| Author | Message | ||
     Mark_weiss |
While riding along I have been getting sudden, brief, power cuts, pretty much at random. It could be compared to either injectors missing a beat or the ignition shorting. There are no other symptoms, no CEL, no lights blinking, no cycling of the instruments. I've spent a lot of time checking connections, checking the ECU, checking grounds, and wiggling sections of the wiring harness and have found absolutely nothing. The cuts are very quick, a tenth of a second or two. On a whim I used ECM Droid to disable closed loop running and that seems to have eliminated the problem. However, I don't know why so I do not know what to fix. | ||
| Ourdee |
Check plug wires. | ||
| Tootal |
 My front plug wire shorted to the frame after rubbing the insulation off. Acted just like you're saying. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
A shorting plug wire does sound reasonable. Too bad there's no quick way to look... Shouldn't that sort of misfire cause a CEL, or is the misfire too intermittent to register? At idle, nothing goes wrong, only while I am moving. | ||
| Ourdee |
As far as what the ecm knows from the sensors on-board, It would only show up if it continued enough times in a row in the rear cylinder to effect the O2 sensor. Doesn't matter what way the spark gets to the ground from the coil. Not that hard to dig down to the coil and wires. I think it is 8 bolts to get there. All torx 27. | ||
| Steveford |
That whole area is kind of ridiculous; it you don't get the plug lead positioned JUST SO if will get rubbed through and wreak havoc as the spark grounds to the frame or your hand if you're me poking around in there with the bike running, ha ha. Memories... You might want to get some spacers and move the coil up around 1/2" while you're in there. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
I'll probably be able to open things up this evening. I had the front wire wear through at about 30K miles, but at that time the problem only manifested when riding in the rain (which does not happen too often here)and I could clearly see that the problem was the sharp end of a zip tie (which I moved). | ||
| Tootal |
As Steveford said, I raised my coil up 3/4" and it pulled some slack from the front plug wire. Also allowed the wire to go between the push/pull throttle cables. No problems since. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
I will look into that. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
Looking in from the top I do not see any wire damage. I will pull the side scoop so that I can remove and inspect the wires. Also, I am wondering why shutting off closed loop would have seemed to clear the problem if it is a plug wire. What symptom would a grounding O2 sensor wire cause? When I replaced my rocker box gaskets I replaced a perfectly good O2 sensor, just because I had easy access. The new sensor is taller than stock and I was concerned about interference, but with the engine rotated back into place everything looked good. I'm wondering if after 15k miles, it's not so good any longer. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
Both spark plug wires are undamaged and check at about 1k ohms each. Plugs look good and gap is at spec. All of the connections are now clean and the connectors re-coated with dielectric grease. I'll ride today or tomorrow and find out if anything has changed. | ||
| Arry |
When my ECU went bad, I had a variety of symptoms that increased in frequency over a period of about one and a half years. It seems that early on it started out like what you described in your first post. | ||
| Smorris |
If the gauges have needle sweep or power loss is while turning bars could be a power wire getting pinched or breaking, which you can't see typically | ||
| Mark_weiss |
The problem is still there. If I use ECM Droid and disable closed loop running the issue is gone. It is only noticeable when the engine is fully warmed up (about 6 miles of mostly freeway) and I only notice the problem when running at a steady speed. If it occurs while the throttle is not steady, the changes are too minor for me to note. I note no other symptoms at all. | ||
| Tootal |
Since it runs well in open loop then logically there's an input causing the problem when in closed loop. A shorted O2 sensor will cause a lean condition if memory serves. Look at your AFV in ecmdroid. (adaptive fuel value) If it's way over 100% then it's trying to compensate for a lean condition. When the bike is stone cold check your temperature sensors with droid. They should read nearly the same temperature. If one is way off then use the current air temp to figure which one is telling the truth and replace the liar! It sounds like a lean misfire to me from what I understand. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
AFV was 93% and temperature sensor read appropriately. I think that it just may be a software issue. On a hunch I loaded an entirely different ECM map. It's not tuned for the SuperTrapp muffler, but I figured that it would work well enough. Two trips with the different map and the problem is not there. I'm going to keep up with it for a while to see if the issue is something that is being learned, but I'm hopeful. | ||
| Tootal |
Sounds like you might have found it. If I remember correctly a constant speed above 3000 rpm is where it learns. Good thinking, I hope it works for you! | ||
| Mark_weiss |
I am going to log a ride (when I remember to do so) so that I can take a look at the O2 sensor output. Just to see if it has the usual contnuous wave of if the signal has flat spots. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
I logged the ride home yesterday. When I viewed the graphs I noticed that the O2 trace show periodic, brief, flat spots. Fortunately I had saved a log file from about two and a half years ago, with the original O2 sensor, and found that the graphs appear to be pretty much the same. | ||
| Steveford |
And what did you do two and a half years ago, new 02 sensor? | ||
| Mark_weiss |
Two and a half years ago I picked up a Buelltooth transmitter and used it just to adjust warm-up idle and to see what else was going on. The current O2 sensor is around a year and a half old. I installed it when I had the engine rotated to replace rear rocker box gaskets. The misfires, or whatever they are, manifested about a month ago. | ||
| Shoggin |
What was the adjustment you made on ECMDroid to get that warm up idle to change? I'm trying to do the same thing | ||
| Mark_weiss |
I could not change the idle directly with ECMDroid. I downloaded the ECM file, opened the file with TunerPro, took about three weeks to figure out which table to edit, then edited the appropriate XY table to the idle speeds that I wanted. Then, loaded the edited map back to ECMDroid and burned it to the ECU. It's a little less round about than it sounds. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
Over the past week or so there have been some developments. Starting about ten days ago the bike began to develop some slight roughness. Not the highly notable cuts as before, but just slight hiccups. Logging a few rides provided no clues other than noting that AFV was starting at around 95 but would drop to 92 or so during the ride. Over the past few days running worsened and on Sunday, while riding along at about 45 mph I had a complete power cut. No throttle response and when I squeezed the clutch lever rpm dropped to zero and the oil light winked on. I rolled onto a side street and had no difficulty restarting. The rest of the ride home was fine. On the way in to work yesterday I had another full cut while on the freeway. I cycled the engine cut-off switch and the engine re-lit. Poor running continued for the final two mile in to work. I fired up ECM Droid and found no Fault Codes but did note that AFV was down to 88.7. I set the AFV at 93 and turned off closed-loop running. No problems on the way home last night and back to work this morning. The fact that the ECU is desperately trying to lean things out tells me that I probably don't have an air leak and since the bike runs fine in open-loop I probably don't have a fuel pump wiring issue. My air filter is a K&N and the exhaust is a Buelltooth Super Trapp setup. The current ECU map is from IDS and is designed for stock exhaust and a K&N filter. If anything, the bike should be running lean and I would expect high AFV to try to compensate for the SuperTrapp. | ||
| Ourdee |
O2 sensor? | ||
| Firemanjim |
With several of the IDS ecus I noticed similar problems. I found that the cold start fuel table adding fuel like a choke was still adding quite a bit after the bike went into closed loop causing the bike to see a rich condition and pulling fuel. I had to change the settings here. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
The IDS map is one that I loaded last month. The problem originally started while riding with a Buelltooth map. Went bad on the map when in closed loop but OK if locked in open loop. Last month I loaded the IDS map and experienced no problems in closed loop until a week or so ago. I will try to find the cold start fuel table to check its settings. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
I keep coming back to the O2 sensor. I really wish that there was a relatively quick way to check. Looking at a ride log the sensor voltage does vary as expected, swinging regularly between about .2 and .8 volts. The track is not a nice regular sine wave, but more of a somewhat somewhat ragged saw tooth pattern. | ||
| Steveford |
I had problems with a Bosch O2 sensor so put in an NHT one and problem solved. Maybe that's it? | ||
| Mark_weiss |
What problems did the Bosch O2 sensor cause? I installed a Bosch sensor when I replaced the rocker box gaskets. |
