Wintersdark

Hah I've gotten that "Why do you have a darkly smoked windscreen? You can barely see through it; that's just ridiculous!" in the past.  I just chuckle, really, because it's not actually possible for me to really look through the windscreen unless I'm plastered down to the tank, and I sit my butt on the pillion seat to make room to get my head behind the windshield.  There's just no case where I'm actually looking through it... which is good, because in practice it's always covered with bugs and dirt anyways. 

On 4/23/2022 at 8:24 AM, 2NDCHILDHOOD said:

Congratulations! I came to my 2021 after owning an FJR too. I was afraid I would miss the power of the big inline 4 but the lighter CP3 has been just as much fun and easier to muscle around the garage. I trailered it up to Pennsylvania for a 4 day Easter weekend and some spirited riding with my brother-in-law up in the mountains there. He just bought a new FJR after trading in an FZ. I thought I would be left behind but the Tracer kept up with no problem. Enjoy!

Tracer is SO MUCH lighter.  The FJR is faster in terms of top speed, but very few riders are willing to push them that hard.  The Tracer tends out out accelerate and outcorner the FJR though, so in practice it's usually a fair bit faster.

2 hours ago, kilo3 said:

Oh God no, wrong direction. T5 please.

So, before getting my T7, I was pretty heavily leaning to wanting a T9.  

Now? Hard no.  The Tracer is the sport touring bike, the only real use for a T9 would be an adventure *styled* touring bike.  

The T7 is glorious fun offroad, but it's a hard line in the sand (teehee) insofar as I absolutely would not want more weight.  I don't think I'd want less power, but the T7 power is absolutely fine.  More is always cool and I'd be onboard for that, but no more weight.

When offroad, more power is literally useless, and the CP2 is honestly a better powerplant than the CP3. The CP3 shines more at speed and such, but as soon as you're in gravel/etc, it's just more weight.  

Yamaha doesn't really have a smaller powerplant that would be appropriate right now.  I mean, the little engine in the MT03 I guess could be a mini dual sport, but...  Ehhhhh.

All that said, replacing the Super Tenere with a Tenere 900 would sell like hotcakes I think, and it's pretty much certain it'll happen.  The CP3 is a VASTLY better engine than the SuperTen's twin, and the bike desperately needs a redesign and weight reduction.  

But it's not for me.  That T7 is just too much fun.

On 4/25/2022 at 12:31 PM, petshark said:

In the beginning the high rev range of this bike felt to me like I was about to blow the engine up. When I pushed past that after a few months I realised that I actually hadn't known what this bike was about. Now, I stay in second gear more often than not, almost till the redline. Third is only for +100 km/h on pleasure rides (they almost always are). And I stay in A mode at all times.

It is amazing that the same machine can be used as a "gentle" commuter while to me it is a race-bike in disguise. Kudos to the Yamaha engineers. 

The downside is that I do get really bad milage now, I've even started dipping below 30 mpg on average.

Hah I'm never out of 4th unless I'm well over 140kph.  It's such a fun engine when you let it play!

I care about fuel economy on long trips *if* there's a big gap between gas stations otherwise I'm totally indifferent to it - not going to have less fun riding to save pocket change on gas.  I get that gas is getting spendy, but it's still such an incredibly minor cost compared to basically all the other expenses.  Fortunately I ride with a bunch of people with bikes that feature way worse fuel economy and/or peanut sized gas tanks, so no matter how aggressively I ride, it's always someone else who needs fuel first

4 hours ago, 2and3cylinders said:

Proof is in the pudding...

Go back to a 16/47 R and see if the CC functions properly again.

As you said, it's only very slightly (.0625) under the 15/45; not enough to feel IMO; as I've run both (and am currently running it albeit in 520 rather the stock 525 for faster spin up and less unsprung weight).

Now 17/44 is totally the opposite direction, and would drive me crazy!

And I'd like to know how they got those fairly high dyno numbers out of a stock 20 (but maybe it has some mods), and what does he mean by "20 plate"?  I can't rember offhand how many clutch plates are in a slip/assist clutch.  I put a 16 XSR unit in my 15 and don't see how more plates would increase power; though fewer could cause slippage.

Yeah, stock gearing is what's being checked now.

But the 17/44... I mean, I honestly do not understand people who, as the blurb says, "...like a low
reving bike" because in this case you're actively, utterly destroying the performance of the motorcycle.  Why would you do that?  Just buy a Harley or some other bike designed to rev low and call it a day.  You'd tank fuel efficiency and performance both.  It's nuts.  Discussing this on the T7 forum as well, and I've come to the conclusion that people just "feel" like they're over-revving the engine due to their experiences on older, big displacement singles, but it's designed to spin faster than some big thumper.  

I mean, it'd be like buying an R6 then running it at 4k rpm.  It hurts my soul.

25 minutes ago, 2and3cylinders said:

As I offered a bit earlier, IMO the sprockets have no effect on CC functionality.

Daz, one option for an ECU flash is to "disable" the AIS (which actually just fools the ECU into thinking the AIS is still functioning,  So once flashed, the plug can just be taped over to weatherproof it and secured out of the way.  Otherwise, the AIS plug must be jumpered or kept connected to the bulky solenoid which then also must be secured out of the way.

No effect on CC functionality sure.  But CC is tired into a number of seemingly unrelated systems on the bike, so a mismatch in RPM vs ABS related speed may cause the CC to be disabled for safety.  That's a safety system that actually does make some sense.  For example, it could automatically disable CC if RPM is way too high for speed to prevent racing the engine if the clutch slips.

Particularly when you consider the range of things that can disable the stock cruise control - as per @Warchild's posts above.  

It still seems a pretty big stretch, but it did start after I changed the gearing from 16/47 to 15/45.  

20 hours ago, betoney said:

Do you have factory cruise?  There 'might' be a difference between the factory Cruise and the aftermarket MCCruise but I have had the MCCruise almost the entire life of my bike and have used 15/16/17 counter shaft sprockets and 45 and 47 rear sprockets in different combinations with out ANY issues from the cruise control, or differences with the speedometer.  I would be very curious to see if the sprocket change was the culprit.

Yeah, the Tracer 900GT comes with it as standard, it's not an option.  It's entirely ECU based.  I'm VERY curious - but also dubious.  I mean, going +/- one countershaft sprocket tooth is very much normal, to have that break cruise randomly seems very odd.  Particularly as the prior 16/47 gearing was ALMOST as short, and it didn't cause a problem.  There's no sensor on the sprocket, so it's not like a specific sprocket issue (and indeed, the sprocket I took off to put this one on was an aftermarket generic sprocket).

It's so odd that while I was listing things that where done between when the last time I know it worked and now, I didn't even think to mention it.  Mentioned the tire change even (because ABS sensor) but just didn't think about the sprocket change as being a thing.  

17 hours ago, Warchild said:

Basically, no one to blame but me for my engine light situation. I simply failed to do enough research to grasp that  when getting rid of the AIS plumbing, you need to do one or the other: either flash the ECU and disable the AIS during the flashing, or, leave the OEM solenoid connected. The cruise control loss would have been very, very bad.

 

Oh, I'm super glad you mentioned this!  I have the block off plates literally sitting on my workbench waiting for the bike to come back from the shop so I can install them as I definitely wasn't going to install them before taking it in for warranty work!  I'd be SUPER pissed if I did all that just to have my CC break again.  

19 hours ago, dazzler24 said:

That's interesting?  I did a similar block off job recently on my vintage 2015 Tracer and I left the AIS connector swinging in the breeze, but I don't get any errors reported or engine light?  Should I have?

Maybe it's just a later model ECU difference thing?

The 2015 doesn't come with cruise control does it?  There's lots of ECU changed between the FJ and Tracer.

On 4/20/2022 at 6:13 PM, 2and3cylinders said:

Unlikely IMO but even if you go back to stock would it be coincidental if the CC functions again?

It does seem like a huge stretch, but they've been working with Yamaha directly, with the full suite of official Yamaha diagnostic tools, and can't find anything else wrong.  

I feel the odds of the CC starting to work actually coincidentally exactly when the sprocket is changed back... well, they're pretty damn long.  It's not an intermittent problem, at least, so there's less worries of random things appearing to be fixes.  

Basically, if it's not the gearing, it's almost certainly a software problem. 

On 4/20/2022 at 9:03 PM, Warchild said:

I missed this post earlier... what action was taken that had the (apparent) result of losing Wintersdark's factory CC?  

I don't know.  Hadn't used it over the winter, though I only rarely rode the Tracer in the winter as the Tenere with it's studded tires was much more appropriate to the crazy weather we had.  Not a lot of occassions to want to be running cruise control in ice and snow.

Weather picked up, went out on a nice ride with a local group, only to find that my cruise control would stay on for 10-30 seconds then randomly shut off.  Things I'd done over the winter included new tires, new chain and sprockets (hence the 15/45 gearing, went from 16/47 previously).  

Before taking it in, I did my best to test all the switches and ABS, all functioned normally.  

Guys at the shop verified that all the related switches and wiring are running correctly, even taking it on an hour long ride with a datalogger running.  Couldn't find any reason why it was shutting off.  The best guess (and it's just a guess now) is that the gearing is just too far off and the ECU is seeing too great a difference between RPM and predicted wheel speed.  So they're popping a stock sprocket on to see what happens.  

Had the option to take it home and try that myself, but didn't bother.  It's probably gonna cost me a heck of a lot in the end anyways, just want my CC working again.  I could put an old 16t on there to test, but then I'd want to swap it out for a new one anyways - if this DOESN'T fix the problem, then it's still on them to figure it out because it's under warranty.  If it DOES fix the problem, I'm not gonna put the 15 back on there (turns out it's the stock sprocket for the T7, so I'll just keep it for that)... so there wasn't much gain.  But if it's the sprocket, it's not covered by warranty because it's non-stock gearing.

More info on the Tracer from the shop.  They think it may be the gearing change.  That would suck, given it's not the stock gearing so it wouldn't be covered by warranty.  Gonna order a new stock sprocket and give that a try.  I'd be pretty sad if that was the case, but... *shrugs*  Whatever.  Live and learn.  I want my CC back more than I want the awesome gearing.

On 4/19/2022 at 10:16 AM, knyte said:

Yep, no PATS (passive anti theft system) on NA bikes.  The blank would work perfectly.

Sadly, the new ones have them.  My T7 has transponder keys.

2 hours ago, Ride365 said:

Doesn't matter, stick with any 40 or 50 weight oil and you are gonna be good to go.

Oh, this you can't do.  Not "any". 

I mean, your engine won't explode, but wet clutch bikes and friction modifiers = slipping clutches.  Maybe not an issue if you never push your bike hard, though.

But realistically as long as you're using a decent oil of the correct viscosity without friction modifiers (most automotive oil), it'll be fine.  Covered by warranty?  No, it won't be, so if you're still under warranty make sure you follow the manual recommended specifications if you care about that. 

1 hour ago, 2and3cylinders said:

If I recall correctly it is 3.5 mm ID available in bulk from Honda.  Barbs I think are .125" which is tight but still fit fine with saliva before insertion and no clamps required. 

I'll double check and LYK.

I install extension hoses on all my bikes, even carburated.  

Yeah.  I've considered it for ages but never actually set it up.  But it's such a PITA to pull off all the fairings and tank vs. just slapping the carbtune onto exposed ports, then only opening stuff up if I have to make an adjustment.  I'd check it much more regularly!   With the two bikes, too, it's more valuable for me to fine tune my maintenance procedures and be more efficient.

2 hours ago, kilo3 said:

I don't think necessary is the word, more like an annoyance.  The noise doesn't bother me but it's the low rpm/low load vibration combination that bugs me.  Not that I experience much under 6k rpm these days but it does happen when i'm putzing with the wife in tow.
Just rolled over 14k, been annoying me since 6k.

In all seriousness, it was a major contributor to my march to shorter gearing.  Higher RPM's right away, push the cruising RPM up.  A bit of a fuel efficiency loss was worth getting away from that low rpm/low load clatter.

41 minutes ago, texscottyd said:

I strongly suggest that you NOT do that!     

I took a spin around the block a few days ago without earplugs, and was horrified by all the random mechanical noises that haven't been bothering me otherwise.   These are just very 'busy' bikes from a noise perspective...

Hahahahaha yeah.  I normally listen to music when riding, and every time I ride with my old (much louder) helmet that doesn't have a Sena... Oh god.  It's so noisy.  Transmission noise, front end clunky noise, chain noise... 

In the Tracer's defense, though, the moment you get on the throttle the only noise is happy intake noises and angry exhaust noises.  It's the low speed/idle noises that are horrifying.

10 hours ago, 2and3cylinders said:

If you did this easy nod (see photos) you'll never worry about loosing a cap again LOL!

Or remove any bodywork whatsoever to just check TBS...

I've been wanting to do this forever, but can only find very conflicting info on the hose/barb sizes.  What ID tubing did you use for this?  And what size barbs? 

24 minutes ago, dazzler24 said:

Are you replacing the clutch basket cushions because the clutch is getting noisy or just getting in before it does?

Just curious as I'm wondering what sort of miles are usually racked up before it becomes necessary.

Mine just has 25000kms and it's looooooud.  But Yamaha master tech (who owns one too) says "still fine, normal noise."

1 hour ago, kilo3 said:

Amassing parts for this next winters clutch basket mod, valves, plugs, coolant......

Are those the rubber, err, thingies that sit on the backside of the clutch basket?

9 hours ago, MightBeSasquatch said:

It's funny, I was pricing out tires the other day and I still have my chicken scratch on my desk. The new road 6's were only $71.42 USD more for a pair of the T32's. While the road 5's were only $3.38 USD more than the T32's. It definitely got me thinking to maybe try a Michelin on my next go around. Can't afford not to!

That said, I have only had the T32's on my tracer and I have found them to be good so far. The handling has been pretty great and I have had no issue with traction that I have noticed through all weather, including "graupel" last week (yes I had to look it up)! I was robbed of the chance to test the mileage on the rear as I had a flat and decided to just throw a tire on rather than worry about a plug and patch after 5k miles.

The Road 6's (and for that matter Road 5's) are objectively better tires than the T32's, but usually much more expensive.  They're grippier in the wet, and get much better mileage. That said, the difference in the wet is rarely super significant because you just ride more cautiously, and the mileage difference is only really important when compared to $/mile.

If you can get T32's a lot cheaper then they're a very good option.  If they're the same price, though, I'd argue it was simply crazy to not get the Road 6's.  

1 hour ago, betoney said:

GOOD GOD MAN, $500 for a set of tires? 😲   I don't think I have ever paid $300 including tax for a set of tires. 

Lol try being Canadian.  Even cheap T32's here are $460 a set.  

On 4/2/2022 at 4:43 AM, petshark said:

So what was the diagnosis?

So, it's seen many hours of work at with a Yamaha certified master tech.  All switches are working correctly, he's run it with a datalogger for a full hour, and been in communication with Yamaha.  So far, it appears that nothing is wrong.  Except the cruise control shuts off.  Yet there's no signal from any of the switches, no data showing why it turns off, it just does.  I'm guessing it's a software problem.

Glad I've got the T7 to ride while they're monkeying with it.  

21 hours ago, bwringer said:

 

1) Fresh hamburger grease spilled from a leaky truck. That was an odd one, but debris from trucks is a significant hazard to us all.

2) Left-turning triple-fake unlicensed phone poker. I'm pretty damn wily and hard to kill after all these years on two wheels, but this lady was a real brain-free zone and she got me.

3) Deer. You have deer in TX, and they're just as stupid and overpopulated as the deer in Indiana...

1. Holy crap, is that ever both wildly unique and also hilariously terrifying.  I mean, sure, you're absolutely right that stuff falling out of trucks is a very real danger... but hamburger grease?  Good lord.  Guy I worked with had a toilet fall out of a truck in front of him, ended up with it shattering across a wide area.  Got the larger part of the bowl lodged behind his front tire (didn't go down, but was unable to turn the front wheel; managed to pull over). 
2. Yeah, this right here is ultimately the common wildcard, the Really Distracted(or just incredibly stupid) Driver.  You learn to watch for them, but they're an everpresent danger
3. Deer are the single most simultaneously suicidal and murderous animals on the planet, IMHO.  Hard stop.

7 hours ago, petshark said:

I have exactly the same thing on a 900 GT. 

Perfect start:
-cold engine
-stop and restart engine immediately
-let the engine cool down sufficiently before restarting 

But when I do a short stop to get gas or buy something upon restarting the engine will often run rough for 20 seconds or until I rev it. My ECU is flashed for performance and it didn't change this problem. 

Mine has always done this as well.  A quick rev fixes it, so I've never really fussed about it. It's just an excuse to rev it 😃

On 4/4/2022 at 8:26 PM, NormR said:

I tried turning the knob while in front of my garage door and stopped after turning it half a dozen times without noticing a difference. I'll give it go one more time....

You want to be a good distance from your door to really see the change.  Like, at *least* 10ft.  

10 hours ago, stringman said:

thats really interesting. Thanks Bizarrely I am almost tempted by the GT but then selling the luggage to recoup some costs 

This isn't even remotely strange to me, honestly. 

My hard cases see use only a couple times a year on major trips.  Day to day, they stay off.  As I own a set of soft bags for my Tenere I've considered just selling my hard cases, and slapping the soft bags on either bike as needed.

The GT offers a lot more than just the cases, though.  If it was just them, I'd ABSOLUTELY just buy the base model and throw soft bags on.  

But factory heated grips, cruise control, tft dash, quickshifter, adjustable suspension... mmm. 

On 4/3/2022 at 10:07 AM, KrustyKush said:

Where I live, riding season is 12 months long. I feel so much sorrow for those who live in winter wonderlands. Reading the OP joy at the new season where he lives, I want to say Yeah! At least he relives the joy as fresh, whereas here in CA we get a little jaded from being able to ride almost every day. 

Pfft, where I live, it's riding season all year round too!  Still really look forward to the above-freezing temperatures and winding mountain passes that don't threaten death.