Gs850 engine noise

[Jwhit89]

Hey all, I had asked a bit ago about engine noise on my bike. Im going to upload a link to a YouTube video of the noise. Rode it to work (100 miles round trip 95% highway) and on the way back it started getting noisier. Haven’t had a chance to drain the oil and check it yet but will do that this week (valves shimmed to spec btw) only other thing I’ve changed is a 4-1 from a gs1000. Any insight would be great!

[steve murdoch]

Doesn't sound too bad to me.
Are you referring to slight "rattle" in the background?
Cam walk noise has a rhythmic quality to it and i am not hearing that.
Does the "rattle" change when you pull in the clutch lever?

[eil]

It's almost impossible to diagnose engine noise from a cell phone video because the device "hears" and records things completely different from human ears. And in a lot of cases, it is difficult for even an experienced mechanic to accurately diagnose an engine problem even if they were standing right there to hear it.

If you think there really is a problem, there's no shortcut around the troubleshooting process. Figure out roughly where its coming from, under which conditions it makes those noises, and then eliminate all causes one by one until you're left with the one causing the problem.

[bwringer]

Yup, it's impossible to tell whether there's actually anything abnormal going on here. These are noisy air-cooled engines, and you'd need some pretty advanced audio engineering to get the true experience.

FWIW, I don't hear "cam walk", which is kind of a rhythmic "knock-knock", "knock-knock" noise (and is entirely harmless, just annoying).

One thing I might suggest is to make sure the cam chain tensioner pushrod is not locked in place. Normally there's some slight movement of that knurled knob on the cam chain tensioner, or at least you can feel it if you put a finger on it while the engine is running.

For some strange and entirely unknown reason, it's very common for people to lock the pushrod so that the adjuster can't move, and over time the cam chain gets noisy.

Here are my detailed rebuild instructions, which can help make it clearer what's in there and how it works.

https://www.bwringer.com/gs/camchaintens.html

You can also get some very odd noises if the carbs are not synchronized very well, so perhaps that's worth investigation.

[Gorminrider]

Is this your idle? RPMs is awfully high for an idling bike. If you hear a noise that bothers you, hold the phone steady and for a longer period of time near the noise. ..don't shift it around before someone new to your bike has a chance to orient themselves and compare... (sigh-it's weirdly like people think the film is running out in their phone or something...)

I fancy I did hear some camwalk near the end but of course you moved the phone,shut off the bike and the idle is too high to hear camwalk anyways...

[Jwhit89]

First off I’d like to thank everyone for the quick responses, I apologize the the video, I should have done a better job of keeping the camera steady and in one place. I’m going to check the cam tensioner tomorrow per bwringers advice, if the noise is still evident I’ll dig deeper and see what I can find. The idle is high because at the same time im fighting a pilot circuit tuning issue which is another story for another time. Again appreciate everyone’s time!