RamAir Problem ?

Hello All,
Any help will be greatly appreciated. I changed the valve cover gasket which took longer than I wanted mainly because I didn't have a torque wrench handy. I think I was able to finally properly torque all the bolts correctly. While I was waiting for my torque wrench to show up I installed the Ram Air. I ran it through the 24 minutes without putting my hands on the gas. Came back a few days later and finished tightening the valve cover and went to start it thinking all my work was complete and it wouldn't start. I hear a buzzing sound when I try to start it up under the tank towards the front of the bear claw I'm guessing. It is pretty cold here so I tried to start it again and it sounded like it was having trouble getting going and so I tried to give it a little gas and I hear a small pop and smoke started coming out of the rear throttle body through the RamAir. I don't know what happened. Can someone take a picture with the tank up if they have the RamAir showing all the wiring connections on top of the engine. I'm wondering if something came undone. My battery is charged. I know I'm probably talking about two different things. That smoke scared the crap out of me, because all I see is $$$$$ that I don't have to spend.

Sounds like a weak/dead battery dude. The “buzzing” sound is the idle stepper motor. Charge the battery and go about your life!

First off, you shouldn't add throttle when starting the bike especially if it is cold. It will flood the motor and probably caused the backfire and smoke which came out of the intake. If you don't see any burnt wires, the smoke is probably nothing. That's what a backfire is and instead of the smoke coming out of the exhaust, it came out of the intake.

As to the no start, you need to tell us what the voltage of the battery is before you start and while you are cranking. This will help determine battery life. Ensure all the wires are tight to the battery, starter and ground also. You want to see a healthy voltage around 13 volts if the battery has just been charged. While cranking it shouldn't drop too much, say no more than 11 volts. If you don't have a voltmeter, boost the bike to see if it starts from a jumper battery. If it starts no problem, I'd replace the battery.

Jvheli said:

Sounds like a weak/dead battery dude. The “buzzing” sound is the idle stepper motor. Charge the battery and go about your life!

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+1 on the change the battery.

What they said....And also, don't freak if it pops a check engine light when you finally get it started. It'll sometimes do that after a failed start w/ low battery (ECU gets confused). You can either clear it w/ a reader/Tune ECU or it should clear by itself after 3 ignition cycles.

It wasn't the battery. I installed the new one with the same results. Here are couple sound clips. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I've never heard that sound in the 4 second clip until after the RamAir went on. I still can't figure out how I started it and did the 24 minute run through without any problem. The only thing I did after that was torque down the valve cover gasket. Some oil did seep out on the RamAir side when I did the inital 24 minute run through. Not sure if that screwed something up?

It's turning and about to start. Huuummm? All these bikes go though a pre start stepper motor motion which sounds like that. Do you have Tune ECU and a PC to see if you have a problem code? Did you change the stock air ducts for the RamAir just before this happen?

1K9 said:

It's turning and about to start. Huuummm? All these bikes go though a pre start stepper motor motion which sounds like that. Do you have Tune ECU and a PC to see if you have a problem code? Did you change the stock air ducts for the RamAir just before this happen?

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No I don't have one of those. I did change the stock air ducts before starting.

quadzilla200 said:

It wasn't the battery. I installed the new one with the same results.

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So I watched those clips. The one trying start sounds like...a weak battery. Where did the new battery come from? There are several people on this board that have made that same statement only to find their new battery was bad after needless troubleshooting and hair pulling/cussing. Do you have a voltmeter? read the voltage at rest, then while trying to crank and see what the voltage drops to...

Stillserving said:

So I watched those clips. The one trying start sounds like...a weak battery. Where did the new battery come from? There are several people on this board that have made that same statement only to find their new battery was bad after needless troubleshooting and hair pulling/cussing. Do you have a voltmeter? read the voltage at rest, then while trying to crank and see what the voltage drops to...

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I'm going to buy one just to have at the house. I took the old battery to the auto parts store and they said it was good. Some machine did the reading and lit up green. It looked like the original and it was 9 years old so I went ahead and bought a new one just thinking that was the path of least resistance. I got the YUASA high performance replacement from Amazon.