Knocking sound coming from Head - Video Included
 

Hey guys, today when I was riding, I started to notice a noise from my engine. When I got home, I took my helmet off, and listened to it more closely. There is a knocking noise that is coming from the cylinder hear area. It is there at idle, and the sound goes faster as I raise the RPM's.

I know about the cam chain tensioner issue a lot of F4i's have, but I don't think it's that. The reason I think this, is because I hear it at all RPM's. I don't really hear when I'm riding though...probably because of wind noise. The thing is, the bike still has all of its power, and it rides as smooth as ever. What do you guys think this noise could be? Thanks.

Here is a video of my bike and its sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvEpDd1UEA8

It could be quite a few things causing it ..
Even poor tuning will cause knocking noises ..

I know not a great deal about the F4i's , but I thought that I would at least suggest that you take a short vid with the sound turned up for the guys to have a listen to...
A vid is worth a thousand words they say ...ok that was not quite the saying , but yu get my drift hey ...lol


just my 2cents worth ...:icon_wink:

it could be your valve adjustment. How many miles are on your bike? And have your valves ever been checked? Its usually a 16,000 mile maintenance to check your valve spacing. I did mine at ~20,000 and half my valves were twice as tight as they should be.

Video added. Let me know what you guys think.

sounds like a valve problem and if its definately comng from your head id assume thats most likely it.

Wow ... she certainly has a rattle inside her ..:icon_doh:
Have to had the rocker cover off her as yet?

If she was mine , I would be taking a good hard look inside the valve train cover and at the cam chain tensioner , even though you might not think that the cam tensioner would be the issue ...
Check clearances and look hard for signs of hardening issues on all the cams ..

Engine sounds smooth enough so tuning prolly ain't it ...

I recently pulled the engine to time-cert a spark plug hole. I got it all back together, and the bike was running perfect for a few days, until this sound started yesterday. The bike itself seems to run the same, as far as power and smoothness.

Should I try manually turning the automatic CCT counter-clockwise, to see if tightening that helps? I'm pretty sure all the valves are in spec, since the bike only has 4k miles, and they were fine before I fixed the spark plug hole. What should I be looking at on the cams? I made sure all the marks lined up when I put them back in. And I've never had the rocker cover off, as I don't even know where / what it is. Thanks for the help.

Gee , think we need a few more F4i guys in on this to say if that is a good idea .... I know that at those low miles , she should not be rattling like that ...and the auto tensioner should be doing its stuff , but I have read quite allot here about swapping them out for manual tensioners to shut engine noises up ... but as I said , that question is best left to our CBRF F4i residents ...

dunno where they all are ATM ..?:icon_shrug:

I was originally thinking that maybe one of you plugs might be loose...but if it's not loosing any power I'm not really sure. Does kinda sound like valve train noise...though kinda loud compared to chatter that i've experienced in the cars I've had do that.

that definitely sounds like cam chain. When its really loose you hear it all the time. I think your cctl is snagged up, try manually resetting(or tightening) it.