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5 gen grounding problem - will 1998/1999 wiring harness [and ECU] work on 2000/2001 VFR?


sfdownhill

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2 hours ago, ducnut said:

Stuff like this is why I completely stripped my harness, when I disassembled my 5th Gen. I saw some random burn marks, so I knew there’d been a previous charging system issue and just didn’t trust the harness. I have guarded peace of mind, now. 😁

 

Agreed. Thought I was out of the woods three years ago when I installed the 847 reg/rect with fat cables and filled up all the tubular wire connectors with solder. Wishful thinking on one of these old bikes.

 

Just learned that last week they installed a CA ECU for the dyno runs [And my track days - crap!]. They didn't want to use the 49 state ECU I provided because of how/where the wires on the original wire harness were melted - this is the second 49 state ECU that has become suspect. Puzzling but intriguing.

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Hi sfdownhill.

Glad you appear to have your bike all sorted.

Curiosity has got the better of me!

You stated a couple of times that in checking the fuse - "Tested across the FI/IGN/PUMP fuse - no voltage." Do you remember if the Fuse was Blown, Or, you measured No voltage at the Fuse and the fuse had Not blown? This has a huge difference to the fault condition/cause.

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Sorry to derail your post but with tease pictures like those you have to expect it. I currently have my 5th gen in a lot of pieces and am trying not to add anymore changes until it is operational. Your pictures of the single nut rear conversion are causing me torment, but I am trying to focus on the part that is relevant to what I am am doing at the moment. I was just scoping out if I have all the fittings I need to make the brake lines for a delink and Brembo rear caliper swap and have now spent the last half hour trying to feed a piece of -3 line through my swingarm after looking at your pictures. I assume you must have done it while you had the hub out to do the Ducati swap? At the front did you loop in front of the shock and enter through the casting hole on the left side? Pretty slick setup, nicely done.

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9 hours ago, Grum said:

Hi sfdownhill.

Glad you appear to have your bike all sorted.

Curiosity has got the better of me!

You stated a couple of times that in checking the fuse - "Tested across the FI/IGN/PUMP fuse - no voltage." Do you remember if the Fuse was Blown, Or, you measured No voltage at the Fuse and the fuse had Not blown? This has a huge difference to the fault condition/cause.


Good insight Grum - we had checked the 

fuse and it was fine, then tested for voltage across the fuse’s slots and found the fuse and its circuit were getting no voltage.

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41 minutes ago, sfdownhill said:


Good insight Grum - we had checked the 

fuse and it was fine, then tested for voltage across the fuse’s slots and found the fuse and its circuit were getting no voltage.

That can only mean you had a 12v supply issue to the sub Fuse B 20amp (Ignition - Fuel Pump - Fi), and that only leaves Main Fuse B 30amp and its Red/White wire from the battery to the Fuse Box. As previously mentioned Main Fuse B 30amp can suffer badly from poor connections, burnt and hi resistance wiring.

I don't get it, that should be a simple issue to solve and definitely not requiring a full harness replacement.

As long as your bike is fixed I guess that's the important thing!

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12 hours ago, Dangeruss said:

Sorry to derail your post but with tease pictures like those you have to expect it. I currently have my 5th gen in a lot of pieces and am trying not to add anymore changes until it is operational. Your pictures of the single nut rear conversion are causing me torment, but I am trying to focus on the part that is relevant to what I am am doing at the moment. I was just scoping out if I have all the fittings I need to make the brake lines for a delink and Brembo rear caliper swap and have now spent the last half hour trying to feed a piece of -3 line through my swingarm after looking at your pictures. I assume you must have done it while you had the hub out to do the Ducati swap? At the front did you loop in front of the shock and enter through the casting hole on the left side? Pretty slick setup, nicely done.


Hi Dangeruss - no worries about the derail, but I don’t have a lot of info for you at this time. Because of relocating to Las Vegas for a new job, this is the first time I just took a bike and a pile of parts to a mechanic and asked them to do the work. Thus I’m not certain how James went about getting the hose through the swingarm. I do know that he went with a hose that has detachable fittings so he wouldn’t have to make the holes any larger than necessary. I’ll check the routing of the rear brake hose tomorrow when I’m finally reunited with the 5 gen - haven’t ridden it in more than 3 years and am missing it badly!

 

If it helps your project, I have a bracket that a member here CNC’d to mount a 32mm or 34mm Brembo to the OEM rear brake caliper hanger. I didn’t need it because we installed a complete Duc eccentric, rotor, and brake hanger assembly. Couldn’t find photos I know I have of the part, but will get those photos for you if you’re interested.

 

Here’s one more teaser - this is how James put the K&N filter into the top of the airbox to make room for the double velocity stacks:8721E6D0-F2EE-42AA-A446-9D7D0158BDA8.thumb.jpeg.136268b3a1841a64fc6dd82b828820eb.jpeg

 

Learned last night that James had installed a CA ECU on my 5 gen (I had given him 3 ECUs to test against the electrical problem) because the places the original harness had melted wires made him suspicious of the 49 state ECU I had supplied with the 5 gen. So the dyno was skewed toward the dumbed down CA ECU and Rapid Bike autotune was working against the ECU limitations as well.
 

So HUGE SHOUT OUT to Duc2V4 for breaking into his work prep last night and pulling his 49 state ECU out for me to borrow and run at the track this weekend. Last night Duc2V4 was fully immersed in prepping for his out of town work project today, but still made time to help out a friend - amazing dude.

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11 hours ago, Dangeruss said:

Sorry to derail your post but with tease pictures like those you have to expect it. I currently have my 5th gen in a lot of pieces and am trying not to add anymore changes until it is operational. Your pictures of the single nut rear conversion are causing me torment, but I am trying to focus on the part that is relevant to what I am am doing at the moment. I was just scoping out if I have all the fittings I need to make the brake lines for a delink and Brembo rear caliper swap and have now spent the last half hour trying to feed a piece of -3 line through my swingarm after looking at your pictures. I assume you must have done it while you had the hub out to do the Ducati swap? At the front did you loop in front of the shock and enter through the casting hole on the left side? Pretty slick setup, nicely done.


Not to interject, but, here’s how I did mine. 
 

You’ll notice an OEM hose was used for mock-up purposes. However, the final piece was made by Core Moto and has their MX sheath over the line, plus I put a piece of silicone hose over that, where it comes through the hole I made. Also, Core Moto banjos swivel on their line 360°, so you can orient it however you need. Finally, where the line enters the front of the swingarm, I heated the MX sheathing with a heat gun, which keeps the line shaped how I need it to clear the shock. 

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3C28BB2C-C395-4E69-B1D0-190A454CC81A.jpeg

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3 hours ago, Grum said:

I don't get it, that should be a simple issue to solve and definitely not requiring a full harness replacement.

As long as your bike is fixed I guess that's the important thing!


Truer words were never said. Because James’s shop and the bike were in Orange County CA and I’m now in Las Vegas, there wasn’t an opportunity for me to participate in the hunt for the electrical problem. I trust James fully, so agreed when he said he preferred to replace the harness. He described melted wires at the rear near the ECU and behind the dash as well, so not being able to pin down the problem and having two separate areas with melted wires made replacing the harness  sound like a fairly solid approach. I added the VFRness subharness to the menu to bolster/reinforce the main fuse frailty.

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4 minutes ago, ducnut said:

You’ll notice an OEM hose was used for mock-up purposes. However, the final piece was made by Core Moto and has their MX sheath over the line, plus I put a piece of silicone hose over that, where it comes through the hole I made. Also, Core Moto banjos swivel on their line 360°, so you can orient it however you need. Finally, where the line enters the front of the swingarm, I heated the MX sheathing with a heat gun, which keeps the line shaped how I need it to clear the shock


Very nice work - thanks for the pics. And nice rubber on your rear wheel…looks mighty sticky.

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@sfdownhill I bet you can't wait to get that back, enjoy! Thanks for the bracket offer, I got one from the same person on here, it fits great. I like the airbox lid, that's another thing I'm trying not to look at yet, maybe next year. 

@ducnut Thanks for the pics, very clean. With the Brembo the line can come down straighter so I might not need too much elongation. I need to find out if it's okay to swap the banjo and bleeder on the P34, same thread and taper on the bottom, it just looks like the bleeder side has been 'kissed' with a cutter to make a small seat at the bottom.

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10 hours ago, Dangeruss said:

 

@ducnut Thanks for the pics, very clean. With the Brembo the line can come down straighter so I might not need too much elongation. I need to find out if it's okay to swap the banjo and bleeder on the P34, same thread and taper on the bottom, it just looks like the bleeder side has been 'kissed' with a cutter to make a small seat at the bottom.


There’s a horizontal brace that runs the length of the swingarm, creating upper and lower floors. You can’t get a brake line to be much more vertical, where it comes through the opening. Originally, I had my banjo pointed downward, so I could grab it with needle-nosed pliers and pull it through the opening. You’ll have a better understanding, once you get things apart. 
 

I don’t have the double stacks, so I just cut the top off my airbox like was done on air-cooled, 2V Ducatis. The intake roar is glorious, with plenty of breathing capability. 
 

 

FBEF01AC-21EC-4D2F-840C-5709B70316F9.jpeg

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Hey ducnut - thanks for the pic of your airbox, looks great.

 

Turns out that placing the entire K&N on top the airbox as in this photo doesn’t leave room to lower the tank. This is why Mohawk partly recessed the K&N. 3E29C988-26B3-46E2-8A2D-19BFE5461C14.thumb.jpeg.ba225f61b5ce3a9336fce3883ca71e4f.jpeg


Over this past weekend, we ran another airbox lid with a smaller aperture DNA filter that fit under the tank. To get the bigmouth large aperture K&N into operation, we will mod the K&N lid to lower the filter so the tank can close.

 

Back to the thread topic - HUGE thanks to everyone who answered and contributed here. Couldn’t have done it without you.

 

The new wiring harness and VFRness combo succeeded in solving the electrical problem: Scarlet (her name) is harmonized and working great. There was a brief hiccup at 10k rpm in 4th gear for the first couple sessions, but the My Tuning Bike autotune smoothed it out. So fun to be back on my favorite VFR!

 

Side note: Yamaha Champ school was on site w a demo fleet, so was able to take a 2022 R1 out for a session. Even on the most restrictive power delivery and most invasive TC/ABS settings, the R1 was far and away the finest motorcycle I’ve yet ridden (And I’ve owned a good albeit old bike or two: RC45, Duc 888, etc). The R1’s OEM Nissin brakes were phenomenal. QS/autoblipper were seamless. The R1 wasn’t as quickly responsive to steering input as my RSV4 and felt larger, but was still an amazing blast to ride.

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(Hey vfrcapn - yup, that’s the bodywork and frame sliders you sold me - good stuff)

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