Here's one thought. Are by any chance confusing the ECU by fussing with the throttle while you turn it on or try to start it? If you are playing with the throttle while it is initializing you confuse its TPS calibration and it will not run right. It's only happened to me once or twice when I was in a hurry and tried to rush things but I can see it happening all the time if you didn't know not to do that. (Actually I think the only time you need to worry about this is when first turning the ignition on, like while the pump is priming.) Without reviewing what you have already tried and what you haven't, did you check the ignition coil connectors? Slipping fuel pump? (Shouldn't affect 2010 but you never know.) O2 sensor is removed? If none of these things is the issue, I suggest a second opinion at another dealer or get ibeat and figure it out yourself. The first dealer may have screwed things up rather than getting them right. Also, is the PCV installed yet?
Thanks for the advice so far. To start it I turn on the key and wait for the fuel pump to pressurize, pull the high idle knob and then push the start button while giving it just a touch of gas for a second. It fires up and I let it idle for a bit, turn off the high idle and then ride. I don't touch the throttle at all while it's initializing. I have not checked the coil connectors, guess I need to give those a look. Are they easy to access, don't know where they are at. I'm not sure why it would run one time terrible and then another time it would run great, does that sound like the symptoms of coil connectors? I did install the PC and AT to see if it helped and still the same thing. The dealer cleared the Fail on my dash and I have not yet seen anymore warnings but it's still running terribly. I wish I had another dealer close by but the next nearest one is in Lancaster, TX. near Dallas-a 3 hour drive. Only 3 dealers in this huge state; 5 hour drive; Cycle Shack 5218 34th St. 79407 - Lubbock (TX) - USA 3 hour drive; Cycle Town South 1620 S.Beckley 75146 - Lancaster (TX) - USA 20 minute drive and the dealer I used; Napalm Motorsports 12112 Hwy. 620 North 78750 - Austin (TX) - USA
I don't actually know when the throttle position sensor initializes. I assume it happens when the ignition is turned on. I do not touch the throttle when starting, partly out of fear of confusing it and partly because fussing with the throttle doesn't help it start anyway. It's a bad habit I think. The ignition coil is in an obvious spot under the tank. The spade terminal connections on 2008 models were often not tight enough, resulting in intermittent poor running. Mine were loose but never caused any problems before I tightened them. Can't hurt to check even though it's not likely to be a problem in your case. That's about all I can say. How often does it run well compared to how often it runs poorly? Is there anything in between or is it either all good or all bad?
Does the TPS actually need to initialize at all? As far as I'm aware the system doesn't do anything clever like measuring the TPS voltage it's currently getting and assuming that must be the throttle-closed voltage. You actually use iBeat to set what voltage it should expect to see when the throttle is closed, and AFAIK it won't alter that unless you go back into iBeat again and change it yourself. In fact there have been other topics where one of the suggested solutions to a problem was to use iBeat to reset the TPS as the actual voltage will inevitably drift over time due to aging of the resistor material, wear and tear etc and this can cause problems. If it was recalibrating itself automatically each time you switch the bike on you'd never need to do it manually. Of course, someone else may know better...
Good points. I admit I am not a Husqvarna EFI engineer and do not know what it is really doing. But I do know that I and other people have experienced bad-running bikes after fiddling with the throttle at the wrong time. Don't know what it's doing inside, but somehow it messes the ECU up and the bike runs poorly or stalls until the ignition is turned off and the bike restarted normally. I guess if this is true it should be easy to replicate. I'll do that next time and report back.
It'll be interesting to see if you can cause a problem by playing with the throttle as you turn on the ignition, and if so I'd want to find out exactly what the ECU is trying to do at that point as it could be a potential cause of problems for anyone who doesn't know about it. In general of course you're right that you shouldn't need to be playing with the throttle anyway as it should start on a closed throttle, and I never felt the urge to just play around with it after turning the ignition on so I wouldn't have noticed if it does cause a problem. Since there's no good reason I can think of to be fiddling with it at that point I guess it's just safer not to anyway. It doesn't seem to cause any problems if you open the throttle while actually starting the engine as I've had to do that a few times when the water temperature sensor had failed and it wouldn't start on a closed throttle. Once it finally was started it ran normally.
Yesterday afternoon Bill from Bill's Huskys contacted me and he had a few ideas one of which was he thought there could possibly be a small metal shaving causing problems with the stator. I checked several of the other things Bill mentioned and all seemed well. I then laid the bike over on it's right side and removed the stator cover. I checked all the bolts and they were secure, looked and looked around inside there and was just about to seal it up when I saw a very small metal shaving hiding near the threads on the crank shaft/bolt. I removed it, double/triple checked for more metal shavings and found no more. Wiped it out nice and clean and sealed her up. I cranked up the bike and took it for a ride and it ran perfect!?! WTF? Are you kidding me?? I cannot believe that a tiny little metal shaving could cause all this heartache, and to be honest I won't believe it until I ride it a few more times to be sure. I will take her out for a spin again this afternoon and if it runs great again I'll believe it a little bit more, but, it's going to take several rides of it running great before I'm fully convinced. So, as for now it "appears" this could have possibly been the problem-I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Thank you very much to everyone who has been trying to help me figure out what could possibly be wrong with this darn bike, very much appreciated. Bill, you're the man!!
Got home this afternoon and had a package waiting from Motosportz and one item in it was a new temp sensor. I went ahead and installed the sensor as I didn't want to work on a hot engine later on. Took her out for a nice long ride and I just got back-the darn thing runs like a champ!! I'm pretty sure I had a bad temp sensor as now my fan comes on if I let it sit and idle for a few minutes, it didn't do that before, as a matter of fact I'd never heard the fan come on at all. So, it's now running great and I'd say the metal shaving must of had something to do with it but so did the temp sensor. I've been riding for a couple of hours and having a blast!! Can't wait until tomorrow, thanks everyone! Thanks to Bill from Bill Motorcycles Plus and to Kelly from Motosportz!!
I guess I spoke to soon-it's doing the same thing again. This is very, VERY frustrating and not only that, it's dangerous-damn things gonna get me killed! I wasn't able to ride this weekend but I let a good friend who is interested in one take it down the road. He brought it back and said "Man, somethings seriously wrong, this thing runs like crap". I was just now able to take it out for a quick spin and it died on me 4 times in 1.5 miles-once turning left out of my neighborhood into a 55 MPH zone and another trying to pull away from a stop light in same 55 MPH zone. The other two times I had pulled in the clutch to slow down for a light and it just died while coasting. I had planned to buy two more of these(wife & son) but I don't know anymore, there's no way I could let my wife and son ride one of these as I'd worry the whole time it would put them in a dangerous situation that they might not know how to get out of. Hell I turned down the Aprilia SXV for the same price as I didn't want problems but now I'm thinking I should've got the Priller....
That's really bad news. Did your ECU ever get replaced? If it really did lose the fuel mapping once I don't think I'd ever trust it again as that shouldn't happen unless something's failing inside the unit. Even if the map was replaced and now looks ok, it doesn't mean the unit is actually working properly. Other than that I don't know what to suggest.
John please send me the ECU,and anything else ,we will put it on a new 2010 SM510 and lets get this figured out ASAP,thanks for your patientce,billf
Hi Bill, Thanks for the help Bill, you've been great. I hope that you don't take my complaining as a slight towards you and your shop, nothing could be further from the truth as you've been a great help. I will gladly send you the ECU but I am leaving out of town so won't be able to get it removed until next week but I'll get right on it when I return. I do have a few questions for you or anyone that might have some information though; 1) Do these bikes run exceptionaly hot? By that I mean within just a couple of minutes the cylinder is hot enough to the touch that you cannot hold your hand on it for more than a second, it feels pretty darn hot for a water cooled engine. 2) The other night I had it idling in my garage at night and the exhaust was glowing red for the first few inches from the cylinder. I've seen this on my motocross bikes before, just wondering if others see this on their bikes. I'm getting tempted to just send you the whole darn bike and let you guys go through it with a fine tooth comb. Wonder how hard that would be since I disposed of the crate? Cost? Thanks for all your continued help Bill, much appreciated. Best, John
my 09 450 header will glow at night if Im riding it hard, but not at idle. if you still have the stock mufflers, they are incredibly restrictive. they have a catalytic converter in each muffler and a very restrictive baffle. that right there will cause the bike to run pretty hot. also if you still have the o2 sensor in, the bike is starving for fuel. once you fully de-restrict the bike, and upgrade the cooling system a bit, it runs much better.
Hi Petem, Sorry, must have missed your post. Haven't replaced the ECU yet but Bill has offered to exchange or test mine. Still shaking my head over this thing... Hmm, this was at an idle and it was glowing red. It is still the stock mufflers/cat so could be normal.
My '09 TE250 will glow red at idle. Strangely, it only seems to happen with the pipe on the right side (when seated). I'm powered up, so no cat or O2 sensor. I've also only got just under 400km on my bike, so I don't know if that'll change over time.
Sorry for the delay, was out of town for 5 days. AndrewS, That pic looks exactly like mine, I'm going to take a video of it tonight and post it up. Looks like it's probably normal so I'm probably worrying about nothing. Thank you for the photo!! John
