| Author | Message | ||
     Dms |
I've been having drivability issues with my 2001 S3 off & on since I got it, with hesitation at slight throttle openings, twitchy idle RPM and a ton of popping on deceleration. The general consensus on BadWeb pointed to an intake seal leak. I sprayed various flammable substances around the area with no apparent change in idle speed. After avoiding it as long as I could, I finally took off the air cleaner & throttle body and saw this sight in the front cylinder intake:  Removing the intake bolts to get to the seals was deeply frightening; they clearly hadn't moved since the bike was first assembled, and I broke a 1/4" wrench trying to get the damn things to loosen up. In the end, patience and a whole lot of penetrating oil prevailed. After replacing the intake seals the bike is now running a lot better. The AFV was at 127% when I tore it apart, and has now dropped down to a much more expected 85% at 5000ft. above sea level. There's still a bit of popping on decel and the hesitation at small throttle openings is still there, but it's minor enough to make me wonder if I've just become hypersensitive to it now. Gas mileage jumped from the low 40s up to 50 on my last ride. So far, I've replaced the ETS (weird temp jumps in ECMSpy), the TPS (ranged from 0% to 92%, wouldn't ever read 100%), the O2 sensor (old engine codes indicated a problem), the exhaust seals (evidence of a leak) and now the intake seals. Any other helpful hints before I start playing with data logging in ECMSpy? While I'm playing show & tell: a while back I had to take the S3 fairing and dash off while chasing an electrical problem, and decided the bike actually looked pretty sharp without the fairing sticking out over the front tire. So, my winter project was to put an X1 headlight, dash, flyscreen and handlebars on the bike:   I'm enjoying the new look quite a bit, and under 80mph the wind blast isn't all that different than with the S3 fairing. And, needless to say, all the stock parts are stored away safely if I decide to switch back! | ||
| Dammitquikgentry |
Nice scoot! | ||
| Someday |
Yes! Very pretty! | ||
| Dannybuell |
A clean machine, very subtle. | ||
| 46champ |
Very nice | ||
| Jayvee |
Yah, beauty ! | ||
| 14d |
Sweet looking ride, I really like the X1 headlight and windscreen setup on the S3. Lately I've been wishing I had a different tuber; the stock and/or select seat are murder on me and make rides longer than an hour rather painful. One of these days I'll have to invest in a custom seat, or maybe just get another buell.  | ||
| Littlebuggles |
Beautiful bike there Dave. How many disks are you running in your Supertrapp? Consider lengthening your wires on the intake air sensor and rotating the filter 180 degrees to get it further away from whatever radiant heat is coming off your engine. I see you've got a ceramic coat on the pipes, but you may still see some heat issues with the sensor down there, so close to the engine. Wish I could offer more advice for you since we are at similar altitudes. | ||
| Ducxl |
Woweeeee! Can't help but comment on such a beautiful machine! Great job on the repair.I'll look out for the symptoms. | ||
| Dms |
Thanks guys! The S3 has the first stock seat I haven't wanted to tear off and throw away in a long time. I put 1200 miles on it in two days last summer when I rode the bike home from Kentucky, and the seat performed very well. Buggles, I'm running 15 disks and a closed end cap. The bike had an S&S full system and a gutted airbox on it when I bought it, and my unscientific feeling is that I lost a bit of power and smoothness when I swapped them out for the Forcewinder and Supertrapp. However, the S&S was ludicrously loud and unpleasant to ride even with a full face helmet, and I'm pretty sure I'd have been met in the driveway by my neighbors with pitchforks and torches one Sunday morning if I hadn't replaced it. I'm hoping that with a little bit of fiddling in ECMSpy I can get to a nice compromise with smooth power and sound that won't get me a ticket. Thanks for the advice on the air temp sensor. It's definitely reading on the hot side when I'm not moving fast, and the ceramic coating only helps a little. I couldn't decide if I should relocate it to somewhere out of the radiant heat from the headers or if I should keep it in place; flipping the filter over seems like a good compromise for now. Here's one last pic from Sunday afternoon:  | ||
| Littlebuggles |
So, heat maybe causing a bit of a lean condition? I run 19 disks with a closed end-cap inside the pipe, if you don't have an end-cap the disks are a waste of time. Just some general advice, just in case, some folks have done some odd things with their Suppertrapps over the years. | ||
| Dms |
After another week's worth of commuting, the AFV's now hovering around 90% (+/- 5%) which is right in the range I expected. I've had to sit in traffic a couple of times in 80F+ temps and the bike is acting a lot more domesticated than it used to -- no more slipping the clutch at 10mph to keep from getting bucked off! The very slight hesitation at barely open throttle is still there, especially after the bike's been run for a while. I'm thinking about moving the IAT to somewhere on the front of the bike so it's away from the furnace by the air intake, but I'm concerned that having the sensor out of direct air flow will cause other problems. Time for some experimentation! |
