Stutters - Bad Fuel or TPS?

[Goodman4]

I've been having occasional stutters on my 07 FJR. I had one or two a couple years ago and put some Seafoam in and it didn't happen again. Then it happened early this year after 30 mins of riding. Then nothing again for a couple months. We recently took a trip to the Ozarks in Missouri and 6 hours into the first day and it stuttered 5 or 6 times on the Interstate. Nothing for a couple hundred miles and then it did it a few more times. Then nothing again.

I got home and put Seafoam in again and have ridden to work a few times with no more stutters. I was reading here about TPS issues and was wondering if my symptoms match.

It has never failed to start, never died, and never completely stalled out more than a jerk. Never early into a ride. I think it's always been mostly open throttle.

What do you think?

 

[RossKean]

Any stored codes? (Specifically code 14)

Ambient temperatures hot or cold?

Was it damp or raining at the time?

Any electrical gremlins such as odd behavior of dash indicators, high beam light coming on, turn signal indicators, horn not working, no access to glove box etc? (spider symptoms)

Have you had the Gen II ignition switch recall done?

Have you checked the TPS via the Diag. function? Not always a good indicator because the environment of a cold bike in your garage is not the same as a hot bike with bumps and vibrations on the highway.

MIGHT be fuel but this isn't a common issue. Try a good dose of Yamaha Ring Free.

MIGHT be TPS but also not common for Gen II - more on Gen III+.

MIGHT be a bad connection at a spark plug or a bad coil.

MIGHT be connections at ECU

MIGHT be fuel pump or dirty fuel injector issues

MIGHT be a rodent nest in your air filter

Lots of possibilities. Check out the obvious stuff and if it happens more frequently or you begin to see a pattern, you will have to dive into it.

Good luck!

 

[BigOgre]

I've replaced the TPS on both my FJRs and would describe the '04's symptoms as a stutter also. Conditions had to be just right for it to appear although as it got worse the "stutter" became more noticeable. Once I learned how the TPS functioned and what could be happening to it - thank you to this Forum - I was able to reproduce the stutter during rides which then convinced me to go ahead and replace it. That did solve the problem.

On my '04 the conditions matched closely to what you described: hot engine, never at start-up or early in, and not dying but jerks or misses which became more pronounced. No diag codes in the garage either (I think). Key for me was being able to duplicate it once hot (good stretch at high revs type hot) in any gear at any speed but always within the same narrow RPM range.

You mentioned reading up on other threads so won't possibly repeat any here but I found Ionbeam's Anatomy thread to be very informative at that time in case you haven't seen it.

 

[raesewell]

The TPS stutter normally occurs where the throttle sits most of the time, on mine it was at about 2000 - 2500 revs, you can take it off and clean it with some contact cleaner.

Take a look here post #7

https://www.fjrforum.com/forum//index.php/topic/173145-adjusting-throttle-position-sensor/https://www.fjrforum.com/forum//index.php/topic/173145-adjusting-throttle-position-sensor/

It doesn't take long and could solve your problem, so, why not?

 

[Goodman4]

Thanks for all the links. I've read them but I can tell I'll have to read them again. I'm slow to post on this because I've got a lot of catching up to do. I had never seen an error code or put it in diagnostics mode before.

When I go into diagnostics, is it supposed to show anything before it lets you scroll through the codes? I don't think I've ever had an error code on the dash before and I've never had a check engine light. It just came up with 01 - 16 which is the correct throttle angle setting for closed.

EDIT! For those of you that read what I wrote Thursday and didn't know what to tell me because either my bike was different than everybody else's or I was crazy - the latter was correct. I deleted the inaccurate stuff for the purpose of helping other future inquiring riders, not to cover my stupidity. Good thing I took pics on my phone because when I went back through on my phone today they are different than I saw them Thursday. I know what I did now and I can blame my eyes. Whatever.

SOOO, Here are the error codes on 61: 12, 30 and 21. 62 shows a total of 3 errors since cleared.

If I'm reading the table right:

12 is No normal signals are received from the crankshaft position sensor. Is this a spider bite? I asked the shop to check that the recalls were done when I first got it. It's either that or ECU, right?

21 is Coolant temperature sensor: open or short circuit detected. Wire harness = spider again? Or ECU.

30 is Latch up detected. I dropped it twice at zero mph like everybody else on the planet it seems.

Also I didn't mention before but I checked and blew out the air filter when I first got home even though it looked really clean.

 

[Goodman4]

Follow up: I've been riding it to work a good bit but haven't had any real trips other than a couple 45 minute rides.I have only had one stutter incident since the original post. All the work trips were 15 mins and no stutter. The one incident was a long lunch I took to clear my head and was driving in 5th at about 3500 RPMs when it stuttered twice. They were about one second apart. It was a warm day and I had been riding about 30 minutes. After the stutter, I tried to recreate by riding the same stretch of road the same way again but I couldn't reproduce it. A 45 min ride Thursday saw no stutters.

I didn't get any feedback on the stored diag codes. How should I take them? I guess they could have been set a long time ago or recently. I have never had a diag code come up or any warning lights since I acquired it used 31,000 miles ago.