Mayo in air box

I am having a few running problems with the SV atm (doesn't like starting from cold, runs lumpy and stalls if you wide open the throttle while it's cold). In the course of investigating the issue I removed the sponge filter in the air box and the bottom of it was covered in mayo like stuff, as were the 2 breather hoses and the bottom of the box.

Is this head gasket?

All thoughts and advice welcomed.

Thanks,

Jynx

[Sid Squid]

No. The head gasket is between the cylinder and the cylinder head, what you've found is the oil separator.
Two hoses come from the crankcase so they are not sealed and no pressure can build up in them, as the gas in the crankcase contains a certain amount of blowby gasses it's not ideal to vent them to atmosphere so they're led into the airbox to be drawn into the engine and burnt, reducing emissions.
As the engine is full of whirling bits of metal there is a constant mist of oily gas in the crankcases, and being a V twin there is a significant degree of crankcase pumping hence the two large bore hoses, the crankcase gas passes through a piece of foam with open cells, this allows the oil to condense and drop back through the hoses to the cases.
It's completely normal to find both a bit of oil and a bit of moisture in the airbox - hence the goey mess you've discovered.

Unless you have a further reason to suspect something is amiss - be not concerned.

After doing some Googling I was drawing toward this conclusion but thanks for a very concise and informative post - panic over

I have isolated the problem being on the front cylinder and have swapped out the coil pack, but no change. Any other obvious items to check for poor cold running on one cylinder?

Thanks

i also had mayo in my engine after the cold winter ,due to short journeys and the breather pipes condensing the moisture in the fumes and dripping it back into the engine , a quick oil change and a decent run of an hour or so got everything back to normal again

Jynx , I had the same thing a couple of years back on the Wirral Egg Run , I panicked and thought it was all sorts , plugs looked fine and everything . I replace them as a matter of course and the bike ran fine . Sometimes the core on the plugs breaks down and the bike was a total pain in the butt , even when warm on a Sunny Easter weekend . I also checked the Throttle Position Sensor and the balance between throttle bodies and they were fine . 2 old plugs just crapping out made me think my bike was about to die some massive form of electrical failure .

throttle bodies way out of sync ?

Doubt it , otherwise he would have problems elsewhere once warmed up and on the move . The SV ECU will get info off the sensor as to whether it should move the throttle bodies to the cold start position , if it is not Winter then it will select the lower of the 2 cold start positions , when Jynx is blipping the throttle in cold it is stalling , what is your idle speed at the moment from a cold start Jynx ? ... and what does it drop to after a couple of minutes ?

throttle bodies can affect cold start as they throw the idle speed all over the shop but feel fine once on the move, just like mine are doing at the moment

Jynx , have a look here and see if this is anything similar

http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=128642

[bighammer]

Put it on a sandwich.