Vibration! A cure for bad vibrations, Spark Plug Caps!!

[darius]

I had already completed the spark plug procedure but have been getting some vibrations recently that make my feet numb from the buzz. RPMs around 6K were the worst.

What has really seemed to help is re-torquing the engine mount bolts and nuts. I loosened in reverse engine install procedure and then torqued them to spec (40 ft. lbs) following carefully the order specified in the service manual.

I'm barely noticing any buzz now. No 100+ mile rides yet, but fingers crossed.

 

[bricksrheavy]

Ah yes, the Fazer's advanced, state of the art "Something's loosey sensor", works every time!

 

[darius]

Ah yes, the Fazer's advanced, state of the art "Something's loosey sensor", works every time!

Yes. Good to catch these things before the bits fall off. I don't want to be the guy picking up his engine again at the side of the road.

 

[swedespeed]

Just want to say that nothing I did stopped my hands from going numb completely. Turns out I have advanced carpal tunnel syndrome and need surgery. I got a cortisone injection first to see if that would work and presto, back to normal, no numb hands when riding. Surgery soon. Amazing.

 

[bricksrheavy]

My bike started to vibrate couple of weeks ago, it seemed to have started suddenly and the vibrations were felt from idling in neutral all the way up the rev range.

So I check the usual suspects; plug caps seated? - yes, no loose nuts&bolts? - none, even went around the bike hitting it hoping I will find the source - no dice.

Next step when I can't figure it out is to run crying to my mechanic he starts the bike up, looks around and tells me everything is fine, I just need to loosen all the engine mounts and then tighten back up. Do that and lo and behold the vibrations reduce quite a bit. Run into someone's post here that it's a good idea to give the engine a couple of "kicks" with the starter while the engine mounts are loose so I do that to, and the vibrations reduce even more!

I'm not quite satisfied with the way it runs, but hopefully getting there.

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

I had mine on the center stand years ago, put some pressure under the engine with a scissor jack, then loosened and re-torqued everything.

Did the exhaust system at the same time.. Seemed to help..

My vibes are about nill (but with Grip Puppies)...

 

[bricksrheavy]

Went and re tightened the bolts again since the first time I didn't do them in the order specified by the manual (idiot). Don't have a jack so I just put the bike on the center stand.

Did the bolts, start the engine - not happy with the vibes. Undid the bolts again, and this time I put the bike down from the center stand on the sidestand and up on the center stand again to hopefully help everything "seat" firmer - the vibes went back to minimum.

Still not 100% happy, but getting there

Re the Grip Puppies;
Don't like the fact they absorb water since my bike gets rained on a lot. Have Progrip Gel Touch Dual Compound Grips and find them amazing - though they do wear out quickly.

 

[weehe]

So do you guys have the engine on when you torque the bolts down? I know that is a thing for car motor mounts.

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

So do you guys have the engine on when you torque the bolts down? I know that is a thing for car motor mounts.

Running???? Or do you mean supported???

Every car engine I've installed (old GM cars), were tightened simply while sitting on it's mounts.

Remember, the FZ's ENGINE, acts as PART OF THE FRAME, when tightened down, un-like a car.


*There is a specific order for tightening the engine to the frame, however, supporting the engine is not specified.

 

[weehe]

I did mean engine running. You hand tighten or almost fully tighten the engine mount bolts then torque them down while at idle. Helps settle the engine on the mounts. Previous owner dropped it and I'm wondering if I should loosen and retorque. Vibes are so bad above 5.5k rpms I can't use the mirrors.

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

I did mean engine running. You hand tighten or almost fully tighten the engine mount bolts then torque them down while at idle. Helps settle the engine on the mounts. Previous owner dropped it and I'm wondering if I should loosen and retorque. Vibes are so bad above 5.5k rpms I can't use the mirrors.

No, don't do this running. Do you have the Yamaha shop manual?

There's a specific procedure to tightening each bolt in a specific order.

Re-setting the entire exhaust can help too. Loosen header bolts at the head and everywhere else. Tighten the head-bolts again and work your way back. There shouldn't be any BINDING...

As a side note, mine fell over at 0 MPH, bent the stay, etc. Once re-assembled with new parts, I had a NEW, bad vibration. Went thru all the above and then some. Couldn't find or repair the vibration but after awhile it went away. I do use Yamaha's RINGFREE in every machine I own and that may have fixed the vibration as I used a SHOCK amount dose. Possible a dirty injector, ??? No actually "wrenching" on the bike when the vibs went away.

RingFree is a fuel system and top end cleaner VERY popular in the marine world. I also use it in my customers machines I repair (small yard machines, chain saws, weed-eaters, mowers, etc) and very often, after sitting over night with RF, I have to re-tune the carb and WILL pick up a couple thousand RPMs...

 

[weehe]

I do have the manual, but haven't looked at mounting bolt order. Just a thought that came with reading the above post. I've done pretty much all vib remedies including freering and exhaust reset. Only unknown maintenance is valve clearance, so that's next on the list.

 

[buzzbomb]

Hi everyone,

Firstly a disclaimer- Don't try this mod, it's still experimental and if you try it and your bike breaks down then I'm not responsible!

I've been working on a project on my bike, which was suffering from vibes for a long time. I had tried working on cutting the leads back, which worked kinda sorta, but not that well. Then I tried replacing the leads with some newer HT leads, but the issue was getting a reliable connection on the coil end. I had looked at the idea of Coil on Plug, and read a lot online about other bikes where owners had swapped their wasted spark coils for a wasted spark COP setup. There is a thread on an FJ1300 forum which details the conversion, as do several others, but many forums have been crippled by the whole Photobucket debacle which has made it hard to find detailed photos.
I decided to buy 2 COPs from a Yamaha fz07, just to try and see they'd fit. I found they fitted nicely from the top with the tank and airbox removed. I then ordered two more from a Yamaha FJ1300 from ebay and also a wiring harness from a Kwaka Z750. I stripped the wiring out of the loom and rewired it in series. Coils 1 and 4 were wired in series for one coil connector, and coils 2 and 3 were wired in for the other connector. Primary resistance went up from stock values of 1.53-2.07ohms to around 2.5. I checked the original coils and they were really low (out of spec) so that could have been the cause of my vibes, combined with the HT leads.
Anyway here are a few shots.




The bike fired up straight away once I finished the wiring and put everything back together. I ran the bike in the shed for a while then took it for a ride today and was impressed with the results. It ran cleanly through the rev range without any issues and the vibrations were gone. I could have easily picked up a second hand set of coils off ebay but I wanted to try something different and move away from HT leads altogether. From a technical point of view I was concerned if the coils would still fire the plugs cleanly at higher revs as the coils are firing twice as often in the wasted spark setup compared to the bikes they were designed for ( FZ07 and FJR1300) but the coils haven't had any dramas so far. I made up a wiring loom with spade connectors to plug straight into the factory loom. I looked at the option of wiring the coils in parallel but that would require a 1ohm resistor to pull the resistance back to what the ECU is expecting, so there isn't anything to be gained, in fact I did some calculations and worked out I'd have less power at the coils.
Anyway as mentioned it's still an experiment but so far the bike feels great with hardly any vibes in the 6k upwards rev range.
Enjoy...

Buzzbomb.

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

Great engineering!!!!

 

[fazil]

Great mod.
I would like to try it.
What about R1 coils, are they similar to FZ07 or FJR1300?
For instance, this one below:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/YAMAHA-R1-IGNITION-COILS-BN6-2017-2018/223142100235?hash=item33f44e3d0b:g:FE4AAOSwAJFa6MEP

 

[buzzbomb]

Yep R1 coils would also work. Only ones to avoid would be the earlier R6 coils which were CDI, and have a lower primary resistance. You'll be looking for something with a primary resistance around 1.19 to 1.61, so when it's wired up in series it'll be closer to what the ECU is used to seeing, and won't cause any issues with the transistors. MT07, MT09, FJR1300 and R1 coils are safe, but if you can find out the primary resistance then you'll know for sure if it's suitable.. Not sure about other brands.

 

[FinalImpact]

I was always concerned about the ECM's switches being damaged over time so I never moved forward on this.

I suppose one option would be to place an amp meter in line with power to the coils. It should give us a good idea of how much current is going through the ECM switches.

Good job and a nice leap.
Glad it cured the vibration issue... What a night and day difference when the vibes are gone!

 

[buzzbomb]

Yes I was hesitant when I first thought of the idea of replacing the standard coils with COPs. Once I started finding some links and examples of other bikes being converted I thought I'd give it a go. Having the coils wired in series isn't ideal as if one coil open circuits the other one will too, so you lose 2 cylinders instead of just one, but that's how the bike was all along with 2 coils for 4 cylinders so there's no real change. Having them wired in series creates a bit more resistance than standard (I measured 2.4ohms with my coils in series compared to a standard original coil spec of 1.5-2ohms) so there is less current flowing through the transistors in the ECU, but a bit more resistance/less current flow is better than too much current IMO.
I played around with a neat android app called Circuit Jam and it's basically a geeky game based on electronic circuits. After you solve a heap of puzzles it unlocks components in a sandbox so I was able to create the circuit with coils wired in series and parallel. Here is the series wiring showing 2 COP coils with an average of 1.4ohms. Across each coil there's a 7.2volt drop, and 5.14 amps flowing though each coil, making around 37watts of power flowing through each coil.



Next up I played around with the idea of a parallel circuit, but to restrict the current flow though the transistors I would need a 1.3ohm resistor. This meant that now I only had 3.6 amps flowing through each coil, with 5 volts across the coils, which works out to around 18 watts at each coil.


I'm not sure how it's all going to last in the long run but so far the bike runs really nicely, in fact its been years since it ran this smoothly! The coils fit nicely but when they click down onto the spark plugs it feels like they have only grabbed onto the top thread, instead of the original caps where you could feel it clicking down on several threads on the top of the plug. I might have to look at trimming the rubber grommet to allow the coils to fit a little lower onto the spark plug but I'll worry about that if I see lots of arcing on the top of the plugs.

Anyway thank you again for everyone's help on this forum. Sorry for geeking out a bit in this post.

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

Re, the clicking on of the caps. Try putting a little dielectric grease on the rubber where it meets the valve cover. The rubber gets hard over time (many heat cycles). The grease makes slipping them on and off MUCH easier.

I don't have the COP but just the regular plug caps, this makes a BIG difference..

 

[FinalImpact]

Yes I was hesitant when I first thought of the idea of replacing the standard coils with COPs. Once I started finding some links and examples of other bikes being converted I thought I'd give it a go. Having the coils wired in series isn't ideal as if one coil open circuits the other one will too, so you lose 2 cylinders instead of just one, but that's how the bike was all along with 2 coils for 4 cylinders so there's no real change. Having them wired in series creates a bit more resistance than standard (I measured 2.4ohms with my coils in series compared to a standard original coil spec of 1.5-2ohms) so there is less current flowing through the transistors in the ECU, but a bit more resistance/less current flow is better than too much current IMO.
I played around with a neat android app called Circuit Jam and it's basically a geeky game based on electronic circuits. After you solve a heap of puzzles it unlocks components in a sandbox so I was able to create the circuit with coils wired in series and parallel. Here is the series wiring showing 2 COP coils with an average of 1.4ohms. Across each coil there's a 7.2volt drop, and 5.14 amps flowing though each coil, making around 37watts of power flowing through each coil.
View attachment 69431


Next up I played around with the idea of a parallel circuit, but to restrict the current flow though the transistors I would need a 1.3ohm resistor. This meant that now I only had 3.6 amps flowing through each coil, with 5 volts across the coils, which works out to around 18 watts at each coil.
View attachment 69432

I'm not sure how it's all going to last in the long run but so far the bike runs really nicely, in fact its been years since it ran this smoothly! The coils fit nicely but when they click down onto the spark plugs it feels like they have only grabbed onto the top thread, instead of the original caps where you could feel it clicking down on several threads on the top of the plug. I might have to look at trimming the rubber grommet to allow the coils to fit a little lower onto the spark plug but I'll worry about that if I see lots of arcing on the top of the plugs.

Anyway thank you again for everyone's help on this forum. Sorry for geeking out a bit in this post.

Another option would be to add your own external switches. Like four fast switching FETs with a heat sink each rated at 60w or so. Keeping in mind the ECU is pulling these to ground. This would unload the ECM from doing any work. The problem now is that the ECM doesn't see the expected impedance and throws an error.

Something to think about.