Question/idea regarding 02 sensor...

[mag00]

Charlie, you have to admit the learning part is challenging and sometimes fun. What am I going to do? I bought another bike and have done nothing with the TR650. It's sitting with the muffler off, waiting for me to weld up some new pipes for the Carbon Fibre setup.

I sent an email to Stephan yesterday, inquiring about the GS911 progress for the Terra. Have not heard back yet.

Doing a power off reset, only resets some of the adaptions, the adaptions set to prom, cannot be reset without the moss or gs911, so simple testing by changing things is slightly skewed.

My bike, with the previous single exhaust, pod mod and moss, was not having the issues of others. The power issue or flat spot is easy to remedy, "don't crack the throttle so hard", let the engine do the work. It has plenty of power.

Most recently I have pondered Quirkys dilemma. Fresh engine, straight from dealer and having pinging. Pinging can seem like a bad gas issue, but the timing needs to adapt to fire the fuel mix at the right time.

Columns of air, vs AF ratio. AF ratio is a snapshot, columns of air is the movie. If the air column does not move through the bike (intake combustion exhaust) proper, little hickups can happen. Something as simple as dimpling the intake could fix it all. Dimples such as a golf ball. This creates a turbulent layer (rolling) along the edges, which prevents the laminar drag.

How the air flows through or bypasses the butterfly is another area to look into for flow drag. The stepper motor opens or closes an air passage to help idle. You never change the butterfly/throttle it is controlled by the computer. How exactly it will effect it, I do not know. But I suspect that if the butterfly is a bit on the closed side, forcing the ecu to run air through the stepper circuit, to idle at 1500 rpm the characteristics of cracking the throttle will be different than if the bike was passing more air past the butterfly for the same 1500 rpm. The column of air is flowing a little better, so the throttle response theoretically should be better.


That and I do not know how the stepper reacts once the throttle is cracked. Does it zero back out? This also could affect a start, exactly how, I do not know, once again. Does the stepper reset on power cycle? How long does it take the stepper to react? is it instant or does it take a second or so?

The easy cheap way is to put a bandaid on the problem, add fuel. But I just don't like the tradeoff of drinking more fuel.

The other "fix" would be a Rekluse clutch. I know that if you are used to a bike with grunt from the start, and go the the Terra using the same clutch-throttle synchronized take off, the tiny clutch grab you are used to using, is enough to stall the engine. I'm talking less than a half second of timing. The Rekluse won't engage until the RPM has moved up, thus totally eliminating any off idle stalling.

That is an expensive "fix", but recluse has one made and tuned for the TR650.

Here is my fix $500. Originally before I bought the TR650, I was looking for something like this, a 250 or so. This is a 200. Most of the new small enduro bikes have seat heights of 37 inches. Not this, and this has a 3.4 gallon tank and should average 70-80mpg.

It's light, I can move it around, drag it, lift it. It does not have to do 30mph in 1st gear and parts and service is easily

 

[spiderman]

I would still like to see someone try out the resister idea with the 02 sensor.

 

[kyle01]

mag00- I like your thinking!! My terra is running well enough with some extra "bungage" (I've tried a few more things- a 90* fitting plus extension, reducing the size of the hole in the extension, etc) anyhow, I'm pleased enough with how it's running and the money I would have spent instead went to this!

 

[isldtime]

How about a Pic of bung extension.

 

[mag00]

mag00- I like your thinking!! My terra is running well enough with some extra "bungage" (I've tried a few more things- a 90* fitting plus extension, reducing the size of the hole in the extension, etc) anyhow, I'm pleased enough with how it's running and the money I would have spent instead went to this!View attachment 47023

I see a scoot in the background, lol. Just got back from errands with my little 50cc.

The Terra is getting closer and closer to being a three wheeler, like the Can Am Spyder.

I took the DR out yesterday again, and there is a local little hill that I have pulled up to many times on the Terra, but never embarked on the climb. This little DR just took it and smiled, as well as I. It was loose and steep and rutts, and rocks... all the good stuff, and I found myself kicking a leg out and twisting the throttle and pitching sideways up and around. What a blast. Totally forgot how to ride and now remembering.

The Terra Pig, is a road bike, and that is all she will ever be. Sorry I'm not all glowing with praise and delight about the Terra any longer. I still like the Terra, even with it's shortcomings, but it is not my "go to" bike anymore.

;

 

[drzcharlie]

How about a Pic of bung extension.

Look back in the charts I did above. You will see the extension between chart 2 & 3

 

[mag00]

I would still like to see someone try out the resister idea with the 02 sensor.

Shouldn't be too hard. Get a low watt 10k-20k ohm resistor and hook it to ground from the output side of the o2. I'm guessing at the 10k ohms, but seems like a good place to start. You could even put a switch in the circuit to disable it at cruise speed.

Or get a low watt potentiometer (5-20k), and have a fully adjustable eruption version of the other o2 spoofs.

Disclaimer-try not to brick your ecu-. Or mess up the o2.

Two wires are for the heater part of the sensor. Not sure which ones are what.

Be careful measuring the resistance using your multimeter, as the small current produced by the meter has been known to cause problems. Only use high quality test equipment.

 

[isldtime]

Not that pic. just one with the 90deg. and extension that Kyle did to see what the clearance was.

 

[drzcharlie]

Two wires are for the heater part of the sensor. Not sure which ones are what.

The whites are the heater circuit.

 

[kyle01]

The 90 looked like crap- there was no way to tuck it in so I put the 90 on the pipe, put the extension on that and hung it off the side of the engine as a test. The cable to the 02 barely reached and I just wanted to see if there was any difference. Not really. That's when I decided to stick with the 2" extension and play with the size of the opening.

 

[kyle01]

I see a scoot in the background, lol. Just got back from errands with my little 50cc.

I've got LOTS of scoots in the background!! XR350, DT100, scrambler, klx250, cb750, hypermotard 1100s, ninja 500, drz400, tr650, monster 1100evo, gasgas ec250, and an old lambretta.

It's a problem.

 

[drzcharlie]

There is bound to be a 12 step program for that. Just sayin

 

[Mark_H]

Hi Folks, having followed this thread and others on the 'lean stumble'and crappy running of the 650 motor, I would like to share my observations and efforts towards a fix.
First of all, I am currently in Cebu, Philippines and dealer support, parts etc are very limited, plus I got my Strada second-hand and although it was only one month old, my local dealer is none too interested, even though they sold the bike originally. They are basically a satellite dealer from the main branch in Manila and have very limited service tools etc.

Having covered only 1000 km when I obtained it, the totally standard strada was pretty good to ride at first, but I noticed that in traffic it was difficult to find a happy medium between revs and tickover to keep moving slowly and required lots of clutch action in second gear as first was simply too lumpy.
After the first tank of fuel it developed a really bad flat spot between 2000 and 2200 RPM and on occasions it would simply backfire through the airbox and splutter to a stop. The engine knocks and pinks badly and is obviously running way too lean.
That is when I started exploring the reasons and found this website and threads.

My air temp sensor is reading between 35C (95F) and 45C (113F) depending on traffic conditions and open road averages around 40C (104F), with the most ever observed in heavy traffic as 49C (120F), so as you can imagine the engine is running pretty hot and very lean too.
My cooling system appears to be working well, cold liquid level is exactly half the scale and the fan cuts in at about 2/3rds up the temp scale, cutting out when running on open road and temp scale is around 1/2 way.

I have tried many different fuels, Shell 97 is readily available and seems quite good, but my best running has been on Petron Blaze 100 Octane which I can get only at my local station.

At first I was tempted to buy an Air Temp Spoofer, but having read that the ECU eventually learns to dial out the changes, basically from the Lambda O2 readings, I decided that the Lambda spacer was the way to go. Researching various car forums regarding tuning, de catting etc indicated that this was a pretty regular thing to do and judging by the number of different spacers available on the market, an easy fix too.

With the lean stumbles occurring even more often, I was getting pretty unhappy with the bike in city traffic. It was difficult and at times dangerous to ride, choosing to backfire and stop halfway round corners or slow turns and even during slow changes from 2nd to 3rd Gear at 30+ kpmh. The most worrying factor was the way it would backfire or kick backwards and literally smash the starter motor pinion, creating a horrible grinding crash each time. Moreover the engine seems lumpy and struggles to run below 3000 rpm, causing severe and unpredictable engine braking when slowing down.

If I had purchased the bike new from a bona-fide dealer I would be there claiming my money back as I consider that the bike is unfit to ride and dangerous in its standard condition - the fault exists right across the range/world and IMHO if it was a car it would be recalled on safety grounds alone.
Unable to return the bike I proceeded as follows:

All tests are from cold engine and air temp around 35/38C with 100 Octane fuel and the bike is completely standard - no mods.

1) Reset ECU and ride bike - result is amazing difference, it is like a perfect 650 single, engine sounds sweet and will pull cleanly right through the rev range and down again too. Great fun to ride anywhere.
This last approximately three minutes then the ECU starts to lean out the mixture based upon input from Air Temp and Lambda sensors. The lean splutter and crappy running continues thereafter.

2) Warm bike to fan temp before riding - Gives considerable improvement and the lean stumble and crappy running do not seem to occur for at least the first ten minutes, but then it is back to normal and not good.

3) Start bike and ride off into heavy traffic, lean stumble and splutters are almost immediate and the bike will stop several times in the first 5 minutes unless carefully managed using lots of revs and clutch action to keep it going.

Plan A - With bike having covered only 2200 km from new, I fitted Lambda Spacer to move sensor out of exhaust stream by 38mm and only has a 5mm hole into exhaust for sampling.

1a) Warmed engine and rode bike, definite improvement in crappy running and almost no splutters. The flat spot still exists at 2000-2200 but it is not nearly as bad and I can live with it.

2a) Reset ECU with spacer fitted, result is the bike is once again perfect to ride and pulls cleanly right through the revs, but only for about 3 minutes as before. Then the engine returns to condition as in 1a above.

So far the spacer is the only mod I have done and I am very happy with the improvement that it has already given me. I can ride the bike in traffic and it hasnt stopped once yet. Most of all it has alleviated the backfire and smashing of the starter pinion which was my most serious concern.
Fuel consumption seems pretty much unaffected, but it is hard to tell over a short period as my riding is so mixed between traffic and open road running.

Plan B - Await the dealer mods that BMW Husky have to produce to avoid a lawsuit ;-)

So, all in all the Lambda spacer is definitely the way to go if you do not wish or are not in a position to go further with ECU mods etc. IMHO the Air Temp Spoofer is a waste of time and money as it is only a temporary fix, however YMMV as they say.

Cheers.

 

[spiderman]

Well today I tried something a little goofy. I had ordered 3 different spacers and I just put them all together. One of them is a 90 degree el. I just wanted to get the sensor as far as possible from the exhaust. Result? Maybe a little better running than with just a single spacer, which was marginally better than no spacer at all. Still has the off idle stumble/die. The plumbing looks pretty absurd but I was just trying it for fun anyway. It just doesn't seem to be the answer, at least for my situation. I think someone mentioned they think the off idle issue is a product of bad setting of the idle stop screw (which is done at the factory) combined with a TPS setting. That would account for the wide variety of differences from one bike to the next. I wish it was a lot easier to get in there and mess with that adjustment.

 

[mag00]

Well today I tried something a little goofy. I had ordered 3 different spacers and I just put them all together. One of them is a 90 degree el. I just wanted to get the sensor as far as possible from the exhaust. Result? Maybe a little better running than with just a single spacer, which was marginally better than no spacer at all. Still has the off idle stumble/die. The plumbing looks pretty absurd but I was just trying it for fun anyway. It just doesn't seem to be the answer, at least for my situation. I think someone mentioned they think the off idle issue is a product of bad setting of the idle stop screw (which is done at the factory) combined with a TPS setting. That would account for the wide variety of differences from one bike to the next. I wish it was a lot easier to get in there and mess with that adjustment.

And I think it addresses the charts etc from Roger.

Problem is that if you turn the screw up, your idle will go up. If you turn it down, it will not go down, as the ecu and stepper motor will self correct. So a TPS reset would be in order. Now there is a slight chance, and don't know why I didn't think of this earlier, to elongate the TPS holes and make the adjustment possible.

That is something that can be easily done, in small increments.

This is what someone could try. Since the screw is near impossible to get at you can make a spacer.

Pull the seat and look in, you can see and get at the throttle linkage/cable. A custom thickens cap could be placed over the tang on the throttle stop, for the set screw to hit, thus opening the butterfly without having to pull the airbox.

Since you now told the bike to run faster, you would need to adjust the TPS which has no adjustment. So make it ajdustable, how hard could that be? I think you can get at the tps easy enough to dremel the slot.

Now the tps will say it is still at idle, but the butterfly will be open more, so the ecu to bring the rpm back to idle will close the port that the stepper controls.

Might take some monkeying to get the initial butterfly movement to sync with the tps at the pre programmed "0" condition, but I think it could be done.

Cheap enough and reversible. Ohm meter, dremel and patience.

 

[mag00]

The whites are the heater circuit.

That don't seem logical, but then what does on these MM systems. Is that where you hooked the resistors?

 

[drzcharlie]

Yes, they are across the white leads. All they do is keep the MM ECU from sensing false voltages and throwing a code. I will post up a schematic showing the wiring on the LC2 thread soon.

 

[ChromeArty]

Should I not be buying this bike!? I plan on picking up the 2014 Strada next weekend!

But this stalling business I keep reading about is scaring me off a bit.

 

[Jon Knutson]

I only have stalling if I don't let the bike warm up for a couple minutes, once it warms up I don't have any issues.

 

[drzcharlie]

The bike is worthy. You may have to put a PCV or AF-XIED on it (YRMV) but compared t the price of other 650's it is a stellar buy and a great bike.