Cold Exhaust

I will apologize beforehand as this is probably a newb question.
I have a 1980 KZ1000 LTD B4. It runs but I had a problem with a new battery. It would discharge and as soon as I hooked it up to the bike it wouldn't turn it over. I bought a gel battery at the local Advanced autoparts store. Hopefully It will be OK.
Now to the question. As the bike runs but it doesn't have the power and it has a kind of muffled sound when you give it the throttle. I took heat readings with an infrared temp gun. The left two exhausts were at 630 degrees and the right two were at about 117.0 degrees. Any ideas on this? Thanks!!

Your right 2 cylinders aren't firing and they're picking up the heat from the left cylinders. That's what it sounds like to me. Have you verified fuel and spark in those 2 cylinders? If you have evidence of both, then you'll have to do a compression test to see what they are running at.

Start with the simple stuff,
Are plug wires going to right cylinders ?
Do you have spark at 2 dead cylinders
How do plugs look ?
What kind of ignition system and is it setup right ?

Dave

I have checked the spark and it has a spark but I have not verified fuel yet. I will do that tomorrow. You think that both right exhausts would evenly have the same temp? Wow, never would have thunk it.
I'll keep everyone posted.
I will throw this into the mix though. I have routed the fuel lines from a T fitting from the carburetors(Mikuni RS)to the single feed pingel. I am thinking about getting the dual feed pingel. Thoughts?

The ignition is setup correctly it is a dyna s with dyna coils. I get spark at all the cylinders. I will check the cylinders tomorrow as what the spark plugs look like. I think that they were wet but I will confirm tomorrow.

Is this bike new to you ? Did it run right at some point and whats been changed since then ? :blink:
Dont know if dual pingle will matter, but have you verified good fuel delivery to cylinders. Any chance of a plugged, clogged, fuel lines or filter ?

Dave

Yes, this bike is fairly new to me. I got it a couple of months ago. It seems to have run rough. I had to take apart all the carbs and clean them out with an ultra sonic cleaning machine. Put them back together, made sure all the jets were clear and the floats were adjusted and synched all the carbs. I would take it out for a ride and it seemed to be bogged down and unresponsive to throttle input. The last few weeks before I had the problem with the battery, I would take it out for a test ride and give it the business. Whoa! it pulled like no other. It felt like all cylinders were working and the sound and feel of the bike was doing what it was supposed to do.
Now, I'm back to it being sluggish, unresponsive and popping like the timing was off. But as two of the cylinders are not heating up, and the other two are at 560 degrees it would seem that I have other problems with it.
I will check for an air leak on the intake side of the carbs.

IMHO the single Pingel should be fine. It has a pretty large diameter and should allow for plenty of fuel to the carbs as fast as you can drain them.
You said you switched out the T on the carbs? As in the central T that branches off to give fuel to the numbers 2 and 3 carb bowls? Where do you have your fuel line going to? And you also might want to check the wee hoses between the bowls to make sure there is no obstructions preventing fuel from getting into the bowls. From your description, it sounded like they were getting fuel before, for it to get up and go the way you described; but now for some reason it's not. Just a thought. But I'd still do the compression test on all the cylinders.

Well, Ive said this before to others here.
Assume Nothing.. Check Everything !!
Time for a complete tuneup.. Check all electrical connections and voltage outputs.
Did you ever find out what killed your battery ???
Is fuel clean ?? Recheck everything you think is right.
Start with the easy stuff to eliminate them , then move on to the harder stuff..
Dont Assume anything is right with out verifying it.
You will find something and fix it
Dave

Are the two cold pipes on the same coil? What cylinders are cold, 1-4 or 2-3? That would put them on the same coil. I would check the signal to ground, charge the coil. If that's Ok then swap the coils, see if it moves to the other pair.

NO, the coils are not hooked up that way. Left side is one and four and the right side is two and three.

have you checked your timing advancer? That might part of the problem but not a reason for you to have two dead cyclinders.