blue header pipes

Anyone else have blue header pipes on there air cooled engine?

My carbs are clean and set to spec except I have the mixture screw at 3.25 turns. Plugs look good, and carbs are sync'd. I don't think I am running lean, no air leaks and no popping on de-accel, also no pinging from the engine. Could be from a lot of trafic and slow driving the last few weeks, damn contruction. Plus it probably doesn't help me taking the kids for a little ride around the property, no really fast so a little lacking the cooling air.

 

bluing is always indicative of lean condition. maybe not at idle, but in the mid-range. have you plug-chopped it at 4k to see what they look like?
cruising around town even at 20mph is more than enough air to cool the bike down unless you are cruising at 7k rpm in first gear.
report your results and we can go from there.

 

Were they blue when you got the bike? Bluing doesn't just go away, that I am aware of. If the bike was previously run in a condition that caused the pipes to blue, they aren't going to magically appear normal just because the bike is running properly now.

 

+1 on Broke... I didnt think about the PO and how they treated the bike

 

Pipes turn blue when its lean. Double check with some plug chops. Are you running pods and aftermarket exhaust by any chance?

MN

 

They have always been blue but the left seems to have grown in the area where the blue appeared. I have only had this bike a month or so. After checking my notes I took on valve shim clearance I noticed that my left side intake it at the limit, that is probably why the left is the one I am concerned about.

I noticed ont he fresh set of plugs last night that driving around the house under say 2.5k the right plug is black and the left is white, driving up on the raod the right goes a nice tan color and the left is still white all be it a slight off-white. I am going to re-shim the left intake re-sync the carbs and see how that goes.

 

Good question. As I understand the header pipes on some aftermarket exhausts are single-walled headers, not double-walled as is the case with OEM headers.

In this is the case then getting rid of the blue header pipes may not be entirely possible. All of the forum experts who read this - don't shoot me but this is information I received from a very reliable source that raced professionally for years and has been working on and bulding bikes longer than most people on this forum have been alive.

If you do have aftermarket headers and after going through the advice of the other forum experts (correct shims, plug chops, etc) without totally solving the issue I wouldn't fret.