Old School bike question

[Johnny5]

My buddy is looking for an older bike to learn on. So Im keeping an eye out. I found a bike in my neighborhood that's for sale. It's late 70's Suzuki 750 4-cylinder. It looks in decent shape but one thing that caught my eye was that 1 out of the 4 pipes close to the engine was bluer than the rest. Could this be a simple carb out of sync issue or something worse?

[mbigica]

The difference in color could be a carb thing - but if it burn that way long enough to discolor one of the pipes I would have concern that there could be long term damage. That cylinder may of been to lean making it run way to hot. May want to consider a compression test.

If it's cheap, and runs, then it's ok for a first bike. But a inline 4 750cc bike for a 1st timer is alot of bike. Don''t look at the year and think it's tame. That bike will move.

[Johnny5]

Oh, I know it'll move. My friend has ridden bikes before, he's mainly looking for his first road bike. One if it tips over, who cares, pick it back up and ride on. That blue pipe has me concerned though. I'll have to check it out closer tomorrow. Lots of bikes out there for sale right now anyway.