Dustin

Moderator
What a strange thing that happened to me today. I went for a short ride to Squamish today, my second of the week. The bike was running well and everything was dandy until I developed a misfire a few km from home. I pulled over and had a look at the bike but couldn't see anything obvious to me so I opted to limp it home and check it out there. There's a way to check ECU codes but I had no way of fixing that at the side of the road.

Closer to home, I started smelling some burning and shortly after I heard a huge bang. What was that? I was in a terrible spot in the city and just a few blocks from home so I thought it best to get home in a hurry. I crossed the intersection and rounded the corner to my street and there went a second huge bang. I thought I better kill the bike and pull over now. There was smoke coming out from under the seat now and I removed everything quickly and disconnected the battery. There was melted plastic everywhere and a huge hole in the tail in the spot I keep my CO2 cartridges for flat repairs. I guess something got hot under there and the CO2 cartridges exploded. My best guess is that the misfire caused the under tail exhaust to heat up so much it ignited the box the cartridges were in. Then they exploded.

So, that's where I sit. The bike is obviously out of commission and my mechanic is coming to pick it up with a trailer tomorrow. I'll get some photos if I can but here's the hole in my ass

 
When I had an FZ6 with an underseat exhaust I would stash a half dozen canisters under the seat, I often wondered if there was a chance they could overheat and explode. I guess they can. Hope the damage isn't too great.
 
Wow that sux Dustin; I also have a few of those under my seat too.
Lucky no one got hurt and hopefully you'll be back on the road again real soon.
 
It looks like the damage was mostly to the heat shield and plastic inner fender? So the backfiring was just the canisters exploding (one at a time), or was there actual engine issues before the CO2 blew? I have seen cannisters blow Propane ones as well (both rather dramatic). You are lucky a peice of shrapnel didn't get you. Glad you didn't get hurt. This is the first time I have ever heard of this sort of thing happening with CO2 and I'm glad mine are stored in my top box further away from my exhaust.
 
The bike developed a misfire and was running poorly. I attempted to limp it home and then that all happened. They must be connected and perhaps the poor running was causing the exhaust to heat up or something
 
The bike developed a misfire and was running poorly. I attempted to limp it home and then that all happened. They must be connected and perhaps the poor running was causing the exhaust to heat up or something

I had a similar issue on that old FZ 600 when the generator quit. As the battery was drawn down the spark was weak and unburnt fuel was being exhausted into the pipe and igniting causing backfires and a lot of heat in the pipe. With your underseat pipe I could see it getting hotter than usual if one or more plugs were not firing and the unburned mixture was being pumped into the exhaus. This would lead to the cannisters being heated to (obviously) critical levels.

Hopefully it ends up not being stupidly expensive to get the cause and the resulting damage repaired. Maybe store your new CO2 cannisters in that big top box.
 
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