Stick coil?

[dduelin]

2007 RT with 139,xxx miles and 50,000 of those mine in the last four years. I have service records from new to present. Previous owner did all BMW recommended services at a dealer and I have continued except I do my own service at home. 19,000 miles on current spark plugs and I presume still running on original coils.

 

The bike has always run well for me but last weekend it quit on me while running. It was very hot here (94F) and I had been riding three hours on rural roads at 50-65 mph. The last few miles of the ride home is on an interstate and when I get on that interstate the ramp is quite long and I sometimes take the opportunity there to run two or three gears to near redline. As I ran out third gear the engine lost power and began decelerating. Right at the point when it quit it felt like I hit the rpm limiter and I actually thought it swallowed a valve or suffered some internal damage. I pulled in the clutch and during the long coast from down from about 85 mph I determined the rpm was at zero and I could start the bike but when I opened the throttle to match rpms to 3rd gear I was in the engine would quit. I eventually came to a stop and started the engine. It would readily start but the idle was very rough and as soon as i put the bike in 1st it would abruptly quit, it would not idle in gear or allow any throttle opening in gear if I started in 1st gear. I did this 4 or 5 times then let the bike sit a few minutes to schuss out what had happened and what to do next. After these few minutes it started up again and went into 1st without quitting. I was about 3 miles from the next exit so I gingerly let out the clutch and began to accelerate. It began running very, very rough at 3000 to 3500 and would not gain revs above that. I got it into second with but the extreme rough running jerking of the on-an-off of the engine at 3500 I stayed in second around 3000 where it was missing but not jerking and made it to the exit. A friend came and took me home in his car to get my utility trailer and so I got the bike to my house. When I rode the bike around the gas station lot to line up with the trailer and get the bike up ramp onto trailer I could tell it seemed to be normal again. I rode the bike 5 miles after getting it to the house and it was like the event never happened, all normal. I checked the header temps and they were within a few degrees of each other. That evening I read a number of threads here about stick coil problems. The next morning I rode it 30 miles and checked how the engine pulled under high(er) loads from 3000 and ran it in lower gears in the 7000-7500 range to check out low and high rpm behavior and it was like it always has been the last 50,000 miles.

 

Does this sound like that of a upper stick coil failing under high heat and high load then after cooling somewhat operating normally again? If it is one of the upper coils how do I determine which one without being in failure mode?

 

Thanks

 

 

[dirtrider]

44 minutes ago, dduelin said:

2007 RT with 139,xxx miles and 50,000 of those mine in the last four years. I have service records from new to present. Previous owner did all BMW recommended services at a dealer and I have continued except I do my own service at home. 19,000 miles on current spark plugs and I presume still running on original coils.

 

The bike has always run well for me but last weekend it quit on me while running. It was very hot here (94F) and I had been riding three hours on rural roads at 50-65 mph. The last few miles of the ride home is on an interstate and when I get on that interstate the ramp is quite long and I sometimes take the opportunity there to run two or three gears to near redline. As I ran out third gear the engine lost power and began decelerating. Right at the point when it quit it felt like I hit the rpm limiter and I actually thought it swallowed a valve or suffered some internal damage. I pulled in the clutch and during the long coast from down from about 85 mph I determined the rpm was at zero and I could start the bike but when I opened the throttle to match rpms to 3rd gear I was in the engine would quit. I eventually came to a stop and started the engine. It would readily start but the idle was very rough and as soon as i put the bike in 1st it would abruptly quit, it would not idle in gear or allow any throttle opening in gear if I started in 1st gear. I did this 4 or 5 times then let the bike sit a few minutes to schuss out what had happened and what to do next. After these few minutes it started up again and went into 1st without quitting. I was about 3 miles from the next exit so I gingerly let out the clutch and began to accelerate. It began running very, very rough at 3000 to 3500 and would not gain revs above that. I got it into second with but the extreme rough running jerking of the on-an-off of the engine at 3500 I stayed in second around 3000 where it was missing but not jerking and made it to the exit. A friend came and took me home in his car to get my utility trailer and so I got the bike to my house. When I rode the bike around the gas station lot to line up with the trailer and get the bike up ramp onto trailer I could tell it seemed to be normal again. I rode the bike 5 miles after getting it to the house and it was like the event never happened, all normal. I checked the header temps and they were within a few degrees of each other. That evening I read a number of threads here about stick coil problems. The next morning I rode it 30 miles and checked how the engine pulled under high(er) loads from 3000 and ran it in lower gears in the 7000-7500 range to check out low and high rpm behavior and it was like it always has been the last 50,000 miles.

 

Does this sound like that of a upper stick coil failing under high heat and high load then after cooling somewhat operating normally again? If it is one of the upper coils how do I determine which one without being in failure mode?

 

Thanks

 

 

Morning Dave

 

That is going to be difficult to find now the it started running good again. Especially over the internet. 

 

It's possible a stick coil but they usually don't act like yours did. It would probably have to be "both" uppers the way it just quits at higher RPM's. 2 coils quitting at the same time is very unlikely

 

The stick coils typically quit then don't come back & it should have somewhat run on just the lower coils at lower RPM's. Not saying it isn't the coils but to me it seems unlikely.  

 

It sounds more like a fueling problem, possibly the fuel boiling in the fuel  lines or in the fuel tank from having in the incorrect vapor pressure for that extreme heat. 

 

Now that it is running good again you probably won't even tell much putting a GS-911 on it. 

 

Run that fuel out of your fuel tank then put some top tier (quality) gasoline in the tank then see if the problem comes back.

 

If it does come back  then you might have to look into your fuel filter (the fuel filter is meant to be non-replaceable but it can be cleaned, or if very creative replaced. 

 

If it doesn't come back then very possibly incorrect gasoline for conditions.  

[dduelin]

Thank you D.R.

 

FWIW in the service history the fuel pump assembly 16140748WM was replaced at 76,000 miles. I do use top tier fuel when I can at 91 octane. Shell branded fuel is in it and the tank had about 170 miles on it when it happened. I do have a GS-911 and ran a fault check when I got it home from the cool morning after ride the next morning after the event. I forgot to include that in the original post. The GS-911 did show 3 codes - first was 10111 Side Stand Switch which I attributed to starting the GS-911 program with the side stand deployed. The other two were low voltage faults 24052 & 24051 with "fault is not present now." I replaced the battery about 6 months ago on general principles before it got to a No Crank point.

 

If it happens again what should I be looking for on the GS-911? I did clear the low voltage codes.

[dirtrider]

27 minutes ago, dduelin said:

Thank you D.R.

 

FWIW in the service history the fuel pump assembly 16140748WM was replaced at 76,000 miles. I do use top tier fuel when I can at 91 octane. Shell branded fuel is in it and the tank had about 170 miles on it when it happened. I do have a GS-911 and ran a fault check when I got it home from the cool morning after ride the next morning after the event. I forgot to include that in the original post. The GS-911 did show 3 codes - first was 10111 Side Stand Switch which I attributed to starting the GS-911 program with the side stand deployed. The other two were low voltage faults 24052 & 24051 with "fault is not present now." I replaced the battery about 6 months ago on general principles before it got to a No Crank point.

 

If it happens again what should I be looking for on the GS-911? I did clear the low voltage codes.

Evening Dave

 

With the problem happening or just after it happened (very soon after) you need to look that the trapped Lambda sensor history, injection pulse times, lambda control factors, both additive trim banks, multiplicative banks 1 & 2. 

 

Problem is, you REALLY need to know what you are looing for, or are looking at, as the signs will probably be subtle & difficult to distinguish from normal.

 

It can help to have a recent trapped data stream in Excel of a the fueling control that is working correctly.  Even then you could miss the difference is the operating conditions are different between the two data traps. 

 

To really be helpful you probably need to have your GS-911 set up to be trapping engine data WHILE the problem is happening.

 

 

[PT Matt]

Looking through Hexhead threads and i find this.

 

Pretty sure this is the bike I'm trying to get running, Dave.

 

Stay tuned...