Last night I finally had conditions for some long high speed runs. One time when I shut the sled down I had a ball of flames comming out of the pipe. This continued for just a few seconds and then went out by itself. The sled restarted and ran fine the rest of the evening. I'm assuming this was just crud and oil that had built up from slower riding that was being burnt off. This isn't a symptom of any bad things to come is it? I had someone try to tell me that I have a hole in a piston and I'm burning up the blow-by. The sled us running great so I really don't believe this. I put about 50 more miles on after the fire without any problems. 2001 zl 600 efi.

Your sled is running rich and you just burnt out the leftovers! It shouldn't be a problem, as long as it doesn't damage the pipe!

If you go watch local stock car races, you will notice that alot of times when they brake to go into a corner, a larger line of flames burns off the end of the exhaust for a few seconds. This is usually due to the car running at the highest possible RPM for a few seconds, followed by running the car at almost idle as fast as possible (sounds like lake racing huh!)

I am not the most mechanically inclined person, but I can assure you that you would have tremendous power loss and severe engine damage if you blew a hole in your piston. Either that guy over-reacts to things, or just likes making people think that any problem you have is the worst problem out there (and I know both kinds of those people!)

I'd say get it looked at if the problem persists, but otherwise you should be OK!

Thanks guys - I ran another 50 or so miles today with no fires or other problems so I'll just keep an eye on things for awhile.

Don't kid yourself... Flames are COOL!!!
You might be fouling a spark plug too. Sometimes they will backfire just before the plugs foul.

Its a rich condition. I have seen this plenty of times, Not a thing to worry about.;...........tigger

got to let it idle down after you hammer it, or this will always happen, you must be a newbie!

ya i thought that too, but it started happening so often my 2001 600efi started melting the belly pan. Turns out i had a stator starting to go and had a low voltage problem. as i recall the efi's monitor voltage and go into limp home mode when the voltage is to low. i would assume it pores the fuel to it and has less timing advance to save the engine that could explain the fuel running down the pipe.