Engine stumbling

OK, THAT'S IT, I'm running U-235 from now on. Thanks for all your time and instruction. It is most interesting, and informative.

oldsprint03 said:

Came back from an 800 mile ride to the North Georgia mountains last weekend with my friends. On the way home, bike started stumbling (almost like no fire at all for 1 sec). Then the idle speed started staying at 1800 RPM, throttle would not go back to around 750.

Then problems started getting worse, started to idle at up to 3400 RPM, would not come down. When I turned the bike off at the key, it would go back to normal 750 RPM idle. Then after 5 minutes or so under power, it would start back at 1800 RPM idle. Two different tankfuls of gas, and when i am in the 1800 RPM loop, the bike really stumbles/surges.

Have an appointment next week to take to the dealer. Looks like I'll be buying that extended warrenty before the current one runs out in October 2011. 9K miles on the Rocket III

oldsprint03
9

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That sounds like an ignition switch or TPS failing. 2007's didn't come with the updated TPS with blue innards. That change wasn't made until 2008 so that is possible with your bike. If you have not upgraded to headlight bypass relays there is also the possibility connections in the switch have overheated and are causing higher than normal resistance values (until complete failure) and that causes all kinds of wacky things to start happening.

Evil Mitch said:

i only ever use 98 octane in mine as recomended by my dealer.
The only time ive used 95 was when i was almost on empty in the middle of nowhere and thats all they had but i would never dream of puting anything lower than that in her ever but thats just me. ive been told that the low octane stuff is no good for bikes even by the honda dealer when i had my rice burner .

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Little Honda cylinders depending on the year and bike run a higher compression ratio.
So that might be true for whatever Honda you were riding at the time, not so for an R3.
Run a few tanks of 87 octane fuel through it and on one of the fill-ups add Techron Fuel system cleaner. If you don't notice an improvement in performance and general health of the bike, you can always go back. I'll bet you see an improvement in throttle response, power and smoother idling.

Jim/Maine said:

OK, THAT'S IT, I'm running U-235 from now on. Thanks for all your time and instruction. It is most interesting, and informative.

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Cool idea using uranium as your fuel of choice. Let me know how heavy your bike gets with all the shielding.

NOTE: The US Air Force toyed with the idea of a nuclear powered air plane (only because the Navy was building nuke ships). The advantages were numerous, including flight times in the years range between refuelings. The only down side was to shield the crew from the radiation the plane had a limited bomb capacity (one bomb no heavier than a bologna sandwich) and it still couldn't get enough ground speed to achieve lift-off.

Let me know how your bike turns out.

OR...... no shielding but one awesome LAST ride. If we could look ahead 100 years it might surprise us what the options might be.

I suppose you wouldn't need running lights with that bright glow.

and all along I thought it was my cheery disposition.

HellFire said:

I suppose you wouldn't need running lights with that bright glow.

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Not to mention the added boost of hurling the contents of your digestive tract at warp speed.

HellFire said:

That sounds like an ignition switch or TPS failing. 2007's didn't come with the updated TPS with blue innards. That change wasn't made until 2008 so that is possible with your bike. If you have not upgraded to headlight bypass relays there is also the possibility connections in the switch have overheated and are causing higher than normal resistance values (until complete failure) and that causes all kinds of wacky things to start happening.

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First thing I thought of was the ignition switch, because sometimes it feels like it's cutting off, then on again.

Thanks for the heads up, and my second thought was TPS. Guess I'll find out next week. Thanks Hellfire and others. Hope I get a Street Triple R for my loaner bike ( I already checked, no TBirds as loaners) Bummer.

oldsprint03

oldsprint03 said:

First thing I thought of was the ignition switch, because sometimes it feels like it's cutting off, then on again.

Thanks for the heads up, and my second thought was TPS. Guess I'll find out next week. Thanks Hellfire and others. Hope I get a Street Triple R for my loaner bike ( I already checked, no TBirds as loaners) Bummer.

oldsprint03

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I'll tell you what mine did when the ignition switch was failing .... The idle would jump up for no reason whenever it wanted, the bike would shut off just going down the highway for no reason. The battery would not charge once in a while for no reason and occasionally the instruments would sweep while running down the road.
After a couple months of these things and more just feeling like I was being attacked by Gremlins, one day it shut off and would not restart. After pushing it down I-95 for an hour and a half I stopped under a bridge and took a short nap, when I woke up it started. Pissed off and still under warranty I took it to the dealer and just left it thinking it would be there for weeks while they tried to figure out what was wrong. They called me the next day to tell me the parts for the switch would be in by week end and that was that.

Only here on this site did I find out about the weakness in the switches on dual headlight models. I was about to bypass the headlights myself when someone here spoke up about the Easter Beaver H4 Headlight bypass relay kit. Jim at EB was awesome and I've been a fan ever since (just like for the GiPro). I recommend the things I find to be effective and of good value to everyone that asks and get bent when someone asks just to start a fight. (you probably noticed that)

I hope your problem is an easy one to find and fix, yours being a 2007 opens it up to those two possibility's. '08's were the first to benefit from the new TPS and all but single headlight Touring suffer from weak ignition switch solder joints (they are still weak, just short a headlight). Just the nature of the beast... but fixable. Eastern Beaver's new R3 harness has come out since I installed mine and has made the modification easy and convenient. My early generic harness was a little more involved but still works excellent. My early GiPro has memory quirks but still was more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

Good luck and I hope you and every other new member benefits from the collective experience and knowledge found at this site. These guys helped me more than I can ever pass on, but I try.

I got a Bonneville as a loaner once, rolled my eyes at it but turned out to be the most fun of all.