Fi light in the sky with diamonds

Yo

Ive posted about my Fi Light and power loss issue before. I took the bike to Honda agent who added two earthing points to the loom. The mechanic reckons it's a loom issue but anyway added the earth leaking points and said he reckons it is now fixed.
I rode the bike to work this morning and the light(with power loss) came on for about a second and that was the only time in my 30min ride.


Here's a recap of what happened prior to said mechanic solution.

The bike would show an error and now and again drop in power when the Fi light coming on. This continued for 2 weeks and very very intermittent. Then one day it got worst and seems to manifest when i had my brights on. I took the bike to Honda and they thought they fixed it. The error codes were to many to read so they reset them. Weeks later after i started to use my brights again my little friend Fi light came back to visit. This time teh power loss was very much longer and very strong. As you can imagine dropping in power crossing a National highway is not fun thing to do. Then one morning it basically dropped all power and the Fuel pump died so the bike came to a standstill on my way to work. Took the bike to them and this time around they came up with the earth leakage solution as described above.

What i could detect from all of this is that using brights it seems to manifest and pushing the revs over 8000rpm the Fi light would come on. It's as if, when i ask for more power(elec/torque) things go wrong.


What do you guys think? :distrust:

 

What year is the bike? (Might want to add that to your profile.)

Can you remind us what checks overall have been done? Stator? Rectifier? Fuses? Have you or the dealer gone through "the drill" on post #9 here?

http://vfrworld.com/forums/showthread.php/39277-How-to-fix-common-regulator-Stator-failures

 

Hey there...

It's a 1998 5Th generation. I bought the bike at a bike shop after the Loom/Stator/Rectifier and CDI was replaced due to our beloved VFR electrical problem as described on many a forum on the net (and link supplied)

The dealer denies any problems or have no knowledge of any wiring/rectifier that is not up to standard since release from the factory. So telling them about it you are met with blank faces and "do not know what you are talking about". I have refered to the link you supplied many a time.

 

That is good that the major power components were replaced. Understand that they were all replaced due to age and neglect. Also, are you sure these items were replaced? I ask because if they spent the time replacing the wiring harness they should have spotted any issues like a dirty ground location.

* Or they replaced all of these items due to the mystery problem but that did not fix it. *

* OR one of their replacement components is bad. *

Something does not add up from the shop that did this work and now it seems that the problem falls onto you. Do you have a digital multimeter or can you get your hands on one? Are you comfortable with removing the fairings and troubleshooting yourself?

First start with the fuses under the seat. Inspect every one. Anything with discoloration replace it. Check for any that are loose. Those would most likely show discoloration from arching and might require a fuse box replacement.

 

I will test the bike over the next few days/week to see what i find. The Honda agent needs to come to the party as i asked them to fix it and they did not it seems. The wiring loom/cdi etc. was done by another mechanic who restores bikes and is very skill full in his craft so no reason to doubt his handy work or the parts that he used to replace the faulty one's back in the day.

 

Most likely the problem is an intermittently failing CDI. From where was the replacement sourced?

 

I am not sure. I however agree with you on that assessment. For the last two days of riding it has not happened once. I have not however revved the bike to kingdom come like i normally have to do to keep up with my friend on his R1. SO, so far so good but i have a feeling as soon as i turn on the brights and start riding the bike harder it will start up again.

One more thing, at idle with the lights on the bike idles fairly low but as soon as i switch off the lights it jumps by 200 or so rpm up. Is this normal, it's as if the battery is not being charged sufficiently?

 

My FI light issues I've had were cleared up by two things.

Main fuse in white holder clipped near battery (I think it's a 30 amp). Holder was a bit crispy with carbon. I cut out the old holder and replaced with a new sealed automotive style inline fuse holder. FI light issues solved for about a year.

I don't think this changed anything on my bike, but I went ahead and removed the orange earthing block on the left side and soldered everything together.

Next power loss and light was tied to a connection issue at the CDI. The lid that clips down and holds the CDI in place was missing it's pop rivets, I have no idea why. Anyway, the CDI was free to move around in it's little compartment. This was causing changes in resistance due to slight flexing of the connector pins that threw off a few sensors, mostly the throttle position sensor. I wasted quite a bit of time trouble shooting the TPS and other connectors around the throttle body. Simply locking down the CDI with new pop rivets solved everything.

No idea if above is applicable in your case.

 

Sounds like sound advice... I will have a look at what you did and see if i can emulate on my bike. Thx for info