Another thread about carbon deposits reminded me I purchased a USB Endoscope a while back.
I wondered what my Intake valves looked like on my stock 2013 XL1200C with 30,000 miles.

Here are the photos:



Front Intake


Rear Intake

 

 

It was more challenging to get the position and focus in sync than I expected

Next time I have the plugs out I'll try to get the piston tops.

 

 

Those look pretty good for 30k mi., especially with the stock air cleaner system. My bike has always spit quite a bit of oil through the breathers. That combined with the stock air cleaner routing the oily air back into the intake for my bike's first 8k miles resulted in some heavy build up in my intake valve chamber.

Have you ever done any fuel additives (Seafoam, Techron, etc.) or other cleaning methods for the fuel system?

 

I have run Red Line Complete Fuel system cleaner.
The last dose was about 4200 miles ago. 1 oz to a 3 gallon fill up.

Almost all the gas I have run in the last 10,000 miles has been Shell V-Power 93.

 

Gotcha. That's the only fuel I ever really run as well. I'm going to run some type of fuel treatment through my bike and see if it helps. To my knowledge, my bike has never been treated with anything. I run Techron through my Mercury Marauder once every 5k mi or so and it likes it. Going to try the same with my bike and see what results it brings with it. I may also try feeding some water mist through the intake since I've heard many recommend it.

Where did you feed your camera through to get those pictures?

 

I took the air cleaner off and went through the throttle body.

This is the camera I purchased-
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Not bad! Thanks for the share. Now show us your pistons! The plugs only take 30 seconds to pop off anyway...

 

Ok, I pulled the plugs this morning here are what pictures I could get of the top of the pistons:


Front




Rear