I don't think she's running on all cylinders

Some of the best tools for electrical and electronics work come from very different fields. I have a couple emery boards, scotch bright pads, a full set of dentist picks (these are very useful for small work or cleaning circuit boards) a couple gear clamps (surgery clamps) and various jewlers tools and compounds. Over the years they have been added for one reason or another and some simply on recomendations from guys like you whom say "try this". By the way some of these things of mine get used to rebuild small engines, like Alco 567c V12. (Yes thats a small 2400hp engine)

 

^ I had'nt picked up my electric impact gun for a month or so, I charged up both batteries, waited a few hours for them to cool down (anal-person here) and went to pull trigger, and nothing. I flipped battery around and still nothing. I changed to the drill and I got something, I then inspected the female spades? on the impact gun and noticed they were green. I broke oot some smelly contact cleaner/solvent/rust inhibitor and had at both the gun and the battery while inserting and taking oot.

A little grud for lack of a better of a word will screw up your day not to mention your electrodes. Saw an assortment of tweezer for removing smigma that had emery paper on the ends, "one my want list." Probably wana be careful as not to spread the female spades or damge other stuff. Was tawking to a real red-neck (you dont have those in :canada and he was telling me to use a dollar bill (dont have those in :canada: ound to clean points/contacts as its not paper. Was telling him, I used a match book. Anyway, Cheers, and dont freeze your bum off! :vtr2:

 

Been aboot 6 months since updated, what happened?

 

so today was an effin disaster,

Had the tank up, whilst I was there I removed the snorkel.

Took it completely off and put it upside down but fuel would not stop coming out of the two holes (return hose and main fuel line i think) unfortunately the underside of the tank got completely covered. Including the gold thing in the middle of the underside (fuel level sensor i think?) Put it all back together after clearing it all up and now the bike wont start. It primes (but sounds different, more high pitched?) and turns over but not joy. Anyone be able to tell me what I might've managed to do?

Also when I had the rear sparks out I noticed this, which if I'm not mistaken is oil.

 

The oil is on the outside which means weeping head cover gasket. The change in pitch for you fuel pump may be trapped air in fuel line? I will defer to others. I know my diesel tractor is a bitch to start after running out of fuel (have to bleed injectors).

 

So I replaced my spark plugs, and my front two were really oily, and my back two were oily, but not as bad.

It has been a long winter, but when I get home this weekend I am going to test my fuel pressure regulator.

 

Well i found the cause of the change in pitch of the fuel pump priming, there was an awkward kink in the main fuel line

Am I right in thinking that a V4 will have 2 head gaskets? 1 for rear cylinders and 1 for fronts?

 

Yes two head gaskets but try the valve covers gaskets first. They sometimes weep a bit and just need yo be taken out wiped off and put back together. If that doesnt solve it then look in the bores for where the oil is coming from. Doing head gaskets is a large job!

 

Originally thought it was electrical given the intermittent-ness, but finding oil on the spark plugs has alleviated this suspicion and pointed it to gaskets.

Is the valve cover gasket more likely to be intermittent than the head gasket? Most of the time it runs fine but has it's moments when it's only running on 2/3 cylinders

 

I still think electrical. The high energy boots for our bikes are almost waterproof. So you could flood the spark bore and then put the coil pack in and it would work like normal. If you have a crack in one it will act up but only at low rpm as when rpm goes up the ignition voltage available goes down. Since this is intermittent as it runs fine at times and not so well at others, I would not think the little bit of oil could be burnt off and replenished fast enough to get your symptoms. Stranger thing have happened but this is not likely. Take your tank off and peer down the bores and see if you can see where the oil is coming from. Best done with that luminescent dye for oil.

Yes the covers gaskets are more prone to weep than the head gaskets. This is mostly due to having less force holding them from moving.

Can you get a spare set of coils or borrow a set? If you where close I would pull mine to help test yours to rule out a heat related failure.

Check your o2 connectors. If our using a pc system, return it to stock. Your pc holds the changed maps so they arent lost. This could be a stupid computer error caused by the ecu not seeing what it needs to. The temp sensor in the airbox and the map are also required to run this bike. Make sure the map sensor has both vacuum lines attached.

 

I still think electrical. The high energy boots for our bikes are almost waterproof. So you could flood the spark bore and then put the coil pack in and it would work like normal. If you have a crack in one it will act up but only at low rpm as when rpm goes up the ignition voltage available goes down. Since this is intermittent as it runs fine at times and not so well at others, I would not think the little bit of oil could be burnt off and replenished fast enough to get your symptoms. Stranger thing have happened but this is not likely. Take your tank off and peer down the bores and see if you can see where the oil is coming from. Best done with that luminescent dye for oil.

Yes the covers gaskets are more prone to weep than the head gaskets. This is mostly due to having less force holding them from moving.

Can you get a spare set of coils or borrow a set? If you where close I would pull mine to help test yours to rule out a heat related failure.

Check your o2 connectors. If our using a pc system, return it to stock. Your pc holds the changed maps so they arent lost. This could be a stupid computer error caused by the ecu not seeing what it needs to. The temp sensor in the airbox and the map are also required to run this bike. Make sure the map sensor has both vacuum lines attached.

 

Exhaust and ECU etc are all stock, so that shouldn't be an issue. I'll check electrical connections again at some point (hopefully Sunday)

Unfortunately I dont think I could borrow a spare pair of coils and I don't have any either

I am still concerned about oil being on my sparks though (they need changing anyways but still)

 

She's running on all cylinders, I'm pleased to say (I did reseat the rear sparks when I had the tank off. After work yesterday I took a ride home down the motorway (Highway for you yanks I believe)and it's really lacking top end power. I'd imagine that all my sparks look similar to the pics shown above. So I've got a new set on the way as well as new oil and filter. Hopefully that'll clear it up. We'll see I suppose!

 

Top end power can be several things, loose connectors, bad o2 sensor, pinched vacuum line to map sensor. Not to mention you may need to have the ecu reset as it could have been learning bad map points while things were going wrong.

 

Where is the vacuum line to map sensor located? I am aware that it may have loose connections. Would a bad ground taking away top end power?

 

Still intermittent. Seemed like she was only running on 2 or 3 on the way home last night. Had almost no torque. Started her up this morning and it was running on 3 then suddenly it was running on 4 during the wax fast idle warm up and all the power and torque was there! Hope it stays that way and that new sparks and oil/filter will help

 

More of the same tonight, bike couldn't decide between 2,3 & 4 cylinders. Possibly a silly question but do you only get fault codes show up if you have the service device plugged in (probably not the right name for it, but the thing which plugs into the service connector)

 

Last couple of days its been runnibg fine. All 4 cylinders and my top end is back. So I think it might have only been running on 3 for a while. This is all without changing anything but on sunday im gonna change oil/filter and spark plugs. After that hopefully it stays on 4 cylinders!

 

Check the plugs thoroughly for any cracks in the ceramic insulator. Cracks can cause intermittent misfire.

 

Will do but replacing them completely at the weekend, I'll check the new ones before I put them in though!