Ticking Sound...

Hey guys, I get this consistant "tick tick tick" sound coming out of my exhaust. You can hear it at idle, and can really hear it at overrun, and WOT. You can't hear it if you're on the bike, only if you're standing on the street. The sound seems to be originating somewhere near the rear of the engine, but it's hard to tell.

I might have caused this problem myself. Last summer when I got my FMF slip-ons they didn't fit properly. So to make them fit, my dumb ass banged the shit out of the left can (with only my hand) to get the left cans pipe off of the subframe. I actually had to sand down a little bit of the subframe to help with this. Now since then I returned the cans to FMF for repair. They sent the same cans back to me, now fitting like a glove, while replacing both of the cores and searched to see if the "ticking" was coming from them. The ticking is NOT coming from the cans. So, I'm thinking I messed something up with the headers somewhere?

Any thoughts on this, and what I could have jacked up by banging the shit out of that left can (while fully mounted)? The bike itself runs great with no problems, so I'm assuming the "ticks" are not coming from inside the engine.

Possibly need to replace the cylindrical gasket from the rear header where it joins the front header. It does wear fairly quickly. I've got 10K miles on mine and the gasket is completely gone on one side. Only found it by pulling exhaust to get it ceramic coated.

John

I was thinking that. Is it a big pain in the ass to replace?

It's not too bad. I took the cans and Y-piece off then loosened the front header and basically lowered the whole system down to allow room to get to the gasket. The gasket itself was a bitch to get in as it's a tight fit.

I still have the stock exhaust on my 08SD but I do have a constant ticking sound after I park it after a sprited ride. I believe my tick is due to heat expansion / contraction. I did have a 86 600 Ninja that had a loose baffle inside the muffler that rattled when I hit 6-7k rpm. It was a dead giveaway that I was about to get with the program to my riding buds. Try to loosen all your fasteners to the exhaust and retighten them, and keep you eyes open for the unexpected. If you take the mufflers all the off, shake them for loose parts.

I've had the cans off and on. This is actually my third set of FMF cans, due to the fact I had fitting issues with the first two. So the cans and the mounting is all good now.

Any possible way to know if the gasket is back just by looking at the connection

The 06 models were known for this.. Starter clutch breaking loose but I'm sure that it was fixed from 07 onwards

I had a cracked rear cylinder pipe on a 06