2007 Altitude Surging Problem - Members Wanted

[ELP_JC]

For the time being, I'm still going to work hard with the dealer and Yamaha. Though I cannot continue to do this forever.

Great post buddy. And glad Yamaha is involved already. But darn, what a load of freaking bad luck.

What was the difference in temps when the Yammi tech rode the bike, and when you had the problems?

I'm REALLY interested because my riding season is in cool to cold weather (in the mountains). I'm going to head for the mountains any day now just to test my bike, but it's hot as hell, and I don't ride when this hot. The sad news is that even if my bike behaves this time, things might change when it gets cold, correct? Is that the consensus, that colder temperatures are the issue? But the next logical question is how about humidity? Without a baro sensor, that can play havoc as well, no? Geez. Guess we're not anywhere close to find the culprit. But great progress nonetheless. Keep the info coming.

JC

 

[tophog]

During a 3 day trip my bike acted up 15+ times when temps were below 60 and 15+ times when in the 90's. I never saw/recognized any correolation to temperature.

 

[Medium Al]

RE the 07 FJR1300 surge investigation at Adventure Motorsports last week:
Unfortunately, we were unable to reproduce any of the reported surge effects while working with the service manager at Adventure and the Yamaha service representative.

Here are the particulars (though I’m not sure any of it is value added):

TruWrecks left his bike with Adventure Tuesday through Friday I believe; I dropped mine off Tuesday and they still have it.

Both the Yamaha Rep and the service manager wanted to follow a disciplined approach of 1) reproduce the symptoms on a stock customer bike, 2) isolate the problem, 3) diagnose, and 4) correction. The Rep had a package of instruments and test parts shipped in for the investigation; I don’t know much about it, but it did contain and barometric sensor which could be added to the bike(s). The strategy was to reproduce the symptoms, then add the instruments/parts and take data. We never got that far.

Wednesday’s results I’ve already posted (#112).

Thursday, the service manager and the Yamaha service rep. took both bikes up to the summit of Stevens Pass in the morning, and, again, could not induce a failure. They called me at work and asked me to come in. I did.

According to them, TruWrecks had reported the surging to be worse with weight in the topcase. We loaded an estimated 60lbs of engine parts in his topcase, and headed for the summit, the Yamaha rep on TruWreck’s bike, and I on mine. All the way up, the Rep tried various throttle manipulations—abruptly rolling on power, gradually rolling on, rolling on hard in turns, abruptly cutting, etc—and I rode a little more aggressively than I usually do, thinking that a quick atmospheric pressure change would enhance our chances. After reaching the summit without inducing any symptoms, we stopped and discussed the issue. The Rep asked me to call the shots. All I could think of was to try it again from the east side (less construction), and so we did, again, with negative results. At the summit, he notified me that he was out of time and had to head back. He could see I was exasperated, and assured me that “this was certainly not the end of it,” and that “sooner or later they’d get their hands on bike while it was exhibiting symptoms.”

I don’t know that anything was done Friday.

Saturday, I borrowed my bike back and made several runs at the summit.

1st run : Monroe (55ft msl) to Stevens Pass summit (4061ft msl) at steady 60mph.

2nd run: decsend from summit to Deception Falls rest area (1800ft msl) and return to summit at steady 60mph

3rd run: same as 2nd.

4th run: same again.

5th run : descend from summit to Skykomish (900ft msl) turn bike off for 20min, return to summit at steady 60mph.

On both the 1st and the 5th runs, the bike reproduced the symptoms: 1) surging during ascent, and 2) inability to load engine below about 4000rpm at the summit. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th runs, the bike ran well with no symptoms. I took the following notes on the surging:

1st run:

60mph steady ascent, locked throttle, speed drops to 53mph, the surges back to 60mph

60mph steady ascent, “ “ , “ “ “ 55mph, “ “ “ “ 60mph

60mph steady ascent, “ “ , “ “ “ 42mph, “ “ “ “ 60mph

60mph steady ascent, “ “ , “ “ “ 48mph, “ “ “ “ 60mph

(many more entries, these are representative).

At summit:

(all of this is in first gear)

Engine will not accept load on level ground at 1500rpm; engage clutch, engine dies.

Engine “ “ “ “ “ “ “ 2000rpm; “ “ “ “

Engine “ “ “ “ “ “ “ 3000rpm; “ “ “ “

Rev to about 4500rpm, slowly engage clutch trying to enter traffic, engine bogs down, going about 15mph downhill, must go to shoulder to let traffic past, bike bogs and surges abruptly for about 300 yards, speed picks up to about 25mph, suddenly full power, go to 2nd gear, at 45mph bike bogs, surges to full power, after about 4 miles downhill bike seems normal again.

The summit temp on Thurs was in the mid 70s; Saturday it was upper 50s to low 60s. The previous Saturday when I’d reproduced the symptoms, summit temp as 43, conditions: raining.

Extraneous data:

They pulled 3 error codes from my bike, none from TruWrecks. Mine were 19, 30, and 31.

30 is a rolloever cutout, which I assume occurred on Pikes Peak (see previous post) when I as squirting up the mountain in the mud, trying to keep the bike speed low, while needing to keep the engine speed high. I laid the bike in the mud a couple of times to keep from going over the edge. Codes had not been reset since then.

31 is a marginal oxy sensor, I believe.

19 is a mystery. I was told the only way to trigger it was cut power the ecu, then turn on the key. I never did that.

To this point, we've put more than 800miles on my bike investigating this, I believe more than 300 on TruWrecks.

Current plan:

My bike is still with Adventure. Chris wants to wait for a cooler day, then try Stevens Pass again. He’s also mentioned the possibility of rigging up a video/audio recorder to record symptoms. If they can get that arranged, I'll wire-up and ride up to Sunrise(6400ft msl) on the east side of Rainier, and see if I can get them a load of AV.

My frame of mind:

Exasperated. I had convinced them that the symptoms were easier to reproduce than they turned out to be (I really thought they were). Rep seemed to believe there is a problem. Just how seriously they’re taking it I can’t say, but he stressed the need to repro it. One of the things that brought him to the dealership was that we had 2 bikes, and Yamaha thought there was a high probability of reproducing the symptoms. Seems to me, this should be approach from both ends: customer bikes and complaints, AND the R&D end. I've gotta believe if MammaYamma wanted, the development teams could go over the 06 to 07 changes with microscopes and come up with some testable leads.

Conclusions:

Maybe temp plays a bigger role than I’d assumed.

This may take a long, long time to resolve at the rate things are going.

For the time being, I'm still going to work hard with the dealer and Yamaha. Though I cannot continue to do this forever.

Forgive me if I am not understanding what is written here. Is it not the case that the only times you just started from an engine-off situation at lower altitude and ascended to the summit (runs 1 and last half of 5) was where you reproduced the problems? Runs 2, 3 and 4 sound as if you descended and re-ascended without switching off at the bottom. If that is the case clearly the problem is reproducible. Or am I missing something? My problems happen under similar circumstances and only then. Starting low and going high is it. Descending from high and going down and back to same high elevation without shutting off engine does not produce problems.

 

[ELP_JC]

During a 3 day trip my bike acted up 15+ times when temps were below 60 and 15+ times when in the 90's. I never saw/recognized any correolation to temperature.

Whew! Glad to hear that buddy; I want to know whether I have a severe problem or not NOW, not in winter. Will know as soon as the stupid rain stops in the mountain. Hopefully this week.

MediumAl, that was an interesting observation. And that leads to a question: if you're having the problem, and shut off the engine and restart, problem goes away?? If that's the case, we have a weird one in our hands gentlemen. Especially when not all bikes exhibit the problem. This definitely has my attention. Good evening gentlemen.

JC

 

[Medium Al]

During a 3 day trip my bike acted up 15+ times when temps were below 60 and 15+ times when in the 90's. I never saw/recognized any correolation to temperature.

Whew! Glad to hear that buddy; I want to know whether I have a severe problem or not NOW, not in winter. Will know as soon as the stupid rain stops in the mountain. Hopefully this week.

MediumAl, that was an interesting observation. And that leads to a question: if you're having the problem, and shut off the engine and restart, problem goes away?? If that's the case, we have a weird one in our hands gentlemen. Especially when not all bikes exhibit the problem. This definitely has my attention. Good evening gentlemen.

JC

Yes. Shutting off the engine and restarting fixes it. Until you ascend another 1500 ft or so. It is not temp dependent, it has happened to me anywhere from 42 degrees to 85 or so. Rain or shine.

As I have said before, this is not so weird a problem. If Yamaha dropped the baro sensor and the ECU is trying to just estimate the old baro input using MAP sensors (without starting from scratch and designing a true MAP-only based FI system), I can easily see how this would happen. MAP-only FI systems do not have this problem. A hacked baro-MAP system that tried to drop the baro sensor and patch it up in a hurry with software might.

For example it may only read baro pressure from the MAP sensors at start up. And then only use a predefined range of vacuum defined as that start-up ambient value minus max peak anticipated vacuum. Well when you go up in altitude, ambient P drops but peak vacuum will always be less than that by the same fixed amount as before. So if you you defined your range of digital bins based on ambient minus peak anticipated vacuum at start up, now ambient minus max peak anticipated vacuum is out of range. And the system would not be in range until you opened the throttle to some amount, got to that min P in range, and then you'd maybe get a huge surge since the throttle is now way more open. This may or may not throw an error flag. The behavior when shutting off and starting up again is consistent with this scenario. New estimate of ambient works until you go up another 1500 ft or so.

I am not saying this is what is going on, just easy to see how something similar could happen when dropping sensors out of an integrated system and using software to patch that up.

 

[Medium Al]

The more I think about this the more I am convinced the problem happens when the FI system cannot read engine MAP signals below a certain pressure. Either it maps them to zero or the value is just ignored as out of range. Opening the throttle more suddenly puts it in range and it surges. This could happen if the system digitizes a set allowable range of MAP sensor voltage values at start up based on ambient - max vacuum, but does not update them as elevation increases. Shutting off the engine resets this process and you're OK until you go up in altitude and drop below minimum allowable MAP voltage range again. If I were an emissions-concerned programmer, I would want to get the best digital resolution possible on my MAP voltage values, which would mean all the bits go to the narrowest voltage range possible, but if I forgot that ambient P varies a lot, thus MAP sensor voltage varies a lot, I'd see this kind of thing happen. And of course I'd commit sepuku.

 

[TruWrecks]

So far, here's my results:

Adventure had my FJR for 3 days. They could not reproduce the symptoms in ~300 miles. I picked my bike up on Friday.

I Rode out to Blewitt Pass (4109ft) on Saturday. Throttle lag became very present after ascending Stevens Pass (~4000ft), descending to Leavenworth (1180ft), then ascending Blewitt Pass. When I reached ~3000ft, at 60MPH, my FJR started slowing down with constant throttle. I increased throttle by ~10% with no response. I continued to increase throttle until the engine responded. I didn't get a response until I reached ~20% more throttle. The bike began accelerating toward 60MPH again. I rolled off and back on several times with the same delay. 308 miles for this day.

This Monday I rode up to Baker Lake (722ft), then to Mt Baker (5140ft) and the latency was again present. I shut the bike off at that elevation. The latency was no longer present. As I returned to Everett (158ft) the engine began to run pretty rough. The engine was running very lean. I shut the engine off for a fuel stop. When I restarted the engine it ran much smoother. Total for the day was 218 miles.

I have checked the TB's and all 4 are within 0.1in HG of each other. The idle is set to 1000 per the tachometer.

At this point I'm up to 826 miles of troubleshooting. If I don't hear anything from Yamaha soon I going to get a Wideband Commender and a WB 02 to do data logging, then send the results to Yamaha.

I know it's not a very good video from my earlier post (#143) but it does show the amount of throttle movement during an "event".

 

[PA1195]

So far, here's my results:

Adventure had my FJR for 3 days. They could not reproduce the symptoms in ~300 miles. I picked my bike up on Friday.

Please read this carefully...as I've suggested before, take a Yamaha rep on the same ride above on the pillion and let them call BS...let them drive if necessary for a segment...you 'll never really know what they actually observe(d) in their tests until someone does this...nor will we know what they are actually doing to reproduce the alleged problem that's being reported by several owners...if that's too much to ask of them in particular, then note their reluctance and use that to obtain another qualified Yamaha observer...push it...they can''t call BS if you can actually reproduce the problem with them onboard...if you can't reproduce the problem, then you'll have at least learned that it's inconsistant, or worse yet, your imagination (sorry, I had to say that)...which from the several posts here appears not to be the case from the owner's perspective on several bikes...have you suggested to Yamaha doing this, and if so, what was their response?

Gary in Fairbanks

 

[tophog]

.

 

[otubrab]

Forgive me if I am not understanding what is written here. Is it not the case that the only times you just started from an engine-off situation at lower altitude and ascended to the summit (runs 1 and last half of 5) was where you reproduced the problems? Runs 2, 3 and 4 sound as if you descended and re-ascended without switching off at the bottom. If that is the case clearly the problem is reproducible. Or am I missing something? My problems happen under similar circumstances and only then. Starting low and going high is it. Descending from high and going down and back to same high elevation without shutting off engine does not produce problems.

Medium Al:

Sorry I was unclear. Yes, you are correct that the symptoms presented on the 1st run when the bike was started at 55ft and ridden to 4061ft. They occurred again on the 5th run after the bike was shut off for 20 min at 900ft then ridden to the summit at 4061ft. You are correct they did not occur on the intervening runs between 1800ft and 4061ft. {{ this is an edit, after the initial post. Additional info: On my first descent from the summit (4061ft.) to the Deception Falls parking lot (1800ft), I did turn the ignition off, then immediately restarted the bike. On my second descent from the summit to DF parking lot, I kept the bike running.}}

… but this is NOT the only pattern. When I was climbing Pikes Peak, and the engine wouldn’t accept a load below 4000rpm or so, I stalled the engine many times. Sometimes after a kill, I shut the key off and rested. Other times, I just restarted the engine without turning the key off. In either case, when I resumed my squirting ascent, the engine still would not accept a load. Also, when experiencing the same behavior on Steven’s Pass, I’ve killed the engine, turned off the key, left the key on… didn’t seem to make any difference.

RE repro’ing:

I can usually reproduce the symptoms if I have a day. When I spoke of failing to do so, that was in the context of having the Yamaha Rep and the service manager present and observing.

RE the REP and service manager actually riding the bikes:

As I said, Thursday afternoon I rode my bike, and the Rep wrote TruWreck’s bike, putting over 150 miles on each bike that afternoon. This was an actual, in-the-flesh experience. After doing the experiments he wanted to do, he asked me to call the shots. Riding under my direction, we could not reproduce the symptoms on that day, even though I had experienced them many, many times on my own. We did runs identical to those that earlier, and later, produced symptoms, but which—only God knows why—did not produce symptoms that day with the critical people on hand.

Again, more than 800 miles were added to my odo while they had bike, and something like 300 to TruWrecks. Chris is spending his own time in trying to help us solve this, and I was present when he phoned some of his personal contacts to try to arrange video gear. Personally, I think they’re both, Chris and the Yamaha Rep, interested in solving this. This may be contrary to the brush-offs many of you experience, but I don’t think they’re faking it. Chris told me he wanted nothing more than to experience the failure. I believe him.

RE temp being a pertinent variable:

I shouldn’t have suggested that. I only did so because on the two Saturdays that bracketed the Adventure evaluation, the temps were lower. Symptoms were repo’d on both of those Saturdays, they were not during the week. I’ve experienced the problem in temps from 30’s to the 70’s.

 

[TruWrecks]

I got a message from Adventure that Yamaha is currently testing an FJR in California. Sounds like they are stepping up to the plate. I'm still up for taking them on a long ride up Mt. Baker. Reproducing the issue there is not a problem, nor is it intermittent.

 

[otubrab]

TruWrecks,

I'm under the weather and behind at work. I can't make today or tomorrow. Maybe next week.

What's the approximate travel time, say from north Seattle or Monroe, to as high as you can go on Baker? It looks like at least 4 hours?

I'm contemplating a run up to Sunrise on Rainier. But I want to capture some data, or some video.

Too bad there's no convenient way to tap directly into the ecu and log the injection map values as they're being used.

 

[otubrab]

I just got a call from Adventure.

What they conveyed to me was that a Yamaha District Sales Rep in California owns a 07 FJR1300A that has been exhibiting the behavior we've been discussing. He (the bike owner) is currently working with a Yamaha Regional Service Rep to reproduce and isolate the cause. The sales Rep, a Yamaha employee, has personally experienced the problem. They intend to focus on that bike until they find the problem and the fix.

According to the Yamaha Rep, they've taken this issue seriously since first series of complaints. There have been logistical problems in getting an offending bike and the necessary expertise together in the appropriate conditions to test.

My personal interaction with the Yamaha service rep who rode with me convinced me that he, personally, 1) believed there was a problem, and 2) was committed to solving it. I never felt any kind of brush-off from my dealer, and my input was always conveyed to Yamaha. Of course, I've wondered at times just how far Yamaha would go in solving this. Now that I have a little more info, I think their response has been reasonable (though, I also feel that when we plunk down the $$ these bikes cost, the bikes ought not have problems like this). I'm saying this because there have been insinuations, mostly from the fringes of the thread, that dealers and Yam don't want to be bothered with this. All the evidence I can see indicates they think there is an issue, and they want to solve it. Just trying to be fair. We're disappointed with our FJRs so far. I see enough movement that I think they're trying to fix it.

 

[tophog]

.

 

[otubrab]

TopHog,

I hear ya. Everyone has to draw their own line.

I've got 37,000 miles on my 06 Stratoliner, riding it most of the time now, and it's running superbly (always has). Great cruiser.

Problem is, I need a bike for my weekend stabs out into the middle of the West--Wyoming, Colorado, southern Utah--from Seattle. The Strato only holds 4.5gal of fuel. When I take those kind of rides, even 4 or 5 extra fuel stops bite into the trip too much. When the FJR problems surfaced, I thought about replacing it with a ST1300 but too much on the down side: the stability issue, identified in UK when a couple of cops died on the bikes (front wheel can become unstable during maneuvering at high speed), the bike weighs a ton, can't modify your line on tight turn, ST1100 owners seem to think the ST1300 steps backward, etc. I also considered moving to R1200RT, don't have issues with the bike, but it represents a definite increment in investment, and service for me is not convenient. Considered R1200GS(A) with the same inconvenient service concerns. Considered a VStrom 1000, worried that it's not comfortable enough for 48 to 60 hour rides. Similarly with the KTM Adventures. I'm sure as hell not going to ride a Wing (if "riding" is even a description of what you do in those mammoth suckers--though I've heard they handle better than the ST1300s). Giving some consideration to Buell Ullyses, my unfamiliarity with them slows me down there. Thought about Multistrada and then Guzzi's, with each I have some concerns, reliability, service. It seemed to me there was no low-risk replacement for the FJR reconsidering requirements for comfort, range, performance, service, etc. Lot's of FJRs and R1200GSs in the 05 ironbutt rally.

If I can't get the FJR straightened out, I'll probably go to R1200RT or R1200GS. Don't know yet.

You've mentioned your R1200RT has handled your ridding better then the FJR. Have any issues? Power? The range?

Whatever happens, thanks for starting this thread.

 

[BentAero]

Well, you can finally add my '07A (6,900 miles) to the official list of "surgers". After a lunch stop at about 2,000' elv., we 'quickly' (OK, we were hammerin' it) started climbing up NC-215 to cross over the BRP. At about the 4,800' mark, we had to quickly slow up as we came onto a slow moving "V-twin" and wet pavement at the same time, as a storm had just come thru. We had to crawl the last mile or so to the top and I was holding steady throttle between 2,500 and 3,000 rpm when the dreaded surge started. It was buckin' and coughin' like it was running out of gas. A quick downshift to increase rpm's brought it out of the surge. When I purposely upshifted to 3rd, the surge came right back.

After turning the engine off at the top, it ran fine after that, and has since on several ascents and desents in the same area.

:sadsmiley02:

 

[K-2]

Add my 2006A (early 2006) to the list of surging bikes. 9500 miles, dealer serviced at 8000 miles, no modifications other than +7 on the jump-mod thing I learned here. Riding Deal's Gap, Charahula, Blue Ridge Parkway this week and the engine was surging every time I descended more than 1000 feet. Did fine while climbing. It was while descending that it got bad, a downshift to raise the RPMs above 4k usually (but not perfectly) corrected it. I never had to stop and restart.

I live in Indiana and have not mentioned it to my dealer yet.

 

[Medium Al]

TopHog, I hear ya. Everyone has to draw their own line.

I've got 37,000 miles on my 06 Stratoliner, riding it most of the time now, and it's running superbly (always has). Great cruiser.

Problem is, I need a bike for my weekend stabs out into the middle of the West--Wyoming, Colorado, southern Utah--from Seattle. The Strato only holds 4.5gal of fuel. When I take those kind of rides, even 4 or 5 extra fuel stops bite into the trip too much. When the FJR problems surfaced, I thought about replacing it with a ST1300 but too much on the down side: the stability issue, identified in UK when a couple of cops died on the bikes (front wheel can become unstable during maneuvering at high speed), the bike weighs a ton, can't modify your line on tight turn, ST1100 owners seem to think the ST1300 steps backward, etc. I also considered moving to R1200RT, don't have issues with the bike, but it represents a definite increment in investment, and service for me is not convenient. Considered R1200GS(A) with the same inconvenient service concerns. Considered a VStrom 1000, worried that it's not comfortable enough for 48 to 60 hour rides. Similarly with the KTM Adventures. I'm sure as hell not going to ride a Wing (if "riding" is even a description of what you do in those mammoth suckers--though I've heard they handle better than the ST1300s). Giving some consideration to Buell Ullyses, my unfamiliarity with them slows me down there. Thought about Multistrada and then Guzzi's, with each I have some concerns, reliability, service. It seemed to me there was no low-risk replacement for the FJR reconsidering requirements for comfort, range, performance, service, etc. Lot's of FJRs and R1200GSs in the 05 ironbutt rally.

If I can't get the FJR straightened out, I'll probably go to R1200RT or R1200GS. Don't know yet.

You've mentioned your R1200RT has handled your ridding better then the FJR. Have any issues? Power? The range?

Whatever happens, thanks for starting this thread.

I bought the FJR after getting tired of waiting for the new Kawasaki Concours. Plus I thought I'd go with something that had all the bugs worked out of it (HA!) instead of a brand new bike. Well I just saw the first ad for the Concours in the new Cycleworld that showed up today. Went to Kawasaki's website and damn if they are listing fully loaded for under 14. Under 13 w/o ABS. So check it out, should be available soon. I have ridden the ZX14, holy cow what a motor. Same thing goes into the Concours.

Anyway, Yamaha has about a month or two to fix this problem. Soon as the Concours hits showrooms I'll test ride it and who knows maybe the FJR is gone. The PCIII helps a lot but this is a $14K bike fer cryin' out loud.

Love my Roadliner but Yamaha is really screwing up FI systems on all their bikes. Major complaints about the R1's system, my Roadliner was awful (til the PCIII cleaned it up very nicely), the FJR and of course on the FZ1 which was panned totally.

 

[Mick]

The more I think about this the more I am convinced the problem happens when the FI system cannot read engine MAP signals below a certain pressure. Either it maps them to zero or the value is just ignored as out of range. Opening the throttle more suddenly puts it in range and it surges. This could happen if the system digitizes a set allowable range of MAP sensor voltage values at start up based on ambient - max vacuum, but does not update them as elevation increases. Shutting off the engine resets this process and you're OK until you go up in altitude and drop below minimum allowable MAP voltage range again. If I were an emissions-concerned programmer, I would want to get the best digital resolution possible on my MAP voltage values, which would mean all the bits go to the narrowest voltage range possible, but if I forgot that ambient P varies a lot, thus MAP sensor voltage varies a lot, I'd see this kind of thing happen. And of course I'd commit sepuku.

Al,

I think you are pretty close to getting it right. One of my riding buddies has both an '07 FJR and an '06 FZ1.

We have finally 'fixed' his FZ1 (Ivan's FCE, PCIII, Timing module, Acropovic full exhaust system) but his FJR is

now acting up a LOT. Today it was worse than it's ever been. He was 3 minutes from the dealer when it got

REALLY bad. He finally had to do the ignition OFF/ON reset to get it to pull at all. It ran perfectly the rest of

the day. This was in pretty high temps (88-103'ish) and elevation changes from 2,500' to 5,000' and back to

3,000' or so. In the past couple of months we have done about 1,600 miles together with LOTS more elevation

changes and it only 'burped' once. The dealer has replaced the TPS once for this problem. The most recent

suggestion he had from the service manager was to "Adjust the Valves". This suggestion came from the

Yamaha Tech Support folks and was passed through the service manager. Not very credible in my opinion.

I think he is at 8,900 or so miles on his '07 and it replaced an '05 FJR which he had no problems with other

than the heat. Last 6 VIN numbers: 001834 AZ FJR1300A

There is one more thing that everyone is missing on the Atmospheric Pressure Sensor discussion. Not only

did they delete the Sensor up near the ECU but they also deleted the Pressure Regulator that used to be on the

end of the pressure sensing pipe above the throttle bodies. If you go to some of the parts Fiche and compare

the '05 with the '06 or '07 Intake 2 pages, you will see the regulator. I wonder if the quick variations in

Manifold pressure are confusing the ECU or maybe they are overflowing some register that they failed to

enlarge when they changed from reading actual Barometric Pressure to 'conjuring up' the value based on

Intake Air Temp and Manifold Absolute Pressure?

Parts Fiche from the Yamaha Site https://www.yamaha-motor.com/sport/parts/home.aspx

'07 Parts 5JW-82380-00-00 SENSOR, PRESSURE (Item #17) Here: https://tinyurl.com/2rgqs7 OR

https://parts.yamaha-motor.com/partimage.as...1&i=38371,2

'05 Parts 5JW-82380-00-00 .SENSOR, PRESSURE (Item #18) There are TWO of these sensors on the GenI

bikes. https://tinyurl.com/2pdhxh OR https://parts.yamaha-motor.com/partimage.as...1&i=84273,2

The other one (same P/N) is up near the ECU, (Item #30) Here: https://tinyurl.com/34gte8 OR

https://parts.yamaha-motor.com/partimage.as...1&i=84271,2

Here is the Pressure Regulator I mentioned above: 5JW-13906-00-00 .REGULATOR, PRESSURE (Item #19)

https://tinyurl.com/2pdhxh OR https://parts.yamaha-motor.com/partimage.as...1&i=84273,2

Without borrowing my buddy's service manual, I can't tell exactly where the old pressure regulator hose was attached

but it appears to go into the airbox. I'd love to get my hands on some parts and start experimenting. At first I would

just re-install the pressure regulator to see if it had an affect. I would probably need to install the older pressure sensing

pipe 5JW-13938-00-00 .PIPE (Item #8) and connect it as they did on the GenI bikes.

Another friend-of-a-friend claims to have fixed his altitude sickness by replacing the pressure sensor. He and

I were kicking ideas around a couple of months ago to cure his '07 of this problem. I suggested monitoring the

pressure sensor output with a good digital meter and then putting a vernier potentiometer in series with that

sensor to adjust it. He didn't want to mess with the pot so he replaced the sensor.

Just some random thoughts on the problem.

Mick

 

[Medium Al]

The more I think about this the more I am convinced the problem happens when the FI system cannot read engine MAP signals below a certain pressure. Either it maps them to zero or the value is just ignored as out of range. Opening the throttle more suddenly puts it in range and it surges. This could happen if the system digitizes a set allowable range of MAP sensor voltage values at start up based on ambient - max vacuum, but does not update them as elevation increases. Shutting off the engine resets this process and you're OK until you go up in altitude and drop below minimum allowable MAP voltage range again. If I were an emissions-concerned programmer, I would want to get the best digital resolution possible on my MAP voltage values, which would mean all the bits go to the narrowest voltage range possible, but if I forgot that ambient P varies a lot, thus MAP sensor voltage varies a lot, I'd see this kind of thing happen. And of course I'd commit sepuku.

Al,

I think you are pretty close to getting it right. One of my riding buddies has both an '07 FJR and an '06 FZ1.

We have finally 'fixed' his FZ1 (Ivan's FCE, PCIII, Timing module, Acropovic full exhaust system) but his FJR is

now acting up a LOT. Today it was worse than it's ever been. He was 3 minutes from the dealer when it got

REALLY bad. He finally had to do the ignition OFF/ON reset to get it to pull at all. It ran perfectly the rest of

the day. This was in pretty high temps (88-103'ish) and elevation changes from 2,500' to 5,000' and back to

3,000' or so. In the past couple of months we have done about 1,600 miles together with LOTS more elevation

changes and it only 'burped' once. The dealer has replaced the TPS once for this problem. The most recent

suggestion he had from the service manager was to "Adjust the Valves". This suggestion came from the

Yamaha Tech Support folks and was passed through the service manager. Not very credible in my opinion.

I think he is at 8,900 or so miles on his '07 and it replaced an '05 FJR which he had no problems with other

than the heat. Last 6 VIN numbers: 001834 AZ FJR1300A

There is one more thing that everyone is missing on the Atmospheric Pressure Sensor discussion. Not only

did they delete the Sensor up near the ECU but they also deleted the Pressure Regulator that used to be on the

end of the pressure sensing pipe above the throttle bodies. If you go to some of the parts Fiche and compare

the '05 with the '06 or '07 Intake 2 pages, you will see the regulator. I wonder if the quick variations in

Manifold pressure are confusing the ECU or maybe they are overflowing some register that they failed to

enlarge when they changed from reading actual Barometric Pressure to 'conjuring up' the value based on

Intake Air Temp and Manifold Absolute Pressure?

Parts Fiche from the Yamaha Site https://www.yamaha-motor.com/sport/parts/home.aspx

'07 Parts 5JW-82380-00-00 SENSOR, PRESSURE (Item #17) Here: https://tinyurl.com/2rgqs7 OR

https://parts.yamaha-motor.com/partimage.as...1&i=38371,2

'05 Parts 5JW-82380-00-00 .SENSOR, PRESSURE (Item #18) There are TWO of these sensors on the GenI

bikes. https://tinyurl.com/2pdhxh OR https://parts.yamaha-motor.com/partimage.as...1&i=84273,2

The other one (same P/N) is up near the ECU, (Item #30) Here: https://tinyurl.com/34gte8 OR

https://parts.yamaha-motor.com/partimage.as...1&i=84271,2

Here is the Pressure Regulator I mentioned above: 5JW-13906-00-00 .REGULATOR, PRESSURE (Item #19)

https://tinyurl.com/2pdhxh OR https://parts.yamaha-motor.com/partimage.as...1&i=84273,2

Without borrowing my buddy's service manual, I can't tell exactly where the old pressure regulator hose was attached

but it appears to go into the airbox. I'd love to get my hands on some parts and start experimenting. At first I would

just re-install the pressure regulator to see if it had an affect. I would probably need to install the older pressure sensing

pipe 5JW-13938-00-00 .PIPE (Item #8) and connect it as they did on the GenI bikes.

Another friend-of-a-friend claims to have fixed his altitude sickness by replacing the pressure sensor. He and

I were kicking ideas around a couple of months ago to cure his '07 of this problem. I suggested monitoring the

pressure sensor output with a good digital meter and then putting a vernier potentiometer in series with that

sensor to adjust it. He didn't want to mess with the pot so he replaced the sensor.

Just some random thoughts on the problem.

Mick

Hi Mick,

Very interesting that they dropped quite a few things in GenII bikes: the atmospheric sensor (doh!), one MAP pressure sensor (doh!!), and the regulator (doh!!!). I wonder if they got some redundancy or averaging using two MAP sensors that they are missing now, in addition to missing the atmospheric P. Sure would like to know why those decisions were made. Especially while trying to meet more stringent emissions with the new system. You need more sensors not less.

Good idea regarding the regulator. I wonder whether it was just for damping out P variations or something else? I would want to know that before just sticking it into the system on a Gen II bike. Did your buddy who claimed he fixed his 07 issues by replacing the P sensor replace it with a Gen I sensor or Gen II?

Thanks for the input. I am still betting on some software screw ups directly causing the problem (out of range or register overuns as you say) but your new info makes me think there's more to fixing them than just better software. The fix would problably be to reinstall the missing sensors but I bet that can't be done without a new ECU and new software. And new emissions cert (i.e.; will never happen). As I said in an earlier post, Yamaha has really messed up its FI systems on newer bikes. Wonder what is driving all that?

Al