Altitude surging on 07 fix

[Bob Hughes]

So is the answer to ride like a squid until they get a ecm fix and let the throttle take care of it?

 

[pet07fjrA]

Just returned from a trip from upstate NY to Knoxville, TN along Blue Ridge Parkway. Developed severe surging going from 700 ft (James River) to 3900 ft (Apple Orchard) in 6-7 miles. Stopped at an overlook and turned engine off. Surging stopped. Did same thing every time I got into a climb at about 3200 ft. No more surging problems. A pain, but cured the surging.

 

[rangerray]

Stopped at an overlook and turned engine off. Surging stopped.

Now, that's good humor!!! Hey, you fixed it!!

 

[twistedcricket]

Does anyone know if this effects all 2007?

My '07 does not exhibit the surge. I live in the armpit of the midwest (roughly 1500') and have ridden hwy34 in Colorado through Rocky Mountain National Park. I have no engine mods, I run the lowest octance fuel I can find (87 at home, it was 85 in CO). So the short answer to your question is no.

If I'm reading the thread right, if I have been down-shifting through the twisties or up hills and cranking back on the throttle I could be avoiding this issue without realizing it. I can't say that I rode "with enthusiasm" through Colorado, but I tend to be in a lower gear (4th, mostly 3rd) when climbing and severe descents. I keep hearing that the FJR has more than enough low-end torque to pull out of anything, but I prefer to run the RPMs up a little bit. It's probably crazy of me and maybe I've been avoiding the issue by riding this way. Am I about to get dog-piled for that?

I have not done the Barbarian mod and I can't afford anything else right now

I have just reached 4,000 miles and have scheduled the first maintenance for my bike. I'm going to ask about the settings. I really hope this is resolved as well, and I'm going to guess that Yamaha will send out a notice to everyone; perhaps other riders like myself are driving in such a way that we aren't having this experience.

 

[greg97224]

Twistedcricket

It sounds like you have been doing just what you need to do to keep the problem at bay. I have been dealing with this since I bought my bike in March. If you are riding agressively, and keep your RPMs up, and shift often you can for the most part avoid the altitude sickness. It happens most often when you let your RPMs drop down to around 2k and roll on the throttle very gradually, IMHO.

We are hoping Yamaha comes up with a fix soon. Sounds like they are. It's a great bike, and I think worth waiting for a fix.

 

[quietguy]

So... I was twisting my way up '62, climbin', headin' towards Eureka Springs.. suddenly, I burped!

I immediately pulled to the side, shut 'er off and let it sit for about 5 minutes (nice view).

When I started back up again, I encountered some slight flatulence.. but decided to kick it up a notch.

Then I woke up...

:blink:

 

[RSOKI812]

TwistedcricketIt sounds like you have been doing just what you need to do to keep the problem at bay. I have been dealing with this since I bought my bike in March. If you are riding agressively, and keep your RPMs up, and shift often you can for the most part avoid the altitude sickness. It happens most often when you let your RPMs drop down to around 2k and roll on the throttle very gradually, IMHO.

We are hoping Yamaha comes up with a fix soon. Sounds like they are. It's a great bike, and I think worth waiting for a fix.

I wasn't able to keep the problem at bay. Nothing seemed to help when I experienced this. I didn't shut the bike off though, I had to cut the ride short. I don't think I'll go to the mountains until it's fixed but if I do I'll try it. It did go away going to a lower altitude though. -Rick

 

[twistedcricket]

TwistedcricketIt sounds like you have been doing just what you need to do to keep the problem at bay. I have been dealing with this since I bought my bike in March. If you are riding agressively, and keep your RPMs up, and shift often you can for the most part avoid the altitude sickness. It happens most often when you let your RPMs drop down to around 2k and roll on the throttle very gradually, IMHO.

We are hoping Yamaha comes up with a fix soon. Sounds like they are. It's a great bike, and I think worth waiting for a fix.

After a lot of reading I agree.

I wouldn't say I was riding aggressively, but I was probably keeping the RPMs above 2K while riding through CO. I don't recall exactly, but I was usually in 4th gear and down into 3rd on some steep uphills just to keep up with worldbound4now. He has a LOT more experience than I do on a bike so he was carving up the road really well. I was just happy he was forced to slow down because of cagers

However, while riding through Estes Park, CO, having to deal with cager-traffic and stop lights, through Carson City, CO and it's stoplights and lots of foot-traffic, I didn't have any issue. Nor when we stopped and turned around after realizing we made a wrong turn. There were a handful of times when my RPMs were below 2k and I rolled up slowly. The bike was shutdown for fuel, but not again until Frisco, CO.

Since I'm at a paltry 1500' above sea-level at home, I doubt I'll experience the issue until I head for mountains again.

I'm taking my bike in Sat Sept 15 to the dealer for the 4,000 mile service. It's a smaller dealership and I will be talking with everyone (service mgr, dealer owner) I can about this issue.

 

[painman]

The surge on mine usually starts around 2000ft. elevation and while going down hill. Kind of hard to ride agressive when leaned out going through the turns and using small amounts of throttle inputs. If you tried using more throttle input at these points you would be asphalt surfing. And all this while on my trusty 2006 FJR. Go figure, and yes it is the same surge as found on the 2007 when this happens...PM. <>< :angry:

 

[Sonny]

Been reading this thread for awhile and figured it's time to put my $.02 worth in. I have an 06 FJR1300A that I bought a year ago. I now have 14K miles on it and noticed the 'surge' at times. I live at 2700' and a nice ride for me is to the top of Kitt Peak at 7000' ... on the way down I will notice the engine 'wandering' .. as best as I can describe it. This fits into the 'surge' category as I have read it. I had this also happen decending Raton pass going from Colorado to NM on I-25 ... but once at the bottom of the pass the engine cleaned up and all was well again. I haven't done any mods to the engine but am thinking of trying the Barbarian mod as I can always set it back if I don't like it. Right now I'm kind of a mind that if it ain't broke don't try to fix it.

 

[quietguy]

Right now I'm kind of a mind that if it ain't broke don't try to fix it....

... My thinking is pretty much the same.. or don't fix it and make more issues adding to the problem.

 

[7xray]

What is the latest word on the Yamaha "fix"? I've got an 07 A with about 1,400 miles.

What are the characteristics of the surge? A couple of times I've had a "holy shit, what was that?" kind of incident where it felt like I just dropped the throttle for 1/2 second or so. Like a negative surge. Is that what people are getting? I haven't noticed any RPM variations or other shuddering behavior.

Cheers,

Fred

 

[codemonkey]

Fine...The error is in the ECU's programming, more specificly in when it samples the atmospheric pressure. I'll use nice round numbers to make this easier, but in 06 the ECU would sample the atmospheric pressure say after the throttle opening changes by 5%. The 2007 model samples the atmospheric pressure after say 15% change in throttle opening. So, say you are out riding and you change elevation, but never change the throttle opening by more than the predetermined difference then the bike may be fueling for a different elevation than you are actually riding at. viola, you have surging. If you are riding agressively then you tend to change throttle opening by larger amounts and the glitch is a non issue.

It's been a few weeks since this post - has anyone with surging definitely linked to altitude changes tried large throttle inputs after a big climb or descent? I wonder if it would even be enough to just pull in the clutch and whack the throttle every thousand feet of change.

I'm thinking about getting an '07 but I live at the foot of the Rockies. Even a quick Sunday morning jaunt will entail a few thousand feet of elevation change, so I'm most curious about a workaround until Yamaha comes out with something permanent.

 

[okmac]

Fine...The error is in the ECU's programming, more specificly in when it samples the atmospheric pressure. I'll use nice round numbers to make this easier, but in 06 the ECU would sample the atmospheric pressure say after the throttle opening changes by 5%. The 2007 model samples the atmospheric pressure after say 15% change in throttle opening. So, say you are out riding and you change elevation, but never change the throttle opening by more than the predetermined difference then the bike may be fueling for a different elevation than you are actually riding at. viola, you have surging. If you are riding agressively then you tend to change throttle opening by larger amounts and the glitch is a non issue.

It's been a few weeks since this post - has anyone with surging definitely linked to altitude changes tried large throttle inputs after a big climb or descent? I wonder if it would even be enough to just pull in the clutch and whack the throttle every thousand feet of change.

I'm thinking about getting an '07 but I live at the foot of the Rockies. Even a quick Sunday morning jaunt will entail a few thousand feet of elevation change, so I'm most curious about a workaround until Yamaha comes out with something permanent.

I ride an 07 and have ridden RMNP and other places, now I must say right up front that I stopped a couple of times for pictures which we all know resets the FI to that altitude. However I now and then open the throttle wide open for a short time amd have had no problems with surging. I would suggest the WOT before the surging not trying to cure it when it starts.

 

[Medium Al]

WOT will not cure the surging once it has started. You must stop and shut off the engine. WOT also does not make things 100% right even if done before surging. Still runs rough or not exactly right. I just did 900 miles in 2 days through southern/western colorado [boulder-Walensburg-Durango-Montrose-Crested Butte-Breckenridge-Boulder], playing with the WOT thing. Frankly even when I managed to pre-empt surging it still did not run smoothly. The whole FI system gets confused at changing altitude and does not run right. Exterme cases you get surging, non extreme you get mixture problems.

Basic issue is the FI system can't measure pressure accurately under conditions of rapidly changing altitude.

 

[HaulinAshe]

Go back and read my numerous posts concerning altitude sickness on the 07. In most cases, several applications of WOT HAS cured the sickness, but not every time.

Now having 22,000 on the 07 since Feb., and with 7,200 of that performed across the US and up into Canada, I have extensive personal experience with the 07 at varying altitudes and long rides of 500-700 miles per day. The altitude sickness is not more frequent at higher altitudes, but when it strikes it is worse.

Long runs with minimal to no throttle input are allowing the ECU to "go to sleep", thus ignoring the altitude change. Undoubtedly the ECU program only allows for X-amount of change to occur in X time period as most do. This prohibits things from going crazy when a connection is intermittent or some other freak of nature causes a momentary bad feedback signal.

Addition of a PC-III has helped, but certainly not cured the altitude sickness on my 07. The 05 did not suffer the condition at all.

IMO Yamaha has screwed up two things, the altitude compensation factor and the aforementioned "recalc on x throttle position change parameter".

The altitude compensation map becomes exponentially worse at above 5,000 feet. So those of us who reside east of the Mississippi will not experience the same severity typically endured by the western folks. If you take your 07 to Glacier National Park and hang around 10,000 feet, then follow some heavy traffic down to about 5,000 in a continuous 5th gear putt, you will find the bike will not pull away from a stop sign... AT ALL. The altitude sickness is so bad that the engine completely fails to accelerate and behaves as though the throttle bodies were never opened.

When I can get past doing work that pays the bills, I'm going to document my experiences and file a written complaint against my Yamaha warranty. That's all that will get them moving. The dealerships, especially those in the East, have no way to reproduce the problem.

My $.02 (again)

 

[Medium Al]

Go back and read my numerous posts concerning altitude sickness on the 07. In most cases, several applications of WOT HAS cured the sickness, but not every time.
Now having 22,000 on the 07 since Feb., and with 7,200 of that performed across the US and up into Canada, I have extensive personal experience with the 07 at varying altitudes and long rides of 500-700 miles per day. The altitude sickness is not more frequent at higher altitudes, but when it strikes it is worse.

Long runs with minimal to no throttle input are allowing the ECU to "go to sleep", thus ignoring the altitude change. Undoubtedly the ECU program only allows for X-amount of change to occur in X time period as most do. This prohibits things from going crazy when a connection is intermittent or some other freak of nature causes a momentary bad feedback signal.

Addition of a PC-III has helped, but certainly not cured the altitude sickness on my 07. The 05 did not suffer the condition at all.

IMO Yamaha has screwed up two things, the altitude compensation factor and the aforementioned "recalc on x throttle position change parameter".

The altitude compensation map becomes exponentially worse at above 5,000 feet. So those of us who reside east of the Mississippi will not experience the same severity typically endured by the western folks. If you take your 07 to Glacier National Park and hang around 10,000 feet, then follow some heavy traffic down to about 5,000 in a continuous 5th gear putt, you will find the bike will not pull away from a stop sign... AT ALL. The altitude sickness is so bad that the engine completely fails to accelerate and behaves as though the throttle bodies were never opened.

When I can get past doing work that pays the bills, I'm going to document my experiences and file a written complaint against my Yamaha warranty. That's all that will get them moving. The dealerships, especially those in the East, have no way to reproduce the problem.

My $.02 (again)

I am not sure I believe this whole "recalc on x throttle position" thing. And this is part of why I took this most recent road trip, all of which was above 5000 ft and most of it a lot higher. BTW I live at 5000 ft and do nearly all of my riding well above that. If it is really just the recalc thing, then every time the surging starts, it would be completely fixed upon application of 15% (or whatever) more throttle. Certainly applying WOT should clear the ECU and start over with a perfect shiny new baseline pressure measurement. Well guess what, that does not happen in my experience. Ever. Sometimes it improves the problem for a while, but not like stopping and shutting down the engine and restarting. The latter gives you another ~1500 ft of upward elevation change before the problem starts again. WOT gives you maybe another few hundred at most, sometimes none.

I have a PCIII on my bike as well and have posted numerous times regarding repeatable test loops and throttle behavior, in an attempt to debug this. There is a loop I run on which under light throttle I can reproduce the surging problem every time, at exactly the same point (approx 7000 ft asl). WOT at that point will not cure it or even mitigate it. Must shut it down. However when I apply WOT intermitently going up that loop, I do not get surging as bad, or at all if I really go nuts on it. In other words, varying degrees of severity of the surging. If it really was just the recalc thing I would not see this behavior.

So this 900 mile trip in part was to see if under extended conditions of rapidly changing altitude, and light to agressive throttle, any signs of other FI issues popped up. And they did. Now logically this makes sense. All I am trying to say is that if the FI system under certain conditions (low throttle and changing altitude) has major problems, then it stands to reason that this is not a "either it runs perfectly or it has major surging" issue. The system cannot read pressure under changing altitude. That is so all the time. It can read it a little bit better at WOT. That does not mean it reads it accurately, just well enough not to surge. At the previosuly documented circumstances, it goes into a near-total failure mode and my experience leads me to believe that an application of WOT at that point does little to nothing. Indicating the recalc throttle position is not the problem, or at least not the entire nor even the major portion of the problem.

The point is that there is a range or spectrum of symptoms here, and it is easy to see why. The FI system cannot measure pressure accurately while changing altitude. Period. At one end of that range is getting the mixture a little wrong (probably too rich), then progressively more wrong as the ECU gets more and more confused, until finally surging shows up, and in greater and greater severity, until finally total failure and you have to shut it down.

I hope Yamaha is not focusing solely on the recalc issue. If so we are doomed.

Al

 

[Mick]

The point is that there is a range or spectrum of symptoms here, and it is easy to see why. The FI system cannot measure pressure accurately while changing altitude. Period. At one end of that range is getting the mixture a little wrong (probably too rich), then progressively more wrong as the ECU gets more and more confused, until finally surging shows up, and in greater and greater severity, until finally total failure and you have to shut it down.
I hope Yamaha is not focusing solely on the recalc issue. If so we are doomed.

Al

Al,

Your comments are 100% right on!!

 

[rangerray]

Several weeks ago I reported to my dealer that my bike exhibited the high-altitude problem. At that time, I was just a little ticked because I didn't think the dealer was taking me seriously. I mean, he didn't even step out to take a look at the bike, check my odometer, or anything outside of scribbling a few notes while eating a sandwich. I finally got the motivation to call Cypress for myself to check and see if my dealer actually made the call. He did not. I think my dealer is a lame ass punk that isn't concerned about anything except the sale. He has lost my business; warranty work, future bikes, accessories, oil, filters, tires...everything. And I'll trash his name all over N. MS.

The folks at Cypress were fairly pleasant, though. The girl that answered the phone took my information and listened to my explanation of the symptoms, then transferrd me to a product specialist (?) who put me on hold after to listening to the same story I gave the first girl. He came back on a little while later and said that there had been no dealer contact concerning my bike with this problem and said that he wasn't seeing anything that indicated a problem with the FJR's. Then he put me on hold again. When he came back to the line he said that there was indeed an issue.

He gave me absolutely zero technical information, however, he said that Yamaha was aware of the problem and that an electronic notification would be transmitted to the dealers first and a letter to owners would follow. He advised that the time frame for this happening would probably be between 2 weeks and one month. I'm not holding my breath, but I do feel better knowing first-hand that Yamaha is going to take care of this sooner or later.

And, when my dealer calls I'm going to tell them what I think about the circus they are running under the disguise of a motorcycle dealership.

That would be:

Southaven Kawasaki-Yamaha (SKY Cycles) [L-O-S-E-R-S]

Southaven, MS

 

[LarsBo]

I had a similar experience with Joe at "Mission Motorsports" in Irvine, California. I explained my bike's symptoms and he

first said that he had never heard of any issues. When I mentioned that Yamaha was aware of it and that I just want to be in

line for the fix when it comes. He said that as far as he knew it was some kind of internet hoax that if there was a real

problem he would know about it etc. etc. ("if the problem is real?" what an insult to my intelligence)

I'm a Control Systems Engineer and have more than a vague idea of how things work and what constitutes a problem

that needs fixing.

Talking to Joe at Mission Motorsports, I felt like an airline pilot that is reluctant to report a UFO for he knows "they"

won't believe him. Yeah, I won't be giving my future business to Mission Motorsports in Irvine.