the fmf pipes on my banshee (with only like 4 trips on them) are turning blue from heat.. from the head, out about 6-8" and getting progressively worse... not just slight discoloration, but serious discoloration. I took a pic tonite but the flash made it very hard to tell in the digital pic. I will take some pics tomorrow.

anyways Im not worried about the way it looks, I think it looks fine but this weekend I was looking at other peoples bikes with many many more hours on them than mine, and all the other 2 strokes with fmf/other brand pipes had NO discoloration.....

i have a background in wrenching on cars and I know that hotter exhaust means its running lean and is not a good thing! Is this true with 2 strokes? The carbs were jetted with 310 mains by the dealer when they installed my fmf's. It seems to run o.k. .. it hits hard when the powerband kicks in but it has no bottom end. I know banshees dont typically have a lot of low end power but I dont have another banshee to reference. It may be lean. When I goto glamis, its running lean. thats a fact. I went to a different desert today (ocotillo wells) and brought with me a couple sets of bigger mains and I was going to jet it but it ran fine at that elevation. I guess Ill wait until my next glamis trip to jet. 6th gear would just fall on its face in glamis, sometimes 5th too and other gears would give slight bogs/hesitation.. Do you think jetting up 1 or 2 sizes will solve this problem? OR should I buy the toomey perfect jet kit (60 something dollars!) ? The guy at the dealer said it should be the best kit for basically any mods done, with fmf or toomey pipes. he sounded pretty knowledgeable too.

only thing I have done since the bike was jetted for the pipes is install a K&N/pro-flo kit which will sometimes require bigger jets. and I was informed of that when i bought it but it ran fine at my house so I took it to glamis w/o changing anything after the k&n installation. Im PRETTY sure the discoloration started before I installed the K&N. i.e. its not caused by the airbox mod.

one last thing is the plugs seem to look ok to me. but I didnt ride it wide open for a bog and the shut her down to take a plug reading. so It may be inaccurate.

ideas? comments? suggestions? thanks...............

mike

 

It does sound like you are running lean.

Buy a new set of plugs and do a plug check.

Idling at long periods of time will also cause major discloration of the pipes.

 

The discoloration could be a sign of leaness. However, 310 mains are way larger than I have ever seen on a piped banshee. I have ran 270 and 280 with FMF and Pro-circuit pipes with pro-flow kits with the foam and K&N without an airbox lid. The 280's were with 20cc chambers. The highest I have ever had to run with stock ignition was 300's and that was with my new Pro-flo filter(a company that specializes in rd/rz performance NOT pro-designs kit). With my dyna ignition that has more spark and more final timing, I run 330's.

Your power problems might be because of richness.