Parallel twin != Inline 4

^^ Here are the answers to your query...

• External center stand - available off ebay. Prices vary. check ebay.com
• Seat covers - seat covers? Your local seat cover shop that deals with 2 wheeler seat covers can make one for you. Corbin gel seats are available though as an aftermarket option. Google for corbin gel seats.
• Bike cover - available at the probiking showroom/service center for 950 bucks. Or use the bullet cover which fits as well. Or buy the oxford rainx cover which is all weather + heat resistant. You can get this off ebay.com or google for oxford bike covers.
• Chain lube oil - available at the probiking showroom/service center or at the motul dealer in your city.
  
• Chain lube spray - as above
• Multi-functional spray (anit rust, moisture removal etc) - ebay.com or any hardware store
• Pillion seat cowl - available at the probiking showroom/service center. 4.5k INR, IIRC.
  

What other accessories are readily available? - digital instrument console for around 20k on ebay.com. google for more accessories.

Just finished 2500+ km ride on the Ninja. Through South India, on some very bad roads ,especially NH17 between Mangalore to Kannur.
Never had a problem. The fuel range is ample, so is the torque. Seating position is so beautiful, I was the least fatigued of my lot.

The last leg of my journey was at Bangalore. Here I had the good fortune of meeting fellow Green Team members n_adtiya and Bluevolt. It was nice meeting them.

On the way back, the Ninja did finally face a problem. We were riding in the rain almost constantly for 400 kms (from Hubli to Pune).This was no pit-pat rainfall, it was a torrential downpour. The left side of the road was logged with water. And everytime a truck would pass you , it would splash buckets of water with great force.

About 180 kms from Pune, the bike started acting weird. The revs would start to drop, it would not go above 4K RPM. The exhaust note started sounding weird (It sounded like how it would, if someone put a cloth over the exhaust outlet). This would go on for some time, then all of a sudden the bike would speed on as if I had whacked the throttle wide open. The rain ensured that the bike was very very cold. I somehow managed to ride it Chanadani Chowk in Pune. It had a lot of trouble climbing the ascent that leads to the CCD there.
I was scared out of my wits, when I got down. The exhaust head (the part parallel to the monoshock link) was glowing orange hot (like how molten metal would look). Quickly switched off the bike. After keeping it off for one hour, I finally started for home. THe bike started alright. On the way back it ran fine for about 3-4 kms, after which the problems started again. About 200 mts from home, the exhaust had started glowing again. I didnt want to take anymore chances, I turned off the bike and pushed it home.

Took it to the SVC next day, cleaned the air-filter, but still the same problem persisted. When they opened up the bike, they found water seeping through one of the spark plugs. After changing the spark plug, the problem didnt appear again. I got the bike serviced as it was due and took it out for some testing on the highway yesterday. No problems anymore.

Does anybody know what the problem could have been? How can water seeping in cause the exhaust to glow like that?

^^ Here are the answers to your query...

• External center stand - available off ebay. Prices vary. check ebay.com
• Seat covers - seat covers? Your local seat cover shop that deals with 2 wheeler seat covers can make one for you. Corbin gel seats are available though as an aftermarket option. Google for corbin gel seats.
• Bike cover - available at the probiking showroom/service center for 950 bucks. Or use the bullet cover which fits as well. Or buy the oxford rainx cover which is all weather + heat resistant. You can get this off ebay.com or google for oxford bike covers.
• Chain lube oil - available at the probiking showroom/service center or at the motul dealer in your city.
  
• Chain lube spray - as above
• Multi-functional spray (anit rust, moisture removal etc) - ebay.com or any hardware store
• Pillion seat cowl - available at the probiking showroom/service center. 4.5k INR, IIRC.
  

What other accessories are readily available? - digital instrument console for around 20k on ebay.com. google for more accessories.

Please specify which spark plug was changed and which header was red hot. How ever, i think because of water splash, ceramic insulation might have cracked, which resulted in its failure. Because of that, you were running on single cylinder. The cylinder which was working got overloaded, and resulted in red hot header.

The functional cylinder as propelling you and driving dead cylinder also.
Symptoms of this problem:
1. inconsistant power output.
2. overall Power output lesser than half.
3. over heating in overloaded cylinder


As you said there was water seeping in, i would advice you to get the compression pressure checked for both the cylinders. Ideally, the differance between them should not be more than 5psi

So Mahindra's new bike Mojo is a 300cc single cylinder. Not a competition for Ninja 250

Even if it was a twin & had 0-100 timings equivalent to 250R, it would be no competition.

Dynamics for me is the end of all things and I know where they both would stand if chassis / braking / feel are concerned.

Just finished 2500+ km ride on the Ninja. Through South India, on some very bad roads ,especially NH17 between Mangalore to Kannur.
Never had a problem. The fuel range is ample, so is the torque. Seating position is so beautiful, I was the least fatigued of my lot.

The last leg of my journey was at Bangalore. Here I had the good fortune of meeting fellow Green Team members n_adtiya and Bluevolt. It was nice meeting them.



About 180 kms from Pune, the bike started acting weird. The revs would start to drop, it would not go above 4K RPM. The exhaust note started sounding weird (It sounded like how it would, if someone put a cloth over the exhaust outlet). This would go on for some time, then all of a sudden the bike would speed on as if I had whacked the throttle wide open. The rain ensured that the bike was very very cold. I somehow managed to ride it Chanadani Chowk in Pune. It had a lot of trouble climbing the ascent that leads to the CCD there.
I was scared out of my wits, when I got down. The exhaust head (the part parallel to the monoshock link) was glowing orange hot (like how molten metal would look). Quickly switched off the bike. After keeping it off for one hour, I finally started for home. THe bike started alright. On the way back it ran fine for about 3-4 kms, after which the problems started again. About 200 mts from home, the exhaust had started glowing again. I didnt want to take anymore chances, I turned off the bike and pushed it home.

Took it to the SVC next day, cleaned the air-filter, but still the same problem persisted. When they opened up the bike, they found water seeping through one of the spark plugs. After changing the spark plug, the problem didnt appear again. I got the bike serviced as it was due and took it out for some testing on the highway yesterday. No problems anymore.

Does anybody know what the problem could have been? How can water seeping in cause the exhaust to glow like that?

So Mahindra's new bike Mojo is a 300cc single cylinder. Not a competition for Ninja 250

sorry for cutting the conversations but just wanted to know who all from Noida in this forum own a ninja?

thanks for the info. but did you fill ordinary petrol into the ninja at any point of time enroute ? your's is the second such case and a similar case has been earlier reported in forum the bike stalling and finally was traced to a loose plug power cap at pbk.

plug failure is very rare.

it needs to be seen that during heavy downpours, whether water can go in thru the exaust out let esp when you have to stop the bike enroute