Carbon Build up what causes it...

[Wistrick]

Keep seeing issues with higher mileage bikes with carbon build up causing engine issue with the S10....Also seen LongHaul Paul and others run these motors 100,000+ miles with no such issues so what gives....I suspect the 2 biggest issues are running at lower revs and never getting bike to red line, and non tier 1 gas of the wrong octane being the other.....

thoughts

Dan

 

[Dogdaze]

I think you already mentioned the two main causes, lugging the motor and wrong fuel or rather bad fuel.

 

[bphilip]

Keep seeing issues with higher mileage bikes with carbon build up causing engine issue with the S10....Also seen LongHaul Paul and others run these motors 100,000+ miles with no such issues so what gives....I suspect the 2 biggest issues are running at lower revs and never getting bike to red line, and non tier 1 gas of the wrong octane being the other.....

thoughts

Dan

Running at a constant speed with cruise control or on North American highways is a cause. I've been told that regular use of Yamaha "ring free" helps. I have over 100,000 km with no issues but I don't do much highway riding. All secondary roads without constant speed.

 

[magic]

Oil consumption, too rich fuel air mixture, poor fuel and lugging the engine.

 

[EricV]

Keep seeing issues with higher mileage bikes with carbon build up causing engine issue with the S10....Also seen LongHaul Paul and others run these motors 100,000+ miles with no such issues so what gives....I suspect the 2 biggest issues are running at lower revs and never getting bike to red line, and non tier 1 gas of the wrong octane being the other.....

thoughts

Dan

Thoughts? You're making unsupported conclusions. Having see the insides of my engine at 83k, carbon build up has little to do with non tier 1 fuel use. And I seriously doubt lower octane use contributes directly to carbon build up either. I know a few owners that only run low octane. I chose to always run high octane and tier 1 gas, but still had plenty of carbon build up. I started using ring free and it's replacement after that. Some prefer Seafoam. As for Paul, you don't know that. Paul never did any maintenance at all except oil changes. No one knows what his engine looks like inside. He cranked out plenty of steady highway miles too. Still, I'd be more likely to believe bphillip's suggestion that gas quality or octane rating.

The biggest mistake you're making is thinking that carbon build up is causing engine issues. Can it? Yes. Is it the culprit in most of the cases you're reading about? No. It's noticed when the engine is torn down, but it's not the cause of the problems. CCT failures are more common. (BTDT) Carbon build up gets blamed by dealers that don't really know what happened, but it's got to be seriously bad before it causes a valve to not close completely and that just doesn't happen except in extreme cases.

 

[Nikolajsen]

I actually asked my dealer, if I needed to put some additive in the fuel, to prevent this.
And we have to remember, that he actually make money if he would sell some to me.
But his answer was, "No, you don't need this"

 

[Wistrick]

Thoughts? You're making unsupported conclusions. Having see the insides of my engine at 83k, carbon build up has little to do with non tier 1 fuel use. And I seriously doubt lower octane use contributes directly to carbon build up either. I know a few owners that only run low octane. I chose to always run high octane and tier 1 gas, but still had plenty of carbon build up. I started using ring free and it's replacement after that. Some prefer Seafoam. As for Paul, you don't know that. Paul never did any maintenance at all except oil changes. No one knows what his engine looks like inside. He cranked out plenty of steady highway miles too. Still, I'd be more likely to believe bphillip's suggestion that gas quality or octane rating.

The biggest mistake you're making is thinking that carbon build up is causing engine issues. Can it? Yes. Is it the culprit in most of the cases you're reading about? No. It's noticed when the engine is torn down, but it's not the cause of the problems. CCT failures are more common. (BTDT) Carbon build up gets blamed by dealers that don't really know what happened, but it's got to be seriously bad before it causes a valve to not close completely and that just doesn't happen except in extreme cases.

So why did u have to tear in to your motor at 83K?????

 

[OldRider]

I put this in every time I fill up the tank and sleep well at night.

https://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-Yamalube-Ring-Additive-ACC-RNGFR-PL-12/dp/B002GU4SN2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1513462510&sr=8-2&keywords=yamaha+ring+free

 

[OldRider]

If your wondering how I pack the ring free additive, I use these little bottles. They are tough, I have dropped one on the concrete getting it out of the tank bag and it just bounced.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003FXSUU6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[RonH]

I think the carbon buildup is just a normal thing with any engine. I don't believe it anything to worry of. A very few "dealers" have blamed carbon for failure, but not many reports. Looking at it in my mind that goes by common sense and prior experience, how in the world carbon can build up on a valve seat/valve or valve stem that is slapping shut 20 times a second even at idle speed to cause it to hang open? I don't suspect it could happen very often if ever.

 

[Don in Lodi]

So why did u have to tear in to your motor at 83K? ??? ?

Eric's bike was one of the bikes with a cam chain tensioner that got progressively noisier. The chain jumped days before he could get it in. His chain jump was catastrophic.

 

[Xclimation]

Running at a constant speed with cruise control or on North American highways is a cause. I've been told that regular use of Yamaha "ring free" helps. I have over 100,000 km with no issues but I don't do much highway riding. All secondary roads without constant speed.

Can you explain this? I would think that running constant speed at highways speeds leads to more complete burning of the fuel which results in LESS carbon build up. As long as rides are longer that about 15 minutes at temperature. Not keeping or using lower speeds and/or short trips leads to incomplete burn which results in carbon build up. Carbon build is from incomplete burning of fuel.
Bad coils, spark plugs ignition and/or charging system causes incomplete burning as well.

 

[bphilip]

Can you explain this? I would think that running constant speed at highways speeds leads to more complete burning of the fuel which results in LESS carbon build up. As long as rides are longer that about 15 minutes at temperature. Not keeping or using lower speeds and/or short trips leads to incomplete burn which results in carbon build up. Carbon build is from incomplete burning of fuel.
Bad coils, spark plugs ignition and/or charging system causes incomplete burning as well.

My guess is that loading the engine by accelerating and decelerating makes it easier to release the carbon that is building up naturally. I haven't pulled my engine part but what I can see when I do valve adjustments looks pretty clean.

 

[Ramseybella]

Nick Sanders Super Tenere teardown for Bike magazine how did he manage to keep that motor clean?

 

[EricV]

So why did u have to tear in to your motor at 83K?????

CCT Failure.

 

[greg the pole]

I never lugged mine, ran 89 religiously (im cheap!), did maintenance as per book or more often and still had oil consumption.
Keep in mind that the valve seals are a $3 part *8. It's all that keeps oil out from the top, and rings at the bottom.
Both mine were done at 70km.
https://thetenerist.wordpress.com/2017/03/04/yamaha-super-tenere-xt-1200-top-end-rebuild/

It's that it needed. installed new gaskets and a new c chain. Once bead blasted, all parts (head, valves, old pistons) came out like new.

 

[Checkswrecks]

Keep seeing issues with higher mileage bikes with carbon build up causing engine issue with the S10....Also seen LongHaul Paul and others run these motors 100,000+ miles with no such issues so what gives....I suspect the 2 biggest issues are running at lower revs and never getting bike to red line, and non tier 1 gas of the wrong octane being the other.....thoughtsDan

[font=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Build-up is almost always from running an incompletely burning mixture. Causes of incomplete combustion are typically owner-induced, such as lugging (keeping it in too high a gear) and cheap gas.

[font=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]"Keep seeing issues?" There've been a small number of people with a lot of build-up, but they generally found it only like EricV, after opening the engine for something else and that was typically losing the cam timing due to the early CCT problems. Greg was an exception, in that he was trying to correct oil consumption, and one potential cause of high oil consumption is build-up in the rings. [/font]

[font=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]LongHaulPaul is an exception in running over 100,000 with virtually no maintenance, and he does not recommend doing what he does. He is also an outlier and best case to NOT have build-up, because he runs long hours in the sweet spot of the mid-range throttle. [/font]

[/font]

Running at a constant speed with cruise control or on North American highways is a cause. I've been told that regular use of Yamaha "ring free" helps. I have over 100,000 km with no issues but I don't do much highway riding. All secondary roads without constant speed.

Especially with an ECU-injected bike and having an under-stressed engine like in the Tenere, the only way "constant speed with cruise control or on North American highways is a cause" would be keeping it in too high of a gear (lugging). On highways, this would be pretty hard to do. That said, an occasional rip at high speed is good.


I started to use the same Yamahalube that OldRider posted, becuase I do frequently lug my motor in commuting. The factory people highly recommend it for Gen1 bikes to prevent or reduce hard start issues.

 

[Wistrick]

So I checked my valves and set them to the middle of the range at 40k and installed a MCCT....am I gonna get 100,000 out of this motor??? Or am I gonna be in for a rebuild @ 80K ????....bike will have 60k soon so i am concerned.....

 

[Checkswrecks]

We've got a lot of owners with well over 100,000 miles and a couple somewhere near 200,000.
::021::

 

[WJBertrand]

Running at a constant speed with cruise control or on North American highways is a cause.

Disagree with this comment. Of all the engines I've opened up, the cleanest ones were always those used mostly for highway riding at 60-80 MPH. I think slow, in-town and short trip riding are much worse with respect to carbon build up. Higher speed highway distance running gets everything fully warm, dissipates moisture and drives off / prevents condensation of materials that eventually cook into carbon deposits.