Honda Spree and Elite 50 Forums

I'm having some problems with my '87 SE50 after doing a chemical flush of the muffler following a process similar to what has been described in several posts.

I plugged the end of the J-pipe with a cork and poured liquid lye in through the muffler tip, which I then plugged with another cork. I shook up the muffler every half hour to loosen up the carbon inside. After an hour and a half, I drained the lye out of the muffler and flushed it with water, first through the muffler tip, then through the J-pipe. After shaking most of the water out, I put the muffler on my gas BBQ and heated it until steam and condensate stopped coming out.

After installing it on the scooter, I'm finding that I have lost low end power. The scooter used to take off from a standing start with good power. Now, it's very sluggish. The scooter eventually gets up to around 35 mph, but it takes awhile.

Is it possible that the muffler could have gotten plugged up during the cleaning process? Has anybody else had this problem? If so, how can I get the muffler unplugged and working well again?

I appreciate everybody's help!

This sounds very possible. I would try it again if i where you....

Fire clean it.

I'm not sure if this is the answer, but it is something to look into. On an engine, having more backpressure (to a point) gives you more low end torque (which is why some modern motorcycles have a butterfly valve in the exhaust that closes at low rpms and opens at high rpms). While you were flushing the crap out of it, is it possible that you might have knocked something out of place, which reduced that back pressure.

I appreciate everybody's input.

Before I flush it again or try to fire-clean it, I'm going to take the muffler down to a local auto shop and try blowing it out with their high pressure air. It occurred to me that perhaps some carbon or rust flakes are partially blocking the baffles. However, not knowing how the baffles are designed, I don't know if it's really possible to block them up.

Any thoughts?

fire clean it first. just blowing air though it is no differnet then having it on the moped running. mater of fact the motor has more PSI then an auto shop will.
putting it in a fire or grill first heats it more then the motor will. doing this frees up allot of the built up carbon. if you do that first then blow it out it will be allot more affective.

more than 150 psi most shops run, I doubt it

My girlfriend just bought an 86 Spree, and it ran like *, so I filled the muffler full of Gunk engine cleaner (Theoretically should dissolve nonpolar carbon...and I didn't feel like buying something else!) and shook it around a bit with my thumb over the end of the pipe, and then poured/shook out as much as I could, then threw it on the barbeque. I apparently didn't get enough out, because what was left eventually caught fire and shot a jet of flame out the back of the muffler for about 20 minutes straight, but when I put the exhaust back on the Spree the next day, I went from topping out at 15 to topping at 30. Since my gf weighs a bunch less than me, she can get it over 30 mph. Now I just have to track down the why the d*** thing smokes so much.

Took the muffler down to the shop and blew it back through the exhaust tip. A bunch of very small rust flakes came out the end of the J-pipe. Solved the problem. Got the low end power back.