5th Gen FI Light Gremilns

Took a brisk ride yesterday morning of about 30 miles (was 50 when I left home, and 38 by the time I stopped). Refueled at a place I've been several times. Hung out for an hour nursing a coffee and met up with another rider.

We leave, and I notice after about 10 miles, my FI light was continuously on. When I stopped to tell my bud my light was on and that I should head home, I put the side stand down. With the stand down, the light did a slow but steady blink. Maybe once every 2 to 3 seconds?

I didn't want to shut if off in case it didn't want to start.

Rode the remaining 20 miles home with the light on. No loss of power, no fuel smell, nada. Everything seems fine.

Once at home, I shut it off. Turned key, primed, FI light goes off, starts up with no issues. Repeated a few times, rode another 10 miles, repeated again, and still no light. Seems to have fixed itself.

Any thoughts? Does it throw a code for bad gas? (I'm setting myself up with that one).

 

Mine had similar behavior a month or so back... turned out the fuel pump relay was slowly going bad. It eventually wouldn't start for me, and I had it towed to the mechanic. Of course it worked fine once there, and only failed after he had it for a couple of days - took him a while to trace the fault.

 

Sounds like an intermittent fault just like my 6th gen is having. I'll go days without troubles, then she'll start flashin at me again. You can pull the code out even if it's not failing at that time and take a look at the component in question.

 

So I thought I'd bump my own thread. When I made my initial post back in November '10, I probably stored the bike shortly after that. Now that spring has been here for a while, I've put on a few hundred miles, obviously filling up the tank a time or two.

On my way to work today, had the exact same issue as in November. FI light came on steady. No loss of power that I can tell. Put the side stand down while running and I get an intermittent blink every 2 or 3 seconds. Put the stand up, light stays on continuously. Shut it off, restarts no problem (I can hear the pump priming), and the light is off.

Anybody got any additional insight to what Flint and Metallican said above? Does it sound like my fuel relay is getting ready to quit, as Flint mentioned? If so, any idea what's involved in replacing this? My mechanical ability is limited to the basics of say oil changes and a coolant flush, so I'm not about to dive into the fuel system components. While all visits to my dealer come with a fresh jar of Vaseline, I'd just like to know a ballpark on time/hours for replacing something like this.

 

Relay shouldn't be at all complicated to replace once you trace down which one it is using the manual for location. I'd still like to know what codes she's setting in case it's something else though. Mine turned out to be my MAP sensor setting a code. Very intermittent, most of the time it will cause a running issue for a few seconds. Sometimes a stall sometimes not. As I'm a cheap bastage I pulled it off and cleaned mine instead of shellin out $ for a new/used questionable one and it seemed to work for a while but now it acts up again occasionally. Not setting codes anymore though.

Long story short, pull some codes outta that girl so we can track down what system is going out before you start throwin darts at her eh.

 

Thanks Metallican. I did speak with my dealer, who said even though the codes are intermittent, it definitely keeps a record of them.

Still having the same issue. Its now 2 days later, 150 miles (only been commuting to work), no light coming on.

So here's a noob question - can I pull the codes, or is that "dealer only" software type of thing?

 

For some reason, Im watching this thread closely.

 

Agree with the above, you need to short two contacts ...somewhere (it's been awhile) and turn the bike on and you will get a "code" via the FI light blinking (long and short blinks); the service manual will tell you what the codes mean.

When was your last big service?

I had done a full tear down of my 5th gen which included valves and sync of the starter valves ...only to get intermittent FI light issues. Turns out there was an update to the starter valve sync settings midway through the '99 year that was a PITA to track down. Essentially, I had the "updated" system, but had synced to the old settings, which resulted in the FI error. If it's been a while since your bike was tuned, and you are in need of a starter valve sync, you could be having a similar issue!

...just a thought.

 

A quick history - I bought the bike from a dealer in January 2008 with 5400 miles. 3 months later, my ECU/ECM? went kaput. Dealer claimed is was due to a bad P/C. He removed and replaced the entire ECM thing, gave me a receipt (to the tune of $800+ all told) but didn't charge me a dime. Only caveat was that he would not reinstall the PC. No big deal to me.

Bike now how 14,500 miles (that's right, I did a whopping 9000 miles in 3 years!). I've never had a major service. I did speak to a buddy yesterday who told me how to pull the code by shorting the contacts. Seems easy enough, so I'm going to try to do that this weekend.