Tuning the engine with heat gun

Instead of an elaborate on board computer and egt bungs welded in every pipe do any of you guys tune the engine using a heat gun on the pipes ???

geerbangr wrote: Instead of an elaborate on board computer and egt bungs welded in every pipe do any of you guys tune the engine using a heat gun on the pipes ???

I do both.

Please share tuning tips with heat gun. Where do you take your readings from ? What heat range are you looking for ? I'm assuming basic tuning tips would apply ? If the heat range is too high , fatten that cylinder up if the cylinder is reading to cool leaner out huh :evil:

heat gun i must be loosing it!................ok i follow now

P21 wrote: heat gun i must be loosing it!................ok i follow now

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:laugh:

Yeah, I was wondering how an industrial hair drier was supposed to help me tune my bike!

I love my little zap gun! I can check out which pipe is hot or not, plus my cats love to chase the laser.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: I was also wondering how that would work. I have used my heat gun to strip paint from an old screen door, but I never considered blasting my motorcycle with it. :laugh: :laugh: Ed

Ok, I'm old and stupid so how the hell does this work...? :blink:

It measures the temperature of the exhaust header pipe. Too cool means too rich, too hot means too lean.

geerbangr wrote: Please share tuning tips with heat gun. Where do you take your readings from ? What heat range are you looking for ? I'm assuming basic tuning tips would apply ? If the heat range is too high , fatten that cylinder up if the cylinder is reading to cool leaner out huh :evil:

You have the general idea. I have a single O2 sensor that is past the collector. This is attached to a small datalogging computer. I use this two ways. At idle I can watch the computer as I make adjustments to the airscrews. This gives me rpm and conglomerate AFR. Then I put it into datalogging mode and go for a ride. When I get home I can download the log into my laptop. This tells me all I need to know about main jet adjustments and needle height settings.

Now I use my little laser thermometer to check the individual head pipes just past the head. I aim it at the first bend on top. This is typically the hot spot. As you surmise I'm looking for equal temperature and thus equal combustion. On my bike when fully warm, the cylinder head is just over 300. The individual headpipes are about 270 at idle. A good example is the other day when I brought my bike out of mothballs, it was running snotty just off idle. I knew something was amiss in my pilot circuits. Checking the headpipe temps revealed two cylinders that were only 150 degrees at idle. This was mostly latent heat from my run around the block and I'm sure that given enough time those cylinders would return to room temp. That test told me just where to check for clogged pilot jets. Sure enough, I had two pilot jets that were clogged with green crust.

What type of heat range would you shoot for?

with a HEAT GUN...? Really...?
Oh wait, OMR brain fart, he meant for measuring temperatures.... :pinch: :laugh:

Same time, what reference would you be using to say it's one way or the other...

Hmmmm, I'll stick with review of my spark plugs and in using my AFR meter for verifying it's running lean or rich thank you much... Way to many other variables involved to just go off heat of an exhaust port/riser/pipe.

Mid life crisis wrote: What type of heat range would you shoot for?

I just try to adjust them so they are equal and my conglomerate AFR at idle is around 14.7. Headpipe temps will vary dependent on many things. Stock pipes are often double walled and will return lower readings than a thin walled aftermarket pipe. Got a high compression motor, then expect higher temps. Big cams that force you to idle at 1700 rpm then you get higher temps. My setup averages about 270 when it's running as good as it can. I do have one cylinder that is a touch down on compression and so that one will always be cooler than the rest.