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Cav47 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 9:42 pm Why Festar’s cycle? BMW in the shop again? Lol. Kidding, you are being a good mate and keeping it fresh. I am riding tomorrow. Just gotta figure out which bike to take! Good for you John.

Pterodactyl wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 9:36 pmLucky man!

bigjohnsd wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 9:53 pm

Cav47 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 9:42 pm Why Festar’s cycle? BMW in the shop again? Lol. Kidding, you are being a good mate and keeping it fresh. I am riding tomorrow. Just gotta figure out which bike to take! Good for you John.

The CANBUS - ACCY interface device "Hex EZCan" crapped out for the second time. I replaced it once a year ago at "Pants" place on my March trip to Texas & Louisiana last year. This time the EZCan failed while I was performing a firmware update, apparently, the Firmware needed a Viagra as it refused to load. HEX's distributor in the USA, Twisted Throttle, is mailing me a new one. Freya remains on the lift with her bodywork removed and Fuel Tank off until the new EZCan is installed and properly working. Bodywork and tank removed earlier for cleaning and remain off in case any wiring changes are needed with the Gen 2 EZCan, the old one was a Gen 1 and some of the plugs may be different.

I'm enjoying putting a few miles on the ManStrom verifying that we have the Valve Clearance/Carbon issue finally resolved. It appears that we do. No loss in performance over the last 500 miles.

Pterodactyl wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 11:10 pm

bigjohnsd wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 9:53 pm

Cav47 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 9:42 pm Why Festar’s cycle? BMW in the shop again? Lol. Kidding, you are being a good mate and keeping it fresh. I am riding tomorrow. Just gotta figure out which bike to take! Good for you John.

The CANBUS - ACCY interface device "Hex EZCan" crapped out for the second time. I replaced it once a year ago at "Pants" place on my March trip to Texas & Louisiana last year. This time the EZCan failed while I was performing a firmware update, apparently, the Firmware needed a Viagra as it refused to load. HEX's distributor in the USA, Twisted Throttle, is mailing me a new one. Freya remains on the lift with her bodywork removed and Fuel Tank off until the new EZCan is installed and properly working. Bodywork and tank removed earlier for cleaning and remain off in case any wiring changes are needed with the Gen 2 EZCan, the old one was a Gen 1 and some of the plugs may be different.

I'm enjoying putting a few miles on the ManStrom verifying that we have the Valve Clearance/Carbon issue finally resolved. It appears that we do. No loss in performance over the last 500 miles.

No way 500 miles is enough to be sure Festar’s bike is fixed. Be a mate and ride it another couple thousand miles to be sure. He would do no less for you.

raYzerman wrote: ↑Tue Apr 28, 2020 8:34 am For sure it needs riding more than 500 miles.... refresh my memory, what all things did you do for the "valve clearance/carbon" issue. Have you done a recent valve clearance check to see if there's been any change?

raYzerman wrote: ↑Tue Apr 28, 2020 10:53 am I remember the initial story, I'm sure there were gruesome details left out.... just wanted to be brought up to speed....

bigjohnsd wrote: ↑Mon Jul 29, 2019 11:26 pm The Saga continues:

Previously Reported:

bigjohnsd wrote: ↑Fri Jul 19, 2019 9:27 pm We fixed that Sumbitch!

On our recent trip to Prudhoe Bay, Festar's ManStrom got atrocious fuel mileage 30-33mpg was the best he saw.
The bike was obviously running rich and would emit some brown smoke from the tailpipes when under WOT conditions.

We knew that one of the previous owners had screwed with the ECU using a "Yosh Box".

The Yosh Box is a scarce item made by Yoshimura in the early days of motorcycle EFI to enable their Pipe selling dealers to make tuning adjustments to early EFI bikes to solve lean issues after pipe installation. Much research and searching on the VStrom Forums and ADVrider, as well as some emails, led us to believe that we needed to "Un-Yosh" the ECU and get back to ground zero on the EFI tuning as well as establish a baseline of engine setup. In our diagnostic checks, we discovered that the rear cylinder exhaust temp was running hundreds of degrees cooler than the front and as we got to Spearfish the bike had begun to really miss, especially at low speeds.

We replaced the sparkplugs and cleaned the air filter, performed a leak down check on the engine and discovered that the rear cylinder was leaking past the intake valves, Hmmmm.

We pulled all the plastic and went to work to check the valves. Both sets of intake valves were tight and the rear cylinder Intake valves had no to negative clearance. Exhausts were marginally in spec.

Alex, of BH Moto fame, had a brand new shim kit at his house which he was kind enough to let us use.

We reshimmed the valves so all were at the loose end of the spec.

As we reassembled the rear cylinder Festar and I discovered that something didn't look right. As we had taken it apart the Compression release was on the Intake valve rather than the Exhaust valve. Upon further investigation, the Cams have Cast INT and EXH right in them and the Cam Gears are labeled E and I, the last person to assemble the head (previous owner we surmise) had put the cams in the wrong side of the rear cylinder head. It is a wonder the bike even ran!

We put it together correctly, verified our valve clearances, and made a few more adjustments, reassembled and fired it up.

The FestarStrom ran much better, a quick Throttle Body balance and she was quite smooth. Festar did a little Vanocker Canyon test run and was much happier with the smoothness but was still depressed about the crappy Fuel mileage.

However, "Help was on the way," On Sunday I noticed in a VStrom for sale ad that a guy in Iowa had an elusive "Yosh Box" to go with his bike. I reached out to him and promised my first and second grandchild if he would loan it, rent it, sell it to us. Just like the typical FJR Forumite, he said, of course, you can use it, please cover my postage costs. He put it in the mail and it arrived on Thursday at noon.

We immediately hooked up the box and performed the simple 10-minute procedure to return the FestarStrom back to stock. A quick Idle adjustment later and we each went for a test ride. Both of us thought the bike ran much smoother and noticed no flat spots or lean surge.

Yesterday evening we made a 160-mile loop through the Black Hills, Spearfish Canyon, Highway 85 South to Newcastle, over to Upton, then Sundance and back to Spearfish on I-90. Speed from mid 50's to '80s.

When we fueled after the run Brian got 39.25 MPG! By George, I think we've got it!

The rest of the story:

2,000 miles later, multiple day rides and a 1,000 mile run over to the Beartooth, Chief Joseph, Ten Sleep, etc and the FestarStrom began to idle poorly, pretty soon it wouldn't start again!

No Codes, Quick spark plug check - they looked good.

Compression check revealed only 60# in each cylinder, performed another leak down test which revealed intakes leaking again, WTF?

Checked the valves - Intakes tight again all 4 valves had no to marginal (.051mm on two) clearance.
No change in exhaust Valves from the previous adjustment.

Reshimmed Intakes and checked clearances at .2mm after complete.

Bike once again runs great.

I'm thinking the intakes were/are carboned up and as the carbon wears/burns off the valve clearance is decreasing as the valves come back to the seats.

We put a can of Seafoam in the tank and we'll run it a while and watch, recheck valves in another 2,000 miles.

More later........

bigjohnsd wrote: ↑Tue Jul 30, 2019 4:42 pm

raYzerman wrote: ↑Tue Jul 30, 2019 11:30 am Intake valves run cool, not likely to burn, but the carbon will build on them, leaking compression, hot starting problems. Seafoam good, run for a bit, but I recommend the old school way of spraying water in the intakes while the engine is hot and fast idling. Think of the steam cleaning principle, water and carbon do not mix. There will be lots of steam out the exhaust. Valve adjustment will be required after, clearances will close down as valve seats properly. After riding some (use the power band), maybe a week or two later, repeat, check valve adjustment. If valve clearance didn't change, carbon is gone.
Need another testimonial, ask FYB..... Need to see what happens with carbon build-up, see my project bike engine forensics thread.
There are commercial "combustion chamber cleaners" such as Gumout... likely have some water content, but good ole plain water works. Ya gotta be an old guy to know this... some old aircraft and cars had water injection systems......

I'm old enough to be familiar with the water method, commonly used on Flathead Engines back in the day.

Festar is reluctant to introduce water into the running intake. His bike, his rules........

Tough to make it run with the tank lifted enough to get to the top of the airbox to introduce the water, might try using the vacuum lines permanently installed to perform the throttle plate balance or it will require some real jury-rigging of fuel lines and fuel pump electrical connections, all doable.

bigjohnsd wrote: ↑Tue Jul 30, 2019 4:47 pm

FJRoss wrote: ↑Tue Jul 30, 2019 7:03 am Hope you didn't burn a valve. Must be OK if performance was restored.
If this was due to carbon, it makes me wonder how the previous owner rode it.
His is the big (1000 cc) Strom?

VStrom 1000, the previous owner seemed to ride ok but the first owner didn't ride much (a 17-year-old bike with 12000 miles) probably never saw 5,000 RPM. Someone really richened up the mixture as well. A combination of little heat in the engine and overly rich mixture seems to have coked-up the intake pretty bad.

raYzerman wrote: ↑Tue Apr 28, 2020 6:17 pm Ok kool, keep on using Seafoam, or if you buy into the similar stuff Gumout has..... supposed to remove carbon. Ride it like you stole it, don't ride like Grandma... those Vee's like to run and they're a great engine. Had two, no Yosh box, stock fueling and pipes.
I'd still give it a simulated water treatment with the Gumout stuff directly into the intake but might be OK... got a borescope camera with a mirror end that can see the valves??