Misfiring
 

I had my SV serviced at 8k about 2 months ago and have since covered about 1200 miles. 700 of them were on a long weekend trip during which the bike got covered in rain, mud and all sorts of other muck. When i got home i gave it a right good clean and rinsed it down with a hose doing my best to avoid the engine/electrics.

The first time i started it after cleaning it (about a week later) it started misfiring almost straight away and gradualy got worse as it warmed up with the revs going up and down between 1000 -1500.

My obvious thought is that there is water in there somewhere before i start worrying about leads and coils etc...... but before i look at the plugs (wich should be almost new) is there any where else i should check first?

Iv got no problems looking at the plugs myself but was wondering if it is possible to drop the rad without removing upper and lower fairings?

Any help would be v much appreciated :D

If the problem is a wet front plug, (which from your description would certainly be the first place to look), in order to get to it you will need to, (at least), remove the lower fixings of the fairing side panels, this will allow you to displace the peg fittings of the fairing panels from the brackets on the rad, remove the lower fixing bolt, (on the cylinder head), and swing the rad forward, that done there is probably no need to remove the plug itself, just pull off the cap and give it a squirt of WD40 or similar.

If that gives no improvement, there may be water in the carbs.