Engine starting to run badly...

[Goblin]

Hi there,
New R3 owner here! Just bought a 2007 Classic in blue/white with approx. 4,000 miles. I've owned pretty well every type of cruiser and sport bike, but this is my first Triumph. So far I'm pretty happy with the bike's performance, looks, handling, etc., but then again I've only had it for a few days. Here's the problem though...
I took it for a 100 mile highway cruise and found that at a steady speed, the engine seemed to lose power or run on 2 cylinders. On the last 20 miles or so, the bike was really driving poorly. (when feeding in a little throttle though, the engined seemed to come back to life). I'll be taking it to a dealer on Monday, but I thought maybe someone here might be able to give me their thoughts on what it could be.

Thanks and hope to hope to be a R3 owner for a long time!

 

[Molinoman]

Hi, welcome to the club, hope that once your problem gets fixed you will enjoy the Rocket. One time I had, I think, ran some wires to the battery hooking my Cycle Sounds stereo system up and when I put the tank back down I ended up crimping one of the lines (vacuum?) of the fuel injection. My dealer checked it out and found that was the problem, fixed it and it ran fine. Like yours, it sounded like only one or two of the three cylinders was running and had me worried till I got it fixed...I hope it is something as simple as that.

Dennis

47 dtg Dubai
48 dtg Home

 

[HellFire]

I doesn't sound like one of the phantom ignition switch problems ... but who knows.
Probably something simple like Molino says. Hope you get it worked out.

 

[Wimpy]

Mine was doing the same thing, TPS fixed it.

 

[Sidecar Flip]

My first and foremost question is 'did you do a 10 minute tune' when you got home?

Rockets ate sensitive to the gasoline you put in so if. per chance you filled with some stale gas, a 10 minute tune will alleviate the problem or should. I'd try that first.

 

[Goblin]

That sounds great, but what's a 10 minute tune?

 

[HellFire]

That sounds great, but what's a 10 minute tune?

If it's what I think he's refering too, (I've always heard it called the 12 min tune) it's where you "relearn" the ECU parameters.

I'll give you the process for the tune I'm thinking of, if he has something else in mind he can brief you when he gets back.

1) Start the Bike and allow it to run until the radiator fan turns on for the 1st time.
2) Once the fan starts, do not touch the throttle.
3) Allow the the bike to stand, running and untouched from this point for at least 12 minutes. (the fan may cycle multiple times during the process, this is normal)
4) At the end of the 12 minutes turn off the bike and allow it to stand, untouched, to cool down. (this isn't really part of the procedure, I do it just to be sure since the ECU is awake and powered all the time.)

This should reset the ECM to the bikes current operating parameters and store the information for how it will operate it's sytems next time it's started. Since full operating temperature is the optimum running conditions for an engine, doing this allows it to know whats "normal" and adjust for other conditions using these settings as a baseline.
This tune is always good to try 1st if she isn't running right all of a sudden. The ECU is just a computer and program code lines sometimes just don't load. Just like if you shut off your computer wrong or something similar .... It's a snapshot with "normal" readings made available to it for sampling.

 

[Goblin]

Great, thanks for the info!
I'll try it asap and see if it runs any better, although I'm thinking that the TPS is most likely the culprit for the majority of problems here...

 

[Goblin]

Well I tried the 12 minute tune and unfortunately it didn't help.
While idling ok for a few minutes, the engine started sputtering as if it was going to stall. The revs then shot to over 2,000 and stayed there for about 15 seconds before coming down to 'normal'. From what I've read on this forum, it sounds like the TPS.

 

[HellFire]

Bummer, it did this all by itself? Well at least it's predictable and a tech shouldn't have any trouble duplicating the complaint. It's just going to have to be plugged in and monitored to diagnose.