FI light going on and getting brighter with higher revs, will go off with lower revs or when the brake lever is depressed.
History, I had this problem last year, checked the charging and all connections. Replaced the RR and added the Vfrness bundle from wiremybike.com
Problem was gone, last night it came back. I took off the rear cowl and tested the battery and charging system, no problem.
I started routing around for a short and found one quickly, the wiring harness that runs behind the RR bracket was worn. I wrapped it with electricans tape and then added some rubber the length of the RR for wear protection.
I will let you know if this corrects the problem, see pictures.
1 RR and wire insulation worn, you can see the red and what looks yellow wire exposed that has shorted to the bracket.
2 rubber used as wear protection
3 rubber installed with tywraps
Yeah tie that wiring down good so it can't move around or rub on stuff. Another thing to check is the grounding block. it's the seemingly dead-end orange connector wrapped with tape near the R/R with all the little green w/black stripe wires. Pull the tape off, open it up, and make sure it's clean inside.
[image: View Post]MBrane, on 05 June 2012 - 11:46 PM, said:
Yeah tie that wiring down good so it can't move around or rub on stuff. Another thing to check is the grounding block. it's the seemingly dead-end orange connector wrapped with tape near the R/R with all the little green w/black stripe wires. Pull the tape off, open it up, and make sure it's clean inside.
Did all that last year, this is round 2 with these wires just grounding out.
[image: View Post]maxredline, on 06 June 2012 - 01:03 AM, said:
[image: View Post]MBrane, on 05 June 2012 - 11:46 PM, said:
Yeah tie that wiring down good so it can't move around or rub on stuff. Another thing to check is the grounding block. it's the seemingly dead-end orange connector wrapped with tape near the R/R with all the little green w/black stripe wires. Pull the tape off, open it up, and make sure it's clean inside.
Did all that last year, this is round 2 with these wires just grounding out.
Is it possible that the insulation is getting soft due to the heat of the subframe near the R/R? Things can get quite toasty in that area so you need to be mindful of how that stuff is routed. Poor connections can contribute to this by making the wiring run hot. VFR wiring is barely adequate at best. Any fault in the system can create big problems rapidly.
Update; While on a ride yesterday the FI light came back on :huh: . The symptoms were as the engine's revs climbed so did the intensity of the light and when I applied the front brake the light went off temporarily and then began again until I hit a fairly large bump on the road and the light went out and has not come back on. This is obviously a short so the search is back on.
So I have gone back to what I thought was I thought was the previous fix where the wiring harness was rubbing against the RR causing a short. I removed the rubber I zap strapped around the harness and pulled the wiring harness away from the RR and tied it off to the plastic rear inner fender. The rubber would have worked well as a wear guard but it was blocking air flow to the back of the RR's mounting plate.
Now I am looking at the harness and spots where it comes into other areas of contact where after 11 years of wear could cause a short. I have started in the rear sub frame area and will work my way to the instrument cluster. So far I did find a spot where the cluster routes its way by the left aluminum foot guard and installed a rubber wear guard around it.
This may or may not be a harness short, It could be a switch but it sure would be easier if the FI light would just stay on. I'm riding down to the MotoGp in July and I want this problem fixed before I go. :tour:
Orange grounding block left of the battery, wrapped inside the harness.
Mine was torched, I also ran new, separate ground wires directly from the ECU to the frame.
Check the wiring diagram and find every ground wire coming out of the ECU. Cut them near the ECU, solder and shrink wrap new heavier gauge wires direct to ground.
This is actually round 2 or 3, I have checked out the "orange Block" which looked fine and have added grounds from the RR to a accessory aftermarket block and grounded it to the frame and battery.
I have not done anything to the Ecu and I have a power commander installed so I need to look at all that with the O2 sensor bypasses in particular which is a likely culprit. :unsure:
I would totally unplug/disconnect the power commander and see if the problem goes away. That's the first and easiest thing to check when you get an Fi light coming on. Then go from there.
I have researched this topic extensively and have stripped the bike. I already know of the grounding issues around the ground block but the other main culprits seem to be;
wiring harness shorts
other poor grounds
connectors to various switches, relays and sensors or the units themselves
R/R and Stator system
ecu
One owner said he found a loose wire to his left headlight connection when repaired stopped all symptoms.
So here we go again, bike stripped time to party rock.
So after checking all the connectors except under the air cleaner including the Power commander, Vfrness bundle and ground block I installed and finding no smoking gun I re-arranged the Vfrness bundle and moved its ground to the battery from and frame (previous picture with 3 green wires attached to the frame behind the RR). I took her for a good ride up a local mountain road and no Fi light. I am glad the light is off but would sure like to know exactly why. If it shows up again the first thing I will go after the neutral switch.
You may want to check the continuity between the subframe, and the negative battery terminal. Could be that there's some galvanic corrosion in the mounting surfaces. Don't trust wires either. They can look fine from the outside, and be completely corroded inside the insulation. Always check 'em for resistance.
I have been reading up on the 6th gen wiring harness recall where the ground from the instrument cluster/head lights will get hot causing problems. If the Fi light comes back on I think I will install another ground to the cluster and headlights.
Took the bike for a burn today no Fi light until I got home in the driveway and the bike was hot. I figured maybe the fan relay or switch so I waited till it cooled off enough that it was still hot but no fan and the light was on....I know heat = resistance so round 4 or is it 5 coming up.
I need this fixed before my trip to the MotoGP.
Geeze, electrics continue to be the achilles heel of VFRs.
You guys sure the electrical parts don't say "Lucas" on them somewhere??
Good luck maxredline, Hope you eventually track down this phantom problem with your FI light....
I've never really put a lot of effort into thinking about this problem, but surely it basically means that the ECU ground is poor.
I suppose the question is - why the FI light? I can only surmise that it's not just the FI light, but the FI light is is the only *visible* output from the ECU which would indicate a poor ground.
It doesn't help that the 5th-gen ECU is under the seat where lots of heat can build up, making any poor connections worse.
Does anyone have a high-res wiring diagram for the 5th-gen? I can probably make some decent estimations where the likely culprit points are based on that. This would let you check each of these in turn.
I know for a fact that the ECU ground wires on the 6th-gen are both Green/Pink. You could measure the resistance across these from end-to-end or do a voltage drop test across them.
What the voltage drop test shows you is if the electrons are preferring to go via your multimeter rather than the ground wire. You should *never* see more than 0.2 volts on a multimeter on a ground circuit test. If you do, it means your ground circuit is very high resistance (i.e. poor). You can make some decent back-probes as well, and shove them into the ground pins on the ECU and then use a wire to temporarily make your own ground. This would be great test to run while the FI light is lit, becsause if the light suddenly goes out you know the problem is somewhere in that ground circuit.
Cool probe, I gotta make one.
The only diagram of the electrical system I have is from the honda PDF manual
Chapter 20 page 1
I am not an electrial type guy but it does interest me so I really like your explanation of the voltage drop test. If I'm down that way again I'll buy ya a VB or equivalent 8)
OK I just confirmed it is still Green/Pink for the ground wires out of the ECU. Probe those and run a voltage drop test and direct ground test. They're on the white/grey connector I think, not the black one - pins #9 and #20.
It's worth also cleaning the ECU pins as well, because the actual resistance in the ground circuit can be at any connection point in the wires. Judging by the service manual I just downloaded from here, those are:
ECU connector
Ground block
Main Ground point
Battery negative terminal
All of those, plus the wires themselves, need to be tip-top.
Here's the link to the service manual. http://www.vfrdiscus...l-part-a-and-b/ The wiring diagram is on Page 254 and 255 (when using Acrobat's page numbers) of the "Part B" file.
Just did some checking on this and apparently other circuits can cause this issue other than the ECU ground. Not sure why yet but the post I found in VFRworld clarified it as being a loose wire in the headlight circuit.
Maybe it was the headlight ground - coming loose it somehow caused a parasitic load on the ground circuit? Very odd. I'll need to go look a the wiring diagram to try and nut that one out.. At the moment I'm guessing the ground wire block gets dirty and so the ECU finds ground through some other dodgy way - and if that circuit also gets dirty...
I have gone through all of the usual suspect shorts and poor connection culprits and have found not problems including but not limited to the orange ground block and ecu grounds. With all the checks I have done to this point and that the problem only reoccurs when the engine is hot I have been lead to recheck the stator when hot as it checks out fine cold (the pinned ""stator checks" in the electical forum points this out).
I may check each of the stators output wires for Vac and risistance If I get a chance or I may just pull the stator for a visual inspection and replace it with my buddys stator from his deer damaged bike, gasket ordered.
Orange block to frame 0 ohms
Stator checks out hot and cold both charging and resistance on all wires
ecu grounds 0 ohms
frame to battery o ohms
If that damn Fi light would just stay on on, I might be able to track it down. I have been resisting breaking up the orange ground block and adding two ground to the frame and cutting the ecu grounds and redoing them straight to the frame but I am running out of options.
I took ALL three of the ECU ground wires (green and green/pink), and cut them off right close to the bigass ECU plug, and soldered/shrinkwrapped/extended/grounded each one of them, using three separate larger gauge wires, right to the frame solidly bolted.
No Fi light problems evermore. It's been a year.
My Fi light used to flash brighter and dimmer with the signal lights, and the bike would completely die randomly, and then restart after cycling the kill switch.
Thanks for all the input fellas and in particular V8C & IB. I hear what everyone has been saying and I am trying to educate myself in the mysterious ways of electricity. When I say that what I mean is; when there is a problem I like to know exactly what it is and how to fix it with out doing anything else, if not broken don't fix it type of guy. Saying that I do believe in preventive maintenance so improvements in reliability are valued highly.
So last night after some more electrical checks that proved nothing wrong I removed the Power Commander which was a recommended move by more than one, leaving the O2 eliminators in. At this point I am doing one change at a time to see if I can solve the problem and know the cause. I really don't have much confidence that removing the PC3 will prove it is bad but it is an electrical unit....And yes the improved dedicated grounds to the ecu and ground blocks would be an upgrade realizing the history others have had but all the resistance checks so far have proved nothing out of sorts though I have not done any voltage leak tests because the tester probe I made wire is to large to penetrate the plug ecu. Awesome ecu check sheet IB.
Fi light still on coming on intermittently with the PC3 removed, once the engine is hot.
I was thinking of trying another ecu that is kicking around but Kaldek aka IB thinks the ecu is okay and that it is the ground wires leading from it like V8C suggested so I'm game.
The 3 ecu ground wires cut and soldered then insulated with heat shrink then put into a wiring harness and routed to the frame ground.
Next was to tackle the ground block, stripped the block into the two sections and stripped the insulation off the new ground wire and threaded it in between the prongs on the block before soldering.
I have two soldering guns one quite a bit more powerful than the one I used for the ecu wires, I used the more powerful one to solder the ground block up, don't forget to use flux.
Then I used some more wire harness material and routed the two new grounds over to the frame.
Test road today no issues and the dash light are much brighter 8)
Thank for the help guys or I would still be pulling my hair out.