Knocking

[Phaelok]

Bike has seemed to produce a knocking sound in the past week or so.

Its been almost 2k miles since a major service.

On my last bike (gs500e) a more mechanical sound became apparent when the oil was low.. Checked the oil in my beloved sv and fine.

Its a knock in the front cylinder it seems, only does it when its warm. It used to come and go but now its staying.

Any ideas and please god dont let this be an expensive one!

[Sid Squid]

It's almost impossible to diagnose a noise across the internet, there are various possibilities as to what a given noise might be, some innocuous, some serious, and of course different people describe such subjective things differently.
It would be difficult and possibly irresponsible to ease your thoughts/scare you when it's utterly unknown from this end. You will need a more experienced ear to take a listen.

[Spikenipple]

Have you checked the torque of the exhaust header bolts?
Before you try anything with them, warm the bike up, and listen closely to the front cylinder. Try feeling for any leaks around the header.

[Dangerous Dave]

It's almost impossible to diagnose a noise across the internet, there are various possibilities as to what a given noise might be, some innocuous, some serious, and of course different people describe such subjective things differently.
It would be difficult and possibly irresponsible to ease your thoughts/scare you when it's utterly unknown from this end. You will need a more experienced ear to take a listen.
+ 1

The simplest thing you can do is have a look at the front spark plug and its cap.

[yorkie_chris]

Is it ticking over too low?

[Phaelok]

Its a mechanical sound.

Spoke to a friend whos more savvy than me, and said its not piston slap - if it was itd continue knocking louder when the engine is revved...

The sound goes away when revved, so my thoughts were cam chain tensioner, when the chain is on tickover, its slack - the slack is taken off when its revved so the engine behaves normally.

Failing that i dont know what else it would be.

[kwak zzr]

the sv engine makes all sorts of weird noises when warm, I'm sure i heard a new one every time i went out on mine, engines are strong so its most probably nothing but as Sid squid says get a competent person to have a listen,

a little engine story, my old zzr600 1994 m reg made a loud noticeable ticking noise when you came off the throttle, like the cam hitting the lifters and all in time with the engine? worried me abit so i sold it, the guy i sold it to at a bargain price still has the zzr and it still makes the noise but he dont care and its not causing any problems,hes had the bike 5 years now and done many happy miles on it.