kaldek

That is exactly what my wife would say!

I've been doing a lot of thinking today and I think I'm going to buy that wrecked '06 bike. I really don't want to fork out $13,000+ for a brand new VFR. About the only thing I don't know how to do on this bike is strip the engine down into its component parts. If I know that much, why wouldn't I do it? I have two paths forward: Strip both bikes down and put the new engine in my frame (no registration or insurance changes) Put my plastics and tank on new bike (new rego required, plus insurance $100 more than it is right now because donor bike is newer) Option 2 has less hassle, because it would take me about two hours to do the whole job....

Every time I check 'em, they look fecking awesome mate. I keep expecting them to be black, or severely white, but nope they always look perfect. They were replaced last May when the bike first started playing up.

Hah my wife is on Facebook right now telling me to buy a new bike, Quote: "I really wanted you to buy one last year but you decided to 'fix' the one that is giving you grief still" She's talking about the VFR1200 too - which at the time was $28,990 on road!

Yeah...figured that might be the case. What do you reckon their markup is?

Is that part of your grand plan to migrate to Australia?

Scratch that. Just found this wrecked 2006 model 70 kilometres away. Let's see. I'm gonna need new clutch plates soon ($200) new front disks ($800)....that's a thousand dollars effectively off the purchase price right there. I think I'm just gonna do it.

Yeah it was our member named CBR6400F4i. He tends to lurk rather than post now; I think he sold the bike? His was an American 2004 model getting an American 2006 ECU and injectors so it wasn't as big a change as mine. My wife has already told me to just STFU and buy a 2009 VFR800 in candy glory red. In the meantime I have my dad's 1997 VFR while he goes to England for 3 months. If I haven't fixed the 2002 by then, that may be my exit strategy.

I agree with you completely. And the strangest part is that the bike is fine under power at high revs-- you can pin it in 3rd gear and she will pull like a train to redline. Starting it cold though, it coughs and splutters and then revs its head off (up to 4,000rpm) with constant 500rpm dips until it heats up, at which point it stabilises but you can hear it misfiring. After that, it's fairly rideable but you can feel it hesitating all the time. Last night I went through the parts catalogue and confirmed that all the things I was interested in are the same part code. This includes engine coolant sensor, MAP sensor, Cam position sensor, crankshaft (ignition pulse) generator, and coils. When the new fuel pump and coils arrive, I will fit them ASAP. If nothing changes, I'm going to dig into the wiring harness and measure the resistance of every wire. That's going to be a hoot.

Well, the test on DazMac's bike didn't work because it seems that Aussie bikes with HISS wiring in the wiring harness won't work with USA model ECUs that don't have the HISS programming in them. His bike wouldn't prime the fuel pump at all with my USA model ECU fitted. Dagnabbit, this means I still can't consider the ECU either good or bad. More questions again than answers... Oh, the bike runs fine under power by the way - above 6400rpm she's sweet as.

Nup, definitely not that as bike runs fine on the power when riding it hard.

Righto, I'm off to DazMac's house tomorrow morning to drop this ECU into his bike (2010 Aussie VFR) for 10 minutes to see how she runs. We'll know pretty much straight away if it's stuffed!

Yeah the only thing that's 2002-era from fuel injection is the fuel pump, coils and throttle body. Oh, of course all the sensors are 2002 sensors but the parts are the same. Anyway I had the fuel pump out this arvo just to take a look. Looks clean externally aside for some crud on the bottom of the intake screen which I removed. Bike still running shit - revs dipping and then recovering. I had left the fan disconnected so now that's back she is at least rideable - I need her tomorrow to get to work because I'm unable to get hold of my dad's VFR750 for a couple of days.

Thanks Bailey. You always come back with support and I really appreciate it. Truly. I'll get there. I'm going to borrow my father's '97 VFR while I work on this so I can keep the bike in bits rather than reassembling it every night. The problem is evident even at idle so if I can trace and fix it there I think it will be licked. I need to have some patience and wait for my spares though - coils and fuel pump on their way. I'm very impatient, so having a spare bike to ride around on will help force me to back off a bit and do more thinking and less rushing. Having my current probe which Seb shipped to me will also help. It means I will be able to run actual tests which can tell me whether a part is or is not failing, rather than take a guess and then doubt myself. Ultimately I'm hoping this problem is not the new parts, but rather them showing the existing problem in a worse light. It certainly behaves just like it did, but worse.

OK, another ride to work today and things are going downhill. I seem to have picked up a serious misfire, which is like my previous problems but worse. Also my fan isn't coming on so I think I have left the fan disconnected or the fan fuse has blown. Agggggh.....I'm now deep in the hole and the only way to go is keep digging. I'm in too shitty a mood to go into much detail at the moment but I'll keep y'all posted.

Right, fuel pump tested and still providing same amount of fuel as before - 130 mils in 10 seconds (too low). No worse than before, so with the PCV and map set up I'll still ride it.

First big ride to and from work today, and I'm getting pre-ignition (pinging/pinking) under load. Very interesting! I don't think the ECU is causing this, I think what it's doing is showing up the problems with the fuel pump that were not as evident before. I mean, I hadn't ridden without the Powercommander fitted for ages and without it active I've got a combination of Motad headers (probably makes it run a bit leaner), a likely leaner base fuel map in the 2006 ECU, and what based on all evidence so far is a dodgy fuel pump. So, no huge surprises the engine pinked a bit. I've got the PCV hooked back up with a nice fat rich fuel map in it (generic tune from Dynojet). There are huge numbers in this map, like +20 all over the place so I'd say the 2006-2009 models are indeed very lean from factory. Have to wait a week for the fuel pump to arrive now. I'll go and test my fuel flow again to see if it's gotten worse. If it's dropped down any more I'll park the bike until I replace the pump.

Yes there is a converted map in the files area: Cozye's map converted to PCV format.

Ahh...maybe not! I had to cut a few connectors off the old harness for the indicators and speed sensor. Suppose I could sell the 2002 ECU, but I'd need to liberate myself of one of my keys, but since I have three sets of keys I could do that! Wonder what the market is like for ECUs. Probably not huge (says the guy who just bought an ECU).

OK I've taken the bike for a ride and she's running just as well as she was before. I have the Powercommander disconnected at the moment for a baseline analysis and I have to say that compared to the 2002 ECU, this is a VERY differently fuelled beast now. Having ridden with the original ECU for nigh on ten years, the VTEC-at-6400rpm takes you by complete surprise and lets you know that this engine REALLY needed it. Even at a 6400rpm engagement the torque jump is huge - they could probably bring it down some more and still have a nice power boost. Also, the response at small throttle positions feels better than the original ECU as well. I guess you would call it a lot more gradual. Anyway, I'm definitely having hard starting issues when cold though - but since it's ONLY when cold I figure this is a mechanical problem with the fast idle system, or directly related to my fuel pump (which is being replaced soon). I had issues very similar to this with the bike only a month or so ago with the old ECU, so I'm not laying any blame on the new parts yet. I will say that I'm very happy with my re-wiring job to make all the switches work as designed. It felt like my Everest initially, but then I just banged the solution out in a couple of hours. Yay me!

It's also important to recognize that I may have had other mechanical problems that didn't show up before. I have just thrown a rock into a pond; let's see what the ripples do.

It's Aliiiiiive!! She runs, not sure how she rides though. The motor climbed to 3,000rpm during warmup as well, which is odd. I have to face the truth that I will need to deal with the potential issues of the bike these parts came off; always fun.

Righty-O then, wiring harness is installed! I need to take some pictures and video of the important bits and post them. Not that I've tried starting the bike, mind you!! I did remove the rear plastic undertail (Honda calls call it Rear Fender B) in the end, as it was stupidly easy to remove (four bolts) and made routing of the harness past the battery tray and PCV area much easier.

You speak from experience? That darn PCV valve is indeed the problem I was looking at. Needing to get the coil plugs routed past it is what had me having nightmwares, because those plugs are huge.

No, just different ones. UK still has hazard lights for most years and I would have needed to buy an ECU with a matching coded key. Programming my keys into it wouldn't have been too hard.