I accidentally posted this in the other forum, sorry about that. Anyways here's the problems....

I just bought an F4i about 5 days ago. It's too cold here to ride so it's sitting in the garage, I ride it around my block every night. Anyways, few questions. First off, I hear a slight sound, kind of like a little train... I can only compare the sound to that of a belt on a car when it needs to be changed... a slight whinning sound. Secondly, at the bottom of my bike right inside the fairing, are two small black tubes that run parallel to eachother. They run all the way to the bottom of the fairing and aren't connected to anything, right next to my kickstand. Is this normal? One last thing, if my leave the bike idling, it will keep climing in temperature till it hits 108, then the fan will kick in and it will drop down to 106, then come back up to 108 and the fan will turn on then drop to 106 and this will happen over and over again. Is this normal? I'm a newb to bikes and I don't really know anything about them, any help would be great, thanks.

 

it sound that everythig is alright to me..

 

The tubes that end are for overflow. ie. if your radiator overheats and boils the coolant in the reserve tank it will spill out the overflow tubes. I have a 2002 F4i and my fan cuts on at about 225 degrees. It sounds like you may have a thermostat problem if the fan it cutting on and off like that, especially at such a low temperature.

 

The 106-108 must be in Celcius not Fahrenheit. If you received the owners manual it'll show you how to change it to F. Two tubes are normal -- radiator overflow and the other is prolly for the battery in case it decides to spew some acid on a hot day.

As far as little noises go here's some things all new bike owners should be let in on BEFORE they get their bike home:

1) Modern bikes have high compression ratio
2) Most have 4 valves per cylinder
3) Shim under bucket valves with stiff springs
4) Engine is relatively out in the open -- thin plastic body work projects sound in odd ways

All this = noise. If you've ever spun a rod or dropped a valve then you'd really know what noise is. So I think your bike is probably 100% ready to go. You'll know when something bad happens internally cause then you'll really hear some noise. BUT it's a Honda -- so change the oil and filters regularly and ride that bee-yatch hard and it'll last you a looooong time.

 

Sorry TuftsDoc -- you covered the tubes, doh!

Also, I just re-read my post and I don't want you to think that I'm slammin ya. I bet the stealer-ships make zillions of dollars looking for "noises" and still don't tell peeps that bikes just make noise. Every time somebody at work gets a new bike I always end up having to listen to it cause it's making a noise. So my best advice is to put an aftermarket can on and the small noises will magically disappear

 

This might sound retarded but by can you mean... I can make an obvious assumption but I'd rather be clear. Secondly, I bought it with 18,000kms on it, hasn't been ridden at all because of the snow. I start it up every couple of days and let it run for 15 minutes, I put some methyl hydrate in the other day and let it run for a half hour, for some reason it runs better now, the engine sounds smoother. I'm guessing there was some condensation. One last question, should I wait and just take it in to get serviced or should I do maintenance on my own (what exactly) I have a service manual and I'm not an idiot with tools, let me know, thanks. Your replies definitely helped me out.

 

CAN= New slip on exhaust pipe or full race exhaust system ( headers, pipe, and can) but your bike may need rejetted if you do a new exhaust.

 

Yeah that's what I thought. I have a yoshimura RS-3... was on the bike when I bought it.