| Author | Message | ||
     Andymnelson |
So I have some issues! My Uly decided to just stop in the middle of the freeway. I managed to coast (across 3 lanes!) to the shoulder. The check engine light was flashing slowly and steady. Would not restart. Cycled the kill switch, no start. Cycled the key and the check engine light was now solid, and she fired right back up. I have my suspicions of a couple of things: 1) I powder coated the tail section last year. I believe that I do not have the grounding locations and the tail-to-frame locations clean enough to provide great grounds. The bike had charging issues late in the season, then I parked it for winter. Now the charging issues are gone (magically....I hate that), but I have not cleaned up the grounds. I suspect some moving the bike around the garage made the grounds slightly better. 2) E.B.R. ecm. I sent my P&A race ecm to them over the winter to have it remapped. They new my setup: stock motor, breather reroute, K&N, Drummer SS. The bike has ran OK with the new ecm, but not really any better. The muffler valve was still on (when I got the bike to the shop, and restarted it next time, the valve was just opening and closing time after time, with the engine light flashing). I have since disabled the valve (as should have been done by E.B.R.), but the combo of the bike not running right, the valve being enabled and not having the high idle on warm up (as others have reported) makes me think that something went wrong with the flash. 3) This one might be related to #1 or #2. My fan does not work. This is the ONLY code in my ECM (even after the freeway drama)- it says fan shorted to ground or non-functioning. Fan worked fine last year (post powder coating, pre E.B.R. ecm), did not work this year at first fire up (I ran all diagnostics when doing the TPS reset when I installed the ecm). I have not doen anything with the fan yet, as it has been in the 50s, I ride a short ride to work, and I feel as though I need to address the grounding issue first. My plan of attack: 1) clean up all grounds 2) pull and test fan (if needed) 3) email E.B.R. about the ecm issues (if needed) What are your thoughts? Am I missing something? Something seems WAY off, and I have a feeling that cleaning the grounds won't get me too far, especially since my bike is charging great now, and I have no other electrical issues. She holds a steady 13.7v on idle. | ||
| Ronmold |
What year Uly and when it died & no start do you mean no crank or crank but no fire? | ||
| Andymnelson |
06 correct. the starter cranked, but no fire at all. | ||
| Uly_dude |
you do have some crap going on there Andy. I would dig up that original ECM the bike must've had when you bought it, assuming everything ran fine with it in, and see what results you get. If you don't have one, maybe someone out here does that can borrow it to you. Try to get back to square one. The grounding thing is another cheap n easy fix obviously. I'll bet your fan is just fine. | ||
| Chrisrogers3 |
To me it does not sound like a grounding issue. Have you had your BAS recall done? I had the EXACT same issue with my fan after I tore apart my bike for powdercoating. BUT when it did that, my check engine light stayed on (never flashed, and didnt go out until I replaced the fan)...... Im thinking I must have damaged the wires internally upon removal of the fan when I pulled it. So I dont know if the fan issue is the culprit. I guess personally I would point more towards the BAS (which could also be why there are no codes present). I also had one Buell that I ended up replacing the wiring harness on because it had a short in the harness near the fuse box (it was the ignition wire). Start it up and wiggle some wires and tap your BAS with your finger and see what you get for results. | ||
| Andymnelson |
Ah yes I thought about that as well. I definitely need to address the grounding issues, then I thought about throwing in the stock ecm and seeing how the fan does. Great thinking. | ||
| Ronmold |
I believe tail section to frame grounds have not been addressed as well as they should have. We clean & lockwasher the wire grounds but paint & locktite can insulate the tailsection. The fan gets direct Ign. power & the ground is controlled by the ECM so a ground error could be caused by the ECM not getting a good ground (it has 2 of them). Your cut-out may have occurred when the fan attempted to come on but the poor ECM ground, enough to run the electronics & FI, could not supply enough current to run the fan also which would result in low-voltage to the ECM and very quiet motor! Can you run the ECMspy diags and get the fan to fire up that way? | ||
| Garrcano |
Flashing check engine light sound to me as rear cylinder overheating. | ||
| Andymnelson |
Chris- No BAS on my bike  it is turned off with ECM Spy Ron- I think you are thinking along the right lines. Your explanation makes a lot of sense, and confirms that I need to first address my ground concerns. ECM Spy diagnostics can not fire the fan. Garrcano- I really don't think so. It was only about 55 degrees out, and it quit while doing 65 mph. Plus, if it was overheating, isn't the fail mode skip spark?? And if it was overheated, it would not have fired right up after a key toggle. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Definitely some weird gremlins at work there. Just on general principals, I'd start with the frame grounds since they're highly suspicious given your powder coating project. Bad grounds have been known to cause some weird operating issues. Remove the lug at each grounding point, sand or file the frame boss until shiny, reinstall the lug using the screw and a star-type lockwasher and NO Locktite. See what happens after you do that. You should also make sure that the tail section has a good ground to the main frame if there's a chance those connections were insulated by the powder coating. You could add your own ground wire if necessary. (Message edited by Hughlysses on April 26, 2011) | ||
| Andymnelson |
Yes, I think that I need to address all of the grounds first. I had also considered adding an extra ground strap to it all. Thanks for the insight all, you have helped me to think clearly as I attack the problem! I'll post updates... | ||
| Teeps |
The fan can be tested using ECM Spy; no need to remove. | ||
| Andymnelson |
See above ^^ ECM Spy fan test fails, and the only code stored in the ECM is something like " fan shorted to ground or non-functioning" | ||
| Etennuly |
I totally agree with going over everything you have done or changed first. Why would you want to disable the BAS? In the event of a slow speed tip over that thing can save your bike from damaging itself. The fan can always be tested by unplugging it and jumping it from the battery. The cut out problem could be from the red wires leading up the steering neck that powers everything in the front including the ignition switch. There are two triple splices in the harness right where it has to flex for steering. It can break one of the wires off and still maintain intermittent contact within it's heat shrink. Check your battery terminals again, if you can turn them by hand at all by twisting the battery cables they probably aren't tight enough. I have also fixed the cam sensor wires where they crossed over the edge of the chin faring, it caused mysterious cut off every time it got wet. | ||
| Andymnelson |
the BAS is a long story....but it's not on the bike any longer. I will test the fan as you suggest if fixing the grounds does not solve my issues. I don't think the cut out would be from the wires in the neck... I did not lose gauges and stuff, and I don't think that would result in it not allowing the bike to restart until I cycled the key. Plus the steady flashing check engine light. It doesn't add up to those wires in my mind. battery terminals are good and tight and clean. no chin fairing | ||
| Etennuly |
The thing about the wires in the neck area is that they have a single main lead from the fuse box that splits into three wires right at the bend, one goes to ign sw, one to power gages, and I think the third is for the lighter power outlet. So they can be cause for separate issues. What I was thinking is how you said the light was flashing as in a bad connection, and then went back to solid after turning the key. Sounds like a bad ground or a broken wire, or even a bad ign switch. I have seen all three things happen over a few different '06 Ulys. Two of them on mine. I cannot find the picture right now, but when my red wire broke that powered the gages, the heat shrink with the wax in it held the wire to where it looked and even felt perfect. The SECOND time I opened up the harness, after another month of searching, I cut open the heat shrink to find the wire broken off and held in place to arc by the heat shrink. It could have just as easily been the ign wire or the outlet wire. Oh, if you do go in there, there is also a triple splice for the right turn signals in the same place. I extended the both of the single wires up to the fly screen area and made both triple splices where they were out of harm's way. This also took four wires out of the steering neck bundle that allows for it to flex, slide, and move about easier. | ||
| Ratbuell |
I'm going to ask a simple question - did you TELL Erik Buell Racing that you had no BAS, and that you had no muffler valve? I find it hard to believe that Michael missed any of that. I have one of their ECMs on my '06 and flat LOVE it. They programmed it for exactly what I told them I had - no more, no less. They can only program for what you tell them you have. | ||
| Andymnelson |
Yes on the valve, no on the BAS, as it was installed at that time. The lack of high idle and the fat that the valve was enabled, combined with the bike not running any better than before makes me think that something went awry during the flash. They were very busy heading to Daytona when they did the flash...heck they returned the ecm and I had to remind them to invoice me so I could pay for it after it got returned! I'll address my grounding and fan issues before going back to them. | ||
| Ratbuell |
There is no ECM idle speed control on a DDFI-2 engine. Only 08-up DDFI-3 engines can alter their own idle because they're the only ones with an AIS motor. We have to do it with the knob by the left side scoop. And when I got mine done, I want to say they left the valve enabled (I know its enabled because I run a stock muffler), but the DTC was disabled meaning if I unhooked it at any time, I wouldn't get a check engine light because of it. | ||
| Andymnelson |
Interesting. I had not heard of that difference (but it makes perfect logical sense!). I had just heard of a higher idle from everyone's bike with their ecm....I never paid attention to what year the bike are! I even posted in a couple of threads of my concerns and no one mentioned that. Thanks. Have the valve enabled is highly annoying (the cable is removed from my bike), as it cycles all the time, and the other day just kept cycling! Easy fix tho. I believe that they do the same thing with the BAS- it is enabled but they remove the DTC. | ||
| Andymnelson |
Update: As suspected, I believe that the tail grounds were my issue. Today I took the left side rail off, sanded down the ground points and the tail to frame ground points, made an extra ground strap to connect from the frame to the 2 tail ground points and buttoned her up. Seems to be great now! Thanks again for your help and insight, ride on! | ||
| Andymnelson |
I take that back! Same issue this morning. Turned the key to fire it up, and the check engine light is simply slowly flashing, and it won't fire. So I connect ECMSpy, and eventually it magically starts to work again. grrr. No DTCs. And my fan is still non-functional. I guess my next step will be to pull the fan and see if I can manually get it to run, and replace if it is actually bad. I will say that this all still seems like my ECM is fishy... | ||
| Froggy |
Fishy ECM indeed. Is the fuel pump making any noise when it is acting up? | ||
| Andymnelson |
no. When it acts up, it will do nothing other than flash the check engine light- no fuel pump priming. I can get it to turn over, but that's it. it never did anything like this before E.B.R. Flashed the ECM. duh, I forgot a troubleshooting step- I'll throw in my stock ECM and see how it does. Heck, my fan might even work then. That will tell me if I need to solicite help from E.B.R. on the ecm. | ||
| Uly_man |
I do not know if this is of any help. Andymnelson - "Cycled the kill switch, no start. Cycled the key and the check engine light was now solid, and she fired right back up." The check light should be either on or off. I have never heard of it flashing before. The ignition switch can cause problems. I have had it myself. Its Italian made and they do not do the best electrics. The ECM shows only basic fault stuff and is of no great help for anything else like earth faults etc. The re-map of the unit should be ok. Electronics do not do what you have unless its a dry joint on the board. The OEM ECM is quite rugged and not many fail. I have not had one apart but it is normal to encase them in resin to protect them from vibration damage. The I/O plugs and wires can be damaged though. The fan is not the first thing to fix. I do not think its the cause of your problem because the bike will still run without it. I would first make sure the ignition and kill switch contacts are clean and then the cowl earths are clean/tight. One tip is to put a wire on the battery earth and then touch, with the other end and ignition on, other parts of the bike. If you get a spark, it is very small, then it is an earth problem. You can not do any damage to the bike. It could still be other things, like the dash unit, but it is the sort of problem that needs a "hands on" to fix. It was two years to fix my problems and it was still luck at that. | ||
| Uly_man |
Ah. I would have thought you would have done that first. I have a full 06 Uly diagram if you need it. You may need to find the ECM feed. | ||
| Uly_man |
  Ear ya go. Better res by mail if you need it. (Message edited by uly_man on May 04, 2011) | ||
| Metaldude |
Do you still have your old ECM? Maybe you could swap them out for trouble shooting purposes? Also, I figured out how to mount the BAS on the top of the bracket (versus the bottom) so if you want to put your BAS back in, that route will work. | ||
| Andymnelson |
ruh roh. I installed my original ecm and the fan works now. I've got $$ that says all of my other issues will go away too. time to email Michael at E.B.R. And see what he has to say! | ||
| Zac4mac |
If everything does look good, put the other ECM back in and see if the problem returns. Check for bent pins with a good light. It could be just the connectors not mating completely or a wiring problem in the harness that is still making contact intermittently. Don't forget to wiggle-test the wiring, there's no way to swap the ECM without wiggling the wires and potentially fixing/causing problems. Crossing my fingers for you Andy - I hate chasing E-demons. Zack |
