Tuesday, December 20, 2011

My arctic cat exhaust is glowing red. is this normal?

hey guys, i have a 2003 arctic cat 500 4x4 and i have noticed the exhaust glowing red every time i ride it. im wanting to know if this is normal or not. it runs great, the issue does not seem to affect performance or anything else, and it does not run hot. any info. will be helpful. THANKS!!|||Or it is running rich! I've seen where the choke was left on causing the pipe to glow red. In this instance it is caused by unburnt gasoline exiting the cylinder and continuing to burn in the exhaust pipe, heating it up and making it glow. Either way, rich, lean or valve issues it needs to be addressed. You say it is not running hot but this continued combustion after ignition is slowly cooking your exhaust valve and cylinder head. that will cost cubic dollars to fix. Best to verify the state of tune on the carbie, ignition timing and a compression test.|||Maybe, maybe not. First off, must 4 wheelers have a single wall header pipe rather than the typical double walled pipes used on chromed Japanese exhaust systems. The thinner the wall, the greater the chance of the metal glowing red. In addition, bikes produce the most exhaust heat when under heavy load, i.e. going fast. The faster they go, the more air flow their is to carry header pipe heat away. 4 wheelers don't go that fast and don't have the high velocity air flow going by to cool the pipe.





You don't say if you only notice this at night or during the day as well or if you're talking about a few inches from the head, where the header pipe makes a sharp turn (more likely to glow red) or further back.





Pull the spark plug and take a look at it. If it's very white or even snow white colored and the porcelain is blistered looking, then you probably have an intake leak and it's running way too lean.





Glowing red being bad? Not always. At night, I've had heavily loaded tractors cause the entire 3/16" thick cast iron exhaust manifold glow bright red, the muffler glow red where the baffles connect with the outer shell as well as 3-4 inches of fire exiting the muffler. There wasn't a thing wrong, just heavily loaded.|||No it's running lean, need to get a bigger main jet in the carb before you blow it up. that or you have dirt in the one you have causing a lean condition, either way you need to address the problem before something bad happens.|||not normal. possible clog someplace

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