I don't think a fouling stick coil would change much(self correct)....so if she clears,can probably rule that out.Swithing it to another cylinder is a good idea I think.Just to check.

"If it aint broke don't fix it)Me neither...although with certain parts...I have(unecessarily;)Live and learn.

* Last updated by: Grn14 on 11/20/2013 @ 3:04 PM *

Thanks,

Blue, I completely agree.

Hub, I am hoping thats the case. Used a petrol that has techron in it (low concentration) and is readily available from the pumps. I think i will do this for a few more tanks just for good measure.

Grn, my 14 always runs on 95 octane. I ran it on 2 tanks of fuel with techron additive as mentioned above. Time will tell if this truly solved the problem.

So.....

The problem continued until I realized it is out of my spectrum of knowledge and I sent it in to a Kawasaki specialist who within one hour told me what was wrong. Turns out that the PC V is bad (blown) and its just dumping huge amounts of fuel into all 4 cylinders but especially cylinder 3 at all rpm under 4750. I am not going to put the PC V back in but am going to have the ECU flash tuned instead.

So if anybody has the same problem, have your PC V checked!

How did he diagnose the PCV failure? Would it not respond via software interface?

It was actually with experience. The unit still responded fine and had no error codes etc. He has had units fail like this before on their race bikes, there is really no way to tell except by unplugging the unit and seeing if the problem goes away, which in my case it did. What was essentially happening is the bike, when hot etc as described earlier, was cutting the fuel and then on wide open throttle she was dumping so much fuel into the engine that it couldn't combust and it was burning up in my headers.

I must say that without the PC V unit the bike feels down on power, especially in the high rpm, but its temporary until the ecu gets flashed.

It should have smelled bad........rich.........

It did, but I originally diagnosed the problem as being spark related and then the unburnt fuel would be causing the smoke etc....but I now know better.