smoky exhaust = bad

Well, i attempted to change the base gasket on my bike a couple weeks ago.

Now, number 1 cylinder smokes like something that is really smoky.

So theres only three places that could come in. The valve guides. I don't want to take the springs off the head just to check this, is there any other way?

The rings? I could've messed them up. How do you check that?

Or, somehow i screwed up the head gasket and its leaking from the oil channel in the head to the cylinder. I used a wiseco 1 piece composite head gasket.

So, any hints/tips to help me figure this one out?

"So theres only three places that could come in."

Actually, if the cylinders were out of round OR the bore to piston spec was out-of-spec, it could cause the rings to NOT seat as they should. You could also have bad valve stem oil seals. That makes it more than three things...


"The valve guides. I don't want to take the springs off the head just to check this, is there any other way?"

Tell me that you removed the springs, check the guides by rocking a valve in them side to side and installed new oil seals and then lapped the valves in... of course, you did de-carboning too... tell me that you did this? It only takes a couple hours, btw...



"The rings? I could've messed them up. How do you check that?"

Messed up the rings... worst case, bent under one of those skinny rings on the three piece oil scrapers. This is common... LOTS OF SMOKE will result. You could have installed rings upside-down. You could have not measured the slots the rings set in and if they are too wide or deep, oil smoke will result, you could have just not aligned the rings before installing the block per the manual, you could have not measured the gap in the ring... lots of things could have been done wrong. To check, remove block and look at rings and make all the measurements the manual suggests.


"Or, somehow i screwed up the head gasket and its leaking from the oil channel in the head to the cylinder. I used a wiseco 1 piece composite head gasket."

Wow... here I don't know... never used one of these gaskets but if is leaking, you could get oil in the combustion chamber. You could call Wiseco to see if they have anything to say on the use of this gasket. I use Kaw two-piece whenever I pull the head and a rubber oring thing in the center around the cam chain well... I also put some silicon around the studs and like the feeling of the metal around the cylinders in an OEM gasket because it crushes and gives good seal.


Well, if you get stuck too bad, give me a shout offline. We can figure something out. You don't live that far away as memory serves.

If it wasn't smoking b4 you did the gasket, my guess is you probably broke an oil ring. Ask me how I know this happens.

Barney is right if it wasnt smoking before id say you messed up a ring when you reinstalled the jugs.

Did you do a comp test??

The bike did not ever smoke before i took the jugs off to fix that leak.

As for the valves, they are all new valve guides and new valves and new seals. All properly assembled as per the book.

As far as the 1 piece gasket, i have my engine bored out to 1075, which means 72 mm bore on the block. Do you happen to know where i could get a 2 piece and the rubber ring in the middle for a bored out block? Obviously the rubber ring isn't affected, but the 2 pieces are. If so i'd like to get one, i hate these stupid wiseco things.


The rings is what I'm ready to blame. I'm about to do a compression test on the smoky cylinder. Would a screwed up oil scraper lower my compression though?

I dought it will have an effect on the compression.

It will lower compression. The thin, three piece scraper ring usually has one of the two very thin top/bottom rings pulled out and bent over. This will also scrape your cylinder wall. I have seen this several times. Hopefully, this isn't what happened... it is also possible the rings were assembled onto the piston wrong. I am not knowledgeable about Wiseco but I suspect the top rings have a top and bottom... also the ring gaps need to be staggered on the piston.

In your glee to get those jugs back down over the rings, the bottom skinny oil ring on the offending pot got hooked-up. Sorry. Bin thar, dun that, got the T shirt. I feel yo pane!