My 94 cbr 600 f2 suffers from a bad cam chain tensioner. It growls loud and vibrates from idle up until 5k rpm. Now, I ride the bike often even with the bad cam chain tensioner and it will often die out and leave me on the side of the road. Normally a short rest will convince the bike to start back up but on one occasion it would not start back up.
I believe what is happening is that when the bike is cold the cam chain has tension but when load is placed on the engine the more the timing chain will stretch. With slack in the cam chain it inturn spins the cams at an a incorrect rate leading to incorrect valve timing. With the valves opening and closing improperly we then experience flooding because the cylinders are taking in fuel on the wrong stroke.
So I believe that if you have a bad cam chain tensioner and it is causing all of this that it is still able to be ridden as long as you do not place the cam chain under load(aka peg the engine). Now if your engine begins to die and you know when it is coming, you should shut the engine down quickly before the incorrect timing causes you to flood it. The real solution is to get a new cam chain tensioner. Does everyone agree with this because maybe you are having the same symptoms with your bike. Leave a reply.

 

At the point of riding it as long as you did, from my own experience, you will not only need to replace the tensioner but the chain as well because even a brand new tensioner will not do much justice on a stretched cam chain. So my theory is if you ride it lond enough on a bad tensioner you will have to do alot more work on replacing and retiming the cam chain.

 

I respect that, and I want everybody's opinion to be heard so that people with bad cam chain tensioners are aware but I disagree. The problem is that the chain is not getting enough tension therefore It is probably not stretching as far as it would be with a tensioner that was operating properly. In other words I didn't mean stretching the chain to its maximum, what I meant was the normal amount of slack that it develops as the engine is heated up and ran is still just enough to max out a bad tensioner.
With a bad cam chain tensioner the chain will naturally heat up and stretch just far enough that the hydraulic cct is maxed out but with a new tensioner the chain should hold it's tension. So if anyone reading this has can support Street Fighters theory of chain replacement please drop a post.

 

On a related subject can anyone confirm that a bad cam chain tensioner will stretch the chain and cause incorrect timing? Any Honda techs out there?

 

not a tech but am having the same problem with the CCT but not to such a bad degree as yours.. based on my research and techs ive spoken to, the cam chain tensioner is usually the only adjustment made whereas the chain itself is very rarely replaced unless of course your cam chain has become so loose to the point of having jumped off its alignment and hit some of the pistons along with other components that it may have damaged (but this is rare and at a worse case scenario).. anyway, the CCT is usually adjusted or replaced.. based on the f2 series, it requires a manual cam chain tensioner.. there was a thread in this forum on where to get one of these..

scroll through the threads with cam chain as the topic and ull find it..

 

Cam chain won't stretch with a worn CCT but it will allow the chain to jump 1 or 2 maybe even 3 teeth on the crank or cam sprokets causing massive engine damage, get it sorted ASAP or you'll be sorry you didnt, when the engine is under load at high revs the cain is very tight on the drive side, but where the CCT is it will be very slack when you roll of the throttle thats when it's likely to jump teeth be careful

 

I rode my f2 with a damn loud CCT for quite some time before I changed to an APE manual one and I never had any issues, mind you I am a pretty light rider on the throttle.. I change gears around 4-5k rpm most of the time. call me granny.. hehehe

 

A worn cct will not spin the cams at an incorrect speed . The chain can skip a tooth or more , but if this happens your engine will either run like a bag of **** all the time or it will cause valves and pistons to collide stopping the engine running completely . Running the bike with a worn out cct will wear the guides that put the pressure onto the chain followed by the chain itself . I fitted an APE one 2 years ago and no problems since .
Hope this is of use.
Jimmer.

 

Won't spin the cams at correct speed????? of course it will.

 

now you guys got me wondering if I need to change my CCT. is there anyway I can visually inspect this to see if anything is wrong? I know someone said that the engine sounds really loud if the CCT is bad but because I have this Two brothers Racing Exhaust installed I cant really hear the engine. It's accelerates really slow when I'm in first and second but when I hit third its fine. Is this one of the symptoms of a CCT going bad? Also the bike is a little jerky if I dont increase the trottle.