How can you tell if your running rich or lean?

[Whitej84]

How can you tell if your running too rich or lean? When running rich will you be able to smell it coming out the exhaust? Im currently running jumbo map (closest map I could get thus far) due to our closest dyno is 60 miles away and have not had the time to go get it tuned.

 

[Marthy]

How can you tell if your running too rich or lean? When running rich will you be able to smell it coming out the exhaust? Im currently running jumbo map (closest map I could get thus far) due to our closest dyno is 60 miles away and have not had the time to go get it tuned.

If you open the gas cap and it smell... does it mean its full? LOL

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[Whitej84]

LOL. Smells like my velocity stacks need some repair or my turn signals could be too loose.

 

[RoadKill]

i think the only way is to have it dyno'ed

 

[9 Lives]

Read your spark plugs, its the only true indication of what is happening in the combustion chamber. Its a PITA on this bike, but if your playing with your air/fuel mixture you want to be sure its not running too lean which will ruin an engine in a quick hurry. FI engines run on the lean side anyway but if your plugs are getting to the white color (grey is ok) I would fatten up the mixture a bit. If its a bit on the fat side, not a problem. So basically the tips of you spark plugs will tell you weather you running rich, lean or somewhere in the middle

Darker black color = rich

Nice light tan color = perfect

White = lean

The attached link is a good U Tube video on the subject.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saCDmyiBmb0"]SPARK PLUGS How to Read them (Part 3) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[pigdog]

go to a gas station or any auto shop & ask to use their o2 sensor. it goes up your tailpipe. no, the bikes tailpipe.

 

[Kardiac996]

Header pipes usually can give an indication. Yellow presents a lean condition where bluing can indicate a rich condition. Reading plugs works too.

A dyno however will show the mixture through the revs and can be tweaked with maps where the latter will assist if its to far one way or another.

 

[frogger]

i know on carby bikes you can give it a rev from idle, if the needle drops below the idle point and comes back up its lean "lack of fuel causes it not to rev" if the needle hangs above the idle point for a second and then drops back to normal its rich "to much fuel causing it to rev higher untill the fuel is burnt away"

that's something I was shown anyway but I don't know how it would go on a efi bike and its only really an indication of the low end.

 

[decooney]

All kidding aside, you can actually smell it when its too rich.

After I loaded the PCV Two Brothers map, my buddy was riding behind me indicating it was running notably richer and he could smell something. I explained I was running a new map. We've ridden together many times before and after changes. I then ran a new map which was much leaner, and the overly rich exhaust condition and smell disappeared.

 

[Bajaedition]

without specialized test equipment the only way to tell accurately is to pull the sparkplugs and compare them to a chart.

Even with the test equipment a race mechanic will pull the sparkplugs as a fail safe