so a whiny little nube has a question. just picked up a 09 klx250sf with 19 miles on proceeding to drive another 400 miles I noticed tonight that the head pipe seems to look a little glowing red tonight after a short ride around town about 3miles or so just wondering if thats common for it to get that hot or if there is an underlying problem vie built scooters before yes scooters they never had that problem even going 60 mph for long distances in don't know if being 2 stroke matters I just would like a rhyme or reason for the pretty color... thanks for any feed back

 

The emissions equipment let's air into the exhaust tract to burn off excess fuel. This occurs in the header area, most people bypass this system.

 

well sounds like that needs to come off then just got the bike tying to feel it out so I guess that goes on the to do list! along with many other things thanks for the quick reply!!

 

It's fine and you don't need to do anything to it at all.

 

YES - It's a problem... It's called "CA Emission Standards"!

My pipe FRYS my right leg if I'm not wearing long pants. I haven't gotten around to disabling the stupid CA emissions crap yet...

 

Our bikes are sold with both CA emissions (in CA) and regular emissions systems everywhere else. Both include the air injection system that is a big reason for high header piep temps. The temps are so high that it can glow and the nice shiney chrome color will become blued and brown with heat.

It's not the CA emissions, it's the emissions system period. With an OEM exhaust you also have a cat converter that gets hotter than hell too. If you still have the cat exhaust then I would leave the air injection system alone. If you disable the air injection then you risk overloading the cat converter and maybe plugging it up.

There is no performance improvment from disabling the air injection system. Nobody has ever melted a hole in their red hot header pipe. Maybe the emissions are lower, is that a bad thing? I am not a tree hugger but I don't go out of my way to mess it up more for no reason.

 

Not sure how your leg gets fried, I ride bare foot in shorts daily and have no issues from the pipe and my smog plumming is all stock and my head pipe glows red at night.

 

Yeah gotta LT-R450 quad that does the same thing. Let it idle to long & the header looks like a cigarette lighter...

 

The only time I really saw mine glow is when it was set to fast idle with choke on for a minute or so. It was 35 degrees out and the OEM lean jetting made it so I had to warm it up on choke.

I have put hundreds of miles on my klx in only shorts and sandles. No heat problem. It is an engine between your legs and you should expect some warmth. Nothing dangerous though.

 

I can't beleive it...

I took a ride (40 miles or so) in shorts, and I had to keep moving my leg because it was so uncomfortably HOT! When I got home, my calf on my right leg was red for hours from the heat... looked like a rare steak! The pipe has already turned brown from the extreme heat, but I have never actually seen the pipe "glow".

Seems like my bike should run cooler than other stock bikes, as I'm at 4700 feet (normal) and it only goes up from there. The higher altitude *should* translate to a richer mixture, which *should* mean a cooler running engine.