The Kawasaki ZX636 that was in the shop today was very sick indeed. It was the first time this bike had been to Everything 2 Wheels so I didn’t know any of the bikes previous history in its 30,000 kilometer life. But just by looking at the exhaust and all the black soot around the end of it I knew something was very wrong. Speaking to the owner he claimed that the bike had been into a Kawasaki dealer to look at the running issue and was told “they all do that mate”. It had also had a few services by the same dealer and no one had picked up any problems with the running. I put the bike on the bench and started it up. Within 5 seconds my eyes were starting to hurt from the fumes and the black smoke pouring out the back of the bike confirmed something was very wrong. First up was to check the bikes FI system and accessing the computers memory fired off a ‘63’ failure code. Unfortunately ’63’ only relates to the bikes exhaust control valve and this is down to the bike having an aftermarket exhaust fitted. It’s pretty standard for Kawasaki’s to have this code stored in their memory with an aftermarket pipe fitted and this was not related to the bikes running issue. So the search for the problem went on and it wasn’t long before the fuel tank was up and the air box was removed. I already had half an idea that either the fuel pressure regulator was faulty or a manifold pressure sensor pipe had either rubbed through or split. It wasn’t long before Id found the answer. The manifold presure sensor pipe. The strange thing was that one of the pipes hadn’t split or rubbed through but was totally disconnected and swinging in fresh air making the bike run very rich. These pipes are a real tight fit and don’t just come undone on their own so how it came undone………????? With the pipe now reconnected I put in a new set of spark plugs to replace the fowled ones that I’d removed and reassembled the bike. Starting the bike up there was a very different smoother sound and after a quick test ride I was happy that the problem was fixed. The thing that puzzles me about this bike is how it could have gone into a dealer 2 or 3 times and had services done to it yet no one picked up on the running issue or even question why so much black smoke was coming out of the exhaust?