Meatball74 Posted April 23, 2023 Share Posted April 23, 2023 It turns over fine, lot's of volts, lots of charge or on a charger as I'm working away. It sounds like it wants to fire but just never does, thumpity thumpity thumpity... over and over again. But never actually starts. Doesn't seem to matter if I have the "choke" on or not. Throttle wide open or not... It started doing this last summer, I drained the tank and replaced the fuel, no improvement. Rather than lighting the whole thing on fire and letting it burn to the ground I let it sit for the winter. What I've done so-far - Previously - New fuel - no improvement New plugs - no improvement New Air filter - no improvement At the moment the tank is off and the fuel pump/fuel filter are out. Pumps are $550, Filters are $150. I'm considering rinsing the tank with good fuel and reassembling to see if anything improves. What else can I check? are there any mcguiver fuel filter replacements that won't give me butt-ache? What else can I check/clean? what is the likelihood that I could have a bad injector? clogged fuel rail? pump and pre/post filters are all intact - I don't feel like anything got past them and further into the fuel system. Any help would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Grum Posted April 23, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted April 23, 2023 Have you tried starting the bike with Sidestand Up and clutch pulled in? Assume you have no Fi flashing codes and you hear the Fuel Pump prime at every switch on? Have you confirmed that the plugs are sparking or not? For Ignition to be enabled the ECM MUST see the Neutral Ground signal OR the Sidestand Up Ground signal. No ground on Both inputs means No ignition. I can't confirm it, but the ECM might also shut off the injectors as well with no ground inputs. This could possibly explain your thoughts that fuel is not getting past the injectors. Don't go "setting it on fire and burning it to the ground"........just yet! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer DannoXYZ Posted April 23, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted April 23, 2023 uh, do you even have spark? Have you pulled fuel-hose off rail to see if petrol actually flows out of pump? Measured to see if pump even gets power? Starter system is on completely circuit than EFI system. You can remove entire EFI system and it would still crank just fine like it does now. There may be just one bad part in EFI system, or they can ALL be bad. Would result in exactly same endless-cranking symptoms with no starting. Need compression; fuel & spark. Let's assume we have #1. Need positive confirmation of other 2. Photos of spark jumping plugs, petrol streaming out of fuel-hose onto newspaper with today's date Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Dangeruss Posted April 23, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted April 23, 2023 43 minutes ago, DannoXYZ said: Photos of spark jumping plugs, petrol streaming out of fuel-hose onto newspaper with today's date Separate photos for these 2 events please 😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatball74 Posted April 23, 2023 Author Share Posted April 23, 2023 Thanks fellas, a few things to try now. 1) no FI codes blinking 2) the bike is on the centre stand with the Side stand up, in neutral. I don't distinctly recall a time with with the clutch pulled in, but the neutral light IS on. I will try with the clutch pulled in as well. 3) there is spark from what I can tell - it will give me a thump in time with each cylinder but won't "catch" - won't fire up, saying that, I guess it's not confirmed in each cylinder - I'll look into this. 4) I've pulled the lines and confirm the fuel rails are getting flow and I can hear the fuel pump working - it is getting power. Newspapers are scarce these days and I'm not pouring fuel on my iPad. It behaves as though it was an old distributor engine and the distributor is clocked wrong - where's the distributor on this thing? (yes, I know...) but that's what it's like - is there a crank and/or cam position sensor? not to distract from the confirmation of Spark which I'll finish confirming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer tsmitty Posted April 23, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted April 23, 2023 At the risk of sounding like a complete bumbass, if it spitting (firing) feel each of your exhaust down tubes. is #1 worm of cold...etc. It might help the other guys with their diagnosis's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatball74 Posted April 23, 2023 Author Share Posted April 23, 2023 29 minutes ago, tsmitty said: At the risk of sounding like a complete bumbass, if it spitting (firing) feel each of your exhaust down tubes. is #1 worm of cold...etc. It might help the other guys with their diagnosis's. good point - on the warmth, I'll check that too, tank is off right now but I will add that to the list. I will add that the exhaust smelt like exhaust, not fuel, at the muffler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatball74 Posted April 23, 2023 Author Share Posted April 23, 2023 Visually confirmed spark. I've got the air box off now and will try to pull the fuel rail. See if there's any crud in it. Is there a way to test the injectors? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer DannoXYZ Posted April 23, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted April 23, 2023 What colour are sparks? if you're pulling fuel rail, leave injectors attached. Place little cups under each injector. Crank for 10sec How much petrol did you collect in each cup? Are they fairly identical amounts? As test of fuel, spray some starting-fluid into airbox, wait 5-sec and start. Does it run? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V4 Rosso Posted April 23, 2023 Share Posted April 23, 2023 5 hours ago, Meatball74 said: 3) there is spark from what I can tell - it will give me a thump in time with each cylinder but won't "catch" - won't fire up, saying that, I guess it's not confirmed in each cylinder - I'll look into this. Does it fire when you spray some starter fluid or brake cleaner into the airbox? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatball74 Posted April 23, 2023 Author Share Posted April 23, 2023 to Danno and V4, the intake and fuel system are apart right now. I haven't used starter fluid yet as I'm not a fan of it but can give it a whirl. Spark appears white. I ran 12v direct to the pump independently and it spins nicely. it was pressuring up when the bike was in 1 piece too. I'm going to clean up what I can and reassemble the fuel tank, the filter doesn't seem plugged, I can blow through it easily. With the airbox off, there's a lot of emissions crap disconnected right now, but I can see if it'll fire with all that off in order to pull the injectors and rails. was hoping there might be some voltages or resistances I can check in them to diagnose if they are the culprit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatball74 Posted April 23, 2023 Author Share Posted April 23, 2023 3 minutes ago, Meatball74 said: to Danno and V4, the intake and fuel system are apart right now. I haven't used starter fluid yet as I'm not a fan of it but can give it a whirl. Spark appears white. I ran 12v direct to the pump independently and it spins nicely. it was pressuring up when the bike was in 1 piece too. I'm going to clean up what I can and reassemble the fuel tank, the filter doesn't seem plugged, I can blow through it easily. With the airbox off, there's a lot of emissions crap disconnected right now, but I can see if it'll fire with all that off in order to pull the injectors and rails. was hoping there might be some voltages or resistances I can check in them to diagnose if they are the culprit. Looks like I can check the flow rate from the pump through the fuel return line (150cc in 10sec) - this doesn't confirm injectors but would indicate a bad pump or clogged filter. Injector resistance is 13-14.4ohm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatball74 Posted April 23, 2023 Author Share Posted April 23, 2023 1 hour ago, Meatball74 said: Looks like I can check the flow rate from the pump through the fuel return line (150cc in 10sec) - this doesn't confirm injectors but would indicate a bad pump or clogged filter. Injector resistance is 13-14.4ohm. confirmed all injectors are 13.3-13.5ohm. going to re-install filter and pump, gerry-rig the tank and see what happens - not even sure it will start with all the vacuum lines hanging loose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer DannoXYZ Posted April 24, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted April 24, 2023 Yeah, staying away from starter-fluid is good idea as it's toxic to slide-diaphragms on carbs. You also just use squirt-bottle and spray in about 2-3cc in airbox While you're there, measure power to injector connectors: - key ON, measure voltage at each injector-connector terminal (8 total). Volts x8 = ??? This is 5-minute fix with multimeter... many times less. There's only 12-14 points to measure and problem will be obvious. Parts are seldom bad, no use measuring them. Most of time, it's corroded connector terminals or broken wiring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatball74 Posted April 25, 2023 Author Share Posted April 25, 2023 OK. well I got it to fire. Sort of. I can squirt some fuel down the TB's and it'll fire up, but as soon as that's burnt, I'm back to square 1. Fuelling is the issue. Pump is working, from what I can tell, no FI codes. I'm going to test the pump rate in a bit here. but my mind is on Dirty injectors? IMG_7227.MOV Attached video is before squirting the fuel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatball74 Posted April 25, 2023 Author Share Posted April 25, 2023 There are specific codes to show a Malf on each injector. I get none. I'm going to check continuity to ground and voltage as suggested too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeeEffArah Posted April 25, 2023 Share Posted April 25, 2023 I'll agree with injector woes. Sounds like my "00 before I sent the injectors for cleaning service. IIRC, 1 was at like 30%, another at 5% and other 2 were 0%. Now it starts and runs as expected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatball74 Posted April 25, 2023 Author Share Posted April 25, 2023 8 minutes ago, VeeEffArah said: I'll agree with injector woes. Sounds like my "00 before I sent the injectors for cleaning service. IIRC, 1 was at like 30%, another at 5% and other 2 were 0%. Now it starts and runs as expected. appreciate the input here. won't shock me at this point. I'm running out of things to check and the injectors look "fun" to remove too... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Dangeruss Posted April 25, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted April 25, 2023 I have recently had my injectors cleaned on my '98 and removed and completely cleaned the whole throttle body while I was at it. Once the throttle body was out it was easier to have a good look at all the hoses, which I mostly replaced. They look decent and flexible on the engine but when I removed them many were cracked on the ends. I replaced them all with silicon vacuum hose. The only ones that looked like new were the starter valve hoses, luckily, as they are NLA and have a tight radius that would be hard to duplicate with straight hose. The job itself wasn't bad, just time consuming. I will warn you that once you get into it you will want to clean all the crud out of the injector bores and off the throttle plates, and it's a lot easier to do with it off the bike. It takes a monumental pull to separate from the manifolds if you decide to go that route. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatball74 Posted April 25, 2023 Author Share Posted April 25, 2023 I now have questions of the "What the Everlovin $%&@" variety. I disconnected the fuel return line from the tank, put a plug on the tank connection and was getting set to do a flow rate test on the fuel return per these instructions. I turned the ignition on and nothing came out. Proceeded to scratch head. Then thought well, maybe the starter needs to be turning over... the damn thing fired right up! Fuel then started coming out the return line. Turned it off... exclaimed WTF enough times I'm sure the neighbours heard me. Turned ignition back on but didn't hit the starter. Fuel came out of the return line as it's supposed to. Per the list of diagnostics on this snip from the manual, it is not a filter, not the pump, it must have been a clog in either the fuel line or the regulator. Or possibly the regulator is buggered but after it started, the fuel flowed nicely from the return. Of course now I'm paranoid that I'll put it all back together, essentially having replaced nothing that needed replacing, and the problem will come back. I guess it was either a load of dirty fuel or just years of buildup? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squirrelman Posted April 25, 2023 Share Posted April 25, 2023 4 hours ago, VeeEffArah said: I'll agree with injector woes. Sounds like my "00 before I sent the injectors for cleaning service. IIRC, 1 was at like 30%, another at 5% and other 2 were 0%. Now it starts and runs as expected. isn't it great that FI came along so riders wouldn't need to clean carbs occasionally ???????????????????🤣 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeeEffArah Posted April 25, 2023 Share Posted April 25, 2023 1 hour ago, squirrelman said: isn't it great that FI came along so riders wouldn't need to clean carbs occasionally ???????????????????🤣 Negative IMO.... I'll take cleaning a bank of carbs any day over the VFR's throttle body location and process. 🤪 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeeEffArah Posted April 25, 2023 Share Posted April 25, 2023 Meatball, just have to put it all together and see. Weird thing though, for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meatball74 Posted April 26, 2023 Author Share Posted April 26, 2023 It's all back together and seems to be running fine. Pretty flippin' choked that it was just some gunk in the rail. At any rate, it looks to be good. Thanks to everyone for the input! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Grum Posted April 26, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted April 26, 2023 4 hours ago, Meatball74 said: It's all back together and seems to be running fine. Pretty flippin' choked that it was just some gunk in the rail. At any rate, it looks to be good. Thanks to everyone for the input! I'm glad you have it going again, but after seeing your video you had an abnormal situation. The Fi light remains on after fuel prime and stays on through all the cranking time. Is there any chance your Sidestand switch wiring has been messed with, bypassed/shorted? Place your bike in gear, Sidestand Down, and clutch pulled in. If you can crank or start the bike the Sidestand switch has been bypassed. The Fi light can never display a code if the SS switch is bypassed. An active fault will mean the Fi light remains On all the time, just like your video. So when you start the bike now, is the Fi light acting normally, goes OUT after Fuel Prime? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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