| Author | Message | ||
     Echovictor |
Hey all, just got back from an awesome two week, 2200 mile cruise over the top of Lake Superior with my brother and his buddy. While on the trip, I had a few incidents that I'd like to get the BadWeb brain trust opinion on... After about 3 days/1000 miles in with no issues, we stopped for gas about an hour in on day 4. After running easy highway for about 25 miles, I felt a stumble/loss in power for around a half second. Engine kept running strong immediately after. The CEL came on for about 2 seconds, then went out. This "hiccup" happened 5 times, around every 10~25 miles or so. No change in throttle position (coast or WOT), and no noticeable change in load (uphill or down) or vibration (hit a pothole, etc.) correlated. Weather was a nice dry mid-70's. We stopped for gas again, and I looked around the motor for anything obviously loose. I even pulled the airbox cover, and found there was a bit of moisture inside the ring of the air filter. I dried this off with a paper towel, including what I think is the mass air flow sensor. Bike ran fine with no issues the rest of the day, so I thought I might have caught it. But over the next three days (800 miles), I would get one or two of these "hiccups" each day. Stumble, CEL, and then run fine. Only things I can think of are interruption to fuel or spark. At first, I thought the 5-hiccup day was just a bad batch of gas. But I burned through many tanks over the trip and still had some hiccups throughout the rest of the trip, so that's not it. Even so, maybe at 17 years old she needs a new fuel filter? Other idea is spark. Like there's a short somewhere that pisses it off just a bit. However, I would have expected that to get worse with the miles (or heat, or vibration), not a bit better. Any thoughts from you experts out there? Thanks, EV | ||
| Ratbuell |
I had similar symptoms on my '06 when the intake air temp sensor was acting up (that's the sensor inside the airbox, between the two breather hoses). Swapped it out, verified clean terminals...no issues since. Also check plugs and wires, as noted above. Just this season, my front plug failed - the ceramic physically broke free from the threaded body, and was able to move freely up and down, effectively changing the gap from 0.000" to about 0.250". No bueno! Installed a new plug and she runs (again) like a champ. | ||
| Mark_weiss |
Try swapping the key switch relay with one of the others. Preferably the accessory relay because the bike will run fine with a faulty relay in the accessory location. | ||
| Pushr0d |
Check the terminal blocks on the ECU. Supposedly the seat can press down on them and crack them - That may lead to intermittent electrical issues. | ||
| Tootal |
Mine did this in the past. First time was a worn front plug cable was shorting to the frame. The next time it was the ignition switch connection inside the electrical side of the switch assembly. The electrical side is a plastic female rectangle driven by a metal male boss. The plastic wears to the point that the metal boss can't get it all the way into position and the springs inside the contacts get weaker and won't hold it in position. If this is the problem it will get worse over time to the point it will fail and you have to turn the key off and back on real hard to get it to connect. To get home I wrapped the male part with electrical tape to make up some of the slop but 4 hours later it started again as the tape was coming out but it got me home. I found the electrical side for sale on ebay and no problems since. | ||
| Pushr0d |
And, since no one has said it here yet - Check Your Grounds! Especially #4, on the front of the steering tube. The terminals may be tight, but the wires tend to break at the eye crimp. | ||
| Uly_dude |
Were you watching the ethanol levels at the various gas pumps you filled up at? I once bought a tank of gas with 15% ethanol and it ran like crap. I'm not familiar with Canadian gasoline. Just an idea. | ||
| Firemanjim |
Take a look with ECM-Spy, may have the old error codes stored--- | ||
| Teeps |
here are a couple of links on the subject https://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/14 2838/809483.html?1500137318 https://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/14 2838/726411.html?1334338510 | ||
| Heavy18 |
As others who are smarter than I have already said: Start with the grounds, its free and only takes 15 min to remove them all, polish with steel wool and replace. Second, play with the ignition/key switch with the bike running to see if you can recreate the stutter. Mine is currently failing, I bought a replacement for cheap but haven't taken the time to put it in. But it is a cheap, easy fix. Third, you can CAREFULLY cut open your ECM and inspect the solder joints for cracks without ruining it. Mine had cracks but some were only visible with a good magnifying glass. I had relocated the ECM but still when it heated up it would crap out on me. Here is a pic of some of my cracks, only one of these was visible without a magnifying glass:  | ||
| Mark_weiss |
Where in the ECM did you find those cracked joints? | ||
| Tootal |
Well after installing a new ignition switch my problems went away until my brother rode the bike and told me it missed a few time on the way back home. I rode it recently with no problems and figured it must have been a fuel issue. The other day I rode it again and it ran perfect until I almost got home and it missed a few times, then it died but fired up again after a key cycle. As I turned into the neighborhood it died again but this time it would not start. I pulled the seat and moved the wires around on the ecm and it started and ran fine again. So I'm thinking that my brother, who weighs 40 more pounds than I do, was pushing the seat down against the ecm whereas I didn't start pushing on the ecm until the heat under the seat had built up enough to let it sink further against the ecm. Since I have the tall 2010 seat I didn't think it was hitting so I'm going to try and make a factory like standoff to keep this from happening. At some point I may have to look at the board for cracked solder joints. | ||
| Fireboltwillie |
good to know. another reason for me to lose weight in 2024... | ||
| Tootal |
  | ||
| Motorbike |
Tootal, I would just relocate the ECM to a better location. I did that with my 08 XT and never have to worry about it anymore. Not hard to do either, no re-wiring or extending wires. There are several posts about this, including mine. Sorry I don't have time to look them up and post them right now, maybe later. Take care. | ||
| Motorbike |
Try this: https://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/14 2838/629631.html | ||
| Tootal |
Thanks Motorbike! I'll take a look at it in the next week or so. As was mentioned in the thread, just not having to deal with the front mounting screw will be a blessing. I even made a custom socket for it but it's still a pain! | ||
| Heavy18 |
Where in the ECM did you find those cracked joints? Sorry, just saw this, basically they are on the bottom, just next to the connectors. Here is a picture:  To get to them I used a cutoff wheel on a Dremel and I took several passes very slowly getting deeper each time. I could tell when I broke through the plastic because the resistance changed and the dust particles changed as I was getting to the potting material. Once you remove the plastic, take care in how you remove the potting material and what tool you use. I recommend a non-sharp plastic or wood tool - like a popsicle stick. I used a metal pic and scraped some of the protective (green) coating off of the circuit card. Here is a picture of the plastic removed and some of the potting material removed:  | ||
| Tootal |
Well I might be at this point. I removed the bolts holding the ecm and just let it lie below the mount so the seat could not touch it. I rode into work yesterday and it ran great until I got 4 blocks away and it started missing again. After work I got stuck in some traffic and it started even sooner and even died completely, backfired twice and then started again. So now I believe it's heat related. About 20 minutes into a ride it starts having issues. I do have another ecm. It's not the original race ecm but one bought later but I can't remember the companies name. I know I can't set the tps to zero with my version of ECMSPY. I was told to send in my old ecm and they could match the tps setting for me but I first need to see if I can find it and then remember the company I was talking to. Maybe one of you guys know who I'm talking about. | ||
| Sagehawk |
I remember a time when on a ride with the nbots out of Tomball, tx, in later afternoon we stopped for gas and drinks, smokes, etc. I was only one in any group that would pull my seat off to let area cool off. got some strange looks to say the least. using a cheap laser thermometer, I had found that ecm and battery would be on up to 150 degrees in their location under the seat. after this, I heat wrapped inside of tank and closed off seat area to heat transfer from engine. anyway, that's how its been and I haven't even installed bottom fairing due to having maximum airflow around anything that's hot. just me in a south Texas environment. yes,, I still hover around 215 pounds and for about town I have short seat on. if on a all day ride , I'll install the tall seat. I've modified both seat pans for room for ecm. rant done, I wish all well and keep whatever ya got running! | ||
| Tootal |
Hey Sagehawk! Good to hear from you. I did install the comfort kit and have not had any issues for many years. I hope I can get this figured out quickly since my Harley is down for a while the Buell is my only 2 wheeler. | ||
| Arry |
I believe the company that does ECM work is IDS, Inc / idspd.com | ||
| Tootal |
Thanks Arry! You saved me searching all over this forum! | ||
| Sagehawk |
Hey Tootal: in 2020 I sent my ecm to ids for refresh. They dropped price to 100 bucks and I went with that. Here at sea level bike runs great. I quit worrying bout tuning after that. It seems fat on fueling but it starts, idles well, runs well,, seems to run cooler, and the mpg hasn't gone down that much. No decel popping tho and I do like that. Still running drummer and a uni foam airfilter and still have breather mod keeping intake oil free. Just got fresh rear tire , belt on it so hope to start riding more this year. Beside home repairs, starting to look forward to getting road king up and going again. Has anyone used dark horse crank works for bottom end repair?that next on list bike wise. Take care all! | ||
| Tootal |
I'm starting to wonder if IDS is still in business. I've dropped them 2 emails with no response. I'm going to call the land line and see. As far as the Harley, Darkhorse built my bottom end. Crank was balanced, new crank pin, aligned to .0005" and welded. With that I was able to use gear drive cams with no noise. That's why I kept the bike after the crash. The damage was mostly cosmetic except for the air cleaner and throttle body. His bumper must have hit the air cleaner as it was demolished! I'm thinking my leg was just North of the bumper and was broke below the knee. Could have been much worse! Anyway, thumbs up for Darkhorse Crankworks! Great guys. Crusty had them do his Sportster engine and is real happy. Hope you can get more riding in this year! | ||
| Pushr0d |
Tootal, Tim at IDS has been very helpful lately. You might try to reach him direct - tim@idspd.com. | ||
| Tootal |
I called IDS yesterday and everything is fine. I have a feeling my 2 emails went into their spam file as my address triggers this occasionally. So I packed up my 2 ecm's and they are on their way. They'll set the tps on the IDS ecm using the parameters in my stock ecm. Looking forward to having 2 wheels again! | ||
| Tootal |
Well evidently I didn't have an IDS ecm after all. Tim called me and said that it wasn't their ecm and I have no idea where I got it from many moons ago. So for $65.00 he reprogrammed it and set my tps. I thought that was amazing and kudo's to him. So I installed the ecm and it runs better performance wise for sure. The engine seems to run cooler however at small throttle openings ie, cruising through the neighborhood, it seems to buck a little. I had tuned this out of the original ecm. It's not as bad as my totally stock ecm was but not as good as I had tuned it. It's tolerable but I'd still like to fix it. In the end it runs much longer than 20 minutes now, it's cooler and the performance is great! Thanks IDS! You went above and beyond! | ||
| Motorbike |
That kind of service is almost unheard of these days! Good for both of you! | ||
| Whisperstealth |
That's some kickass service! |
