smerin

Hopped on the bike to ride home from work and noticed it had a fantastic lumpy exhaust note... it had lost a cylinder or two...

Rode it home and it felt like it was running on 3 cylinders. Pulled it to bits when I got home and noted there are only 2 coils so it's more likely it was running on 2 cylinders I think....?

I didn't have time to check for spark but just wanted to ask if blowing coils is a common-ish thing for these bikes?

yoshi

it could be one of many things. as always start with the easiest option before jumping to 'big' parts.
fit some new plugs (don't bother cleaning the old ones, bin them or put them to one side) then take it from there.
get it running and hold the revs on about 3k for a couple of minutes, trying to hold it on the misfire. kill the motor then stick a drop of oil on each header to see which ones are ok. process of elimination and all that.
find the culprit/s. if its 1 and 4......... or 2 and 3 that are cold then the chances are its one of the coils. if its just one cylinder then remove that plug and take a look. if its dry then it's a carb problem, if it's wet there is either an electrical problem between the coil and the plug, valve gap too tight, cylinder/rings shot, head gasket gone.
you need to do these tests then come back

smerin

had time to test spark tonight.

it's a plug. Happy days :-)

DaddysNinja

Damn yoshi knows his shit. You are the official Tech Crew Chief.

Glad to hear it was just a plug. Was going to take you threw the trouble shooting process but yoshi nailed it on the head.

yoshi

as you know, once you understand how everything works it's common sense my father got me rebuilding engines when i was 14.... many moons ago

smerin

Yeh was going to run through all of that. Just wanted to know what the coils are like on these before setting up an ad-hoc fuel system to run it without the tank as I went through two coils on my Honda.

Cheers for the help though!

smerin

So bike is fixed. Let me run you through what I had to go through to replace a single spark plug on the ZX6R.......

1. Remove rear seat.
2. Remove front seat.
3. Un bolt rear-side fairings.
4. Remove fuel tank (which of course means draining the fuel tank).
5. Remove airbox lid, then air filter, then the entire airbox itself (12 bolts in total).
6. Undo and remove all vacuum hoses that hide the spark plug leads.
7. Unplug lead which is as tight as a guitar string.
8. Unscrew plugs using an intricate snake of extension bars, especially bad for the outer plugs.
9. Drive to Supercheap(crap) Auto to get some Iridium plugs; $20ea :-/
10. Drop new spark plug into head and tighten using the same intricate set of extension bars.
11. Shear off one of the plugs in the head.
12. Swear.
13. Drive back to SuperCRAP Auto and get the dodgey plug replaced.
14. Buy screw extractor set.
15. Extract the other half of the plug from the head.
16. Drop in final plug and tighten.
17. Repeat steps 7-1 putting everything back.
18. Beer.

bikerben

That number 8 is a bitch for the outer plugs

yoshi

#4 you dont need to drain the tank, remove the 2 bolts on the fuel tap and take it all off.
of course, it does help with less than half a tank though

smerin

True that. I was just paranoid with the brand new paint of dropping it with the weight of the fuel...

CelticStar

Glad you got it sorted, I was going to suggest looking in the garage for it......