Engine shake in a R1200S after a lowside

[FinalDrive]

I have a 2006 R1200S that I got at an auction after it had been down. The bike’s engine shakes at idle and the running is a bit rough. This smooths out above 3k rpm. However, when rolling off the throttle, there is often some loss of power below 3k rpm, and power delivery at slow speeds is uneven. There is also a bit of a tick in the cylinder away from the one that has been down. The latter two symptoms are worse when the engine is hot.

 Here’s what I did so far:

- replaced cracked valve cover and o-ring

- replaced primary ignition coils and tested secondary coils

- calibrated idle actuators using motoscan

- engine compression test is fine

- changed spark plugs

- changed air filter

- valve clearance adjust

- throttle body sync is fine 

 

None of this helps. 
 

Any ideas?

 

Alex

[Lowndes]

What about the injectors??  You could try Dirtrider's trick of adding some Techron concentrate to the fuel tank and see if that has any effect.  It works.  I do it routinely.

 

Are the TB's clean??  Especially the passages to and from the BBS. 

 

Pull an injector, leave all the elec and fuel line connections on it, put the tip of an injector in a clear plastic pop bottle and crank the engine while watching for spray and the pattern of spray.  It might start and run on one cyl which is ok.  Then swap sides.  The difference in the running or not running should tell you which side the problem is on, if there is a difference. If no difference that will tell you something else.   You should see a good, strong, pulsing, very fine mist spray pattern on each side.

 

There are tiny (size of a grain of rice) filters in the inlet side of the Bosch injectors.  If anything got shaken loose in the tank, pump, or hoses and past the filter inside the tank one or both might have a partially blocked little filter and injector. 

 

No air leaks between the air filter and the heads, crossover hose connected??

 

The other part is the timing of the spark and injectors (HES).

 

Also, if a bike goes down on one side the oil pickup could suck air.  That would cause problems if the engine wasn't shut down quickly.

 

 

[dirtrider]

4 hours ago, Lowndes said:

What about the injectors??  You could try Dirtrider's trick of adding some Techron concentrate to the fuel tank and see if that has any effect.  It works.  I do it routinely.

 

Are the TB's clean??  Especially the passages to and from the BBS. 

 

Pull an injector, leave all the elec and fuel line connections on it, put the tip of an injector in a clear plastic pop bottle and crank the engine while watching for spray and the pattern of spray.  It might start and run on one cyl which is ok.  Then swap sides.  The difference in the running or not running should tell you which side the problem is on, if there is a difference. If no difference that will tell you something else.   You should see a good, strong, pulsing, very fine mist spray pattern on each side.

 

There are tiny (size of a grain of rice) filters in the inlet side of the Bosch injectors.  If anything got shaken loose in the tank, pump, or hoses and past the filter inside the tank one or both might have a partially blocked little filter and injector. 

 

No air leaks between the air filter and the heads, crossover hose connected??

 

The other part is the timing of the spark and injectors (HES).

 

Also, if a bike goes down on one side the oil pickup could suck air.  That would cause problems if the engine wasn't shut down quickly.

 

 

Morning  Lowndes

 

There are no BBS screws on the 2006 1200 hexhead, the idle balance is handled by the fueling computer using the idle steppers (idle actuators). 

 

There is also no crossover hose on the hexhead as the hexhead only purges from one side TB. 

 

There is also no HES on the 1200 hexhead as it reads the ignition position from a "crankshaft sensor" & injector and  spark trigger positions off of the "camshaft sensor" (at camshaft reduction RPM)  so it knows when each cylinder is actually at TDC compression. 

[dirtrider]

10 hours ago, FinalDrive said:

I have a 2006 R1200S that I got at an auction after it had been down. The bike’s engine shakes at idle and the running is a bit rough. This smooths out above 3k rpm. However, when rolling off the throttle, there is often some loss of power below 3k rpm, and power delivery at slow speeds is uneven. There is also a bit of a tick in the cylinder away from the one that has been down. The latter two symptoms are worse when the engine is hot.

 Here’s what I did so far:

- replaced cracked valve cover and o-ring

- replaced primary ignition coils and tested secondary coils

- calibrated idle actuators using moto scan

- engine compression test is fine

- changed spark plugs

- changed air filter

- valve clearance adjust

- throttle body sync is fine 

 

None of this helps. 
 

Any ideas?

 

Alex

Morning Alex

 

How did you test the secondary coils? Those are not easy to test as the secondary side of the coil is isolated. Plus they usually fail with the spark arcing internally to the internal RFI shield & that is not measurable. 

 

Have to tried to run the engine on just the lower spark plugs (uppers disconnected)?  If so then were both side front exhaust pipes about the same temperature?????

 

Have you checked the above idle cross side throttle body balance using a manometer? If not then do this as you might have a problem in this area.  

 

You probably should also slide the throttle body cable covers up the cables a little then carefully inspect the plastic throttle cams for being cracked   (a number of the older 1200 bikes are riding around with cracked throttle cams.

 

If the above proves out OK then to tell much more you really should get a GS-911 on that engine (your Motoscan might also work) then trap some road-load (actual riding) fueling control data.   Look at the engine fueling & spark details like learned fueling adaptives & lambda sensor voltages, including additive trim (banks 1 & 2), Multiplicative trim (banks 1  2),  lambda output voltage tracking, etc. 

 

You also need to verify TPS (Throttle Position Sensor) tracking & proper output (especially if there is a chance that the motorcycle fell on that side & hit the TPS sensor)

 

But start with the lower spark plugs & lower coils as on the hexhead the lower spark is primarily used at lower RPMs & is basically phase shifted out of functional use at higher RPMs. 

 

 

 

 

[FinalDrive]

Thank you!

 

Because of the symptoms, my guess is something with the secondary coils as well. I took them out, checked the length and strength of the spark, measured any differences in resistance, and swapped them between cylinders to see if I observe any noticeable change in behaviour. None of these tests yielded anything of note. I am tempted to just buy a new set and see if that helps. I did replace all four plugs, which seemed like the lowest hanging fruit. 

 

I looked at differences in anything motoscan gives for the various bilateral sensors, but the differences are within the least significant digit (if any). That being said, I have no idea what the values are, and would love to know what’s actually being measured! 

 

I’ll definitely check out the condition of the TPS and the throttle cam — that’s a good idea.

 

Alex

 

[dirtrider]

10 hours ago, FinalDrive said:

Thank you!

 

Because of the symptoms, my guess is something with the secondary coils as well. I took them out, checked the length and strength of the spark, measured any differences in resistance, and swapped them between cylinders to see if I observe any noticeable change in behaviour. None of these tests yielded anything of note. I am tempted to just buy a new set and see if that helps. I did replace all four plugs, which seemed like the lowest hanging fruit. 

 

I looked at differences in anything motoscan gives for the various bilateral sensors, but the differences are within the least significant digit (if any). That being said, I have no idea what the values are, and would love to know what’s actually being measured! 

 

I’ll definitely check out the condition of the TPS and the throttle cam — that’s a good idea.

 

Alex

 

Morning Alex

 

First thing to try is to try to run the engine on just the lower spark plugs (with uppers disconnected)?  If it will run on just the lowers (will probably take holding the throttle open just a little) then see if both side front exhaust pipes are running about the same temperature.

 

Do not just remove the upper coils from the plugs & leave connected  but actually unplug the upper coils from the power pigtails (so they don't arc internally).