KrustyKush

You probably are describing an issue that many here, including me, have commented upon. It is an odd characteristic of the Tracer motor. Do some searching on this forum and you will find a good amount of discussion. Having said that, I don't believe this is a fault. Yamaha surely programmed this. It really doesn't bother anything. It is just an unusual trait. I've tried to induce it in all gears to see how it acts in all situations. Seems like it is present even in the higher gears, but is most noticeable when letting engine brake slow the bike in first or second, especially from higher rpm.

21 GT. D-Mode 1 all the time. I tried the other three modes. 4 is ridiculous. I tried 2 for a couple of days but went back to 1 permanently. It is certainly a bit “twitchy” in the throttle but this little engine needs max power available all the time.

When I bought my Tracer I had first looked at a Hayabusa and commented on the lack of center stand on that bike to the sales guy, saying that a bike w/o a center stand was a far bridge for me. A couple days later I migrated over to the Tracer and the sales guy pointedly said, hey, a center stand! He then invited me to put the bike up on the center stand. I knew he wanted me to humiliate myself in front of everybody, and so I said naw I know what it is like. This Tracer is not as bad as some I’ve seen, but it is a heavy lift for a 73 y/o. wasn’t it Kawasaki that had a side stand on its Voyager 12 with a separate lever on it to help push the bike up? Without that lever you could pretty much forget the center stand

Here in SoCal, Tracers are hard to find. I bought one of three 2021s that were on the floor at a large dealer in Temecula, back in January. Within a few days, the other two Tracers also sold. Out of curiosity, I frequently check the web sites of the many local area dealers and hardly ever find a Tracer. BTW the Tracer is a great bike on the straightaway highway. I just put 1900 miles on mine with almost all of it on open highway, straight-line. Very few turns. It was a fine ride. I rate it as good as or better than my 2014 FJR. In fact, because of the lack of all that plastic bodywork I find the Tracer to be better than the the FJR. The FJR bodywork would bump my long legs as I shifted around in the saddle.

Yeah, this happened to me while removing front wheel discs on my 2005 Road Star. I had not expected to find thread locker on the disc bolts. By the time I realized there was thread locker on the bolts, I had stripped out a couple of them, and then while trying to drill out the bolts, the bit wandered around and damaged the threaded hole in the wheel. Needed entire new wheel. The thing is, I have removed discs from many motorcycle wheels over the years and NEVER had a bit of trouble. Until those Yamaha wheels. Nowadays I always heat the bolt heads and hope for the best. When I reinstalled those new bolts into the new wheel on the new discs, I did NOT use thread locker. I torqued the bolts to proper spec, and just kept an eye on them for awhile, rechecking them from time to time. Never a problem. I'm not a big big fan of thread locker!

Well, I just returned yesterday from a 1900 mile week-long ride from SoCal to Albuquerque and back. I don't carry many tools, just a small handful of things, certainly nothing so large and heavy as a 32mm socket and breaker bar! Let alone a torque wrench. Chain adjustment shouldn't be part of a trip of only a couple thousand miles. If the chain is in good shape, is at the young end of its expected life, has no tight links or damaged o-rings and has been kept well-oiled, it should need nothing on the trip apart from regular oiling. On my trip, I passed through the hot California desert twice, encountering temps between 50f and 106f. I rode through dust storms. The wind howled from beginning to end. I oiled the chain every 100 to 200 miles, by hand, and kept an eye on tension. The chain tension at the end of my trip was exactly what it was on day of departure. This is with the original oem chain and the bike now at 7500 miles.

In 97 I bought a new Yamaha Royal Star. Before I rode it I saw a trickle of coolant at the weep hole. They replaced the water pump within the hour (so they said) but the new pump also leaked the same way. Brand new, mind you. I rode that bike for 75k miles, then sold it to another guy who had over 100k on it last time I saw him. All the while, it would weep out a tiny bit of coolant from time to time. I have also seen this on a couple other bikes, mainly Hondas. Seems like every Honda I owned got a new water pump the first year. But a bit of seepage should not cause concern.

One thing I have noticed about my Tracer 9 is that it is very straight-line stable. Both my Harley tourers wanted to hunt and peck side to side. At times drove me mad. So I really took notice of this on the Tracer. I can understand wanting the stability and it probably is due to the longer swingarm.

Based on doing this same sort of thing myself years ago on other motorcycles, I would say it probably won't help much. Most likely, you will get a much more dramatic effect by changing out the fork springs for something heavier. In years past we would buy Progressive springs which feature a variable rate of coil. They used to do a pretty good job of stiffening up the forks on compression. The heavier fork oil can contribute, but it also may affect your rebound in unpredictable ways. In general, I do not do this kind of thing anymore on motorcycles. Modern bikes, especially the Tracer, have such excellent suspensions, it doesn't seem wise to tinker in that area. Worst case, you could make things worse, best case you waste hundreds of dollars and time. And there may not be a lot of technical expertise out there among the mechanics at the shops. 20-some years ago I took my 97 CBR1100XX to the selling dealer shop complaining of a clunk in the front end while going over certain types of bumps. The tech lied that the Honda front end was "weak" and needed "better internals" and so I allowed him to sell me an expensive "gold valve" thing, and I, thinking he was an expert, paid for his time and parts. It had no effect whatever on the clunk, and didn't do anything I could detect for the operation of the front end. Turned out the clunk was caused by a loose steering head nut, which BTW I figured out myself and fixed myself, for free. This is part of why I avoid the shops and the technical advice obtained there.

I did regular throttle body synch on my 2014 FJR and don’t recall needing to remove the airbox to get at the screws. The Tracer requires airbox removal. This significantly increases the work to do the job, mainly because of how hard it is to access the three 4mm clamp screws. I also am concerned about dirt getting in the TB by pulling off the airbox, also with running the motor during adjustment with the airbox removed. I spend fair amount of time keeping dirt out of the TB, and while running the motor during adjustment I have used Covid masks to cover the intake holes just in case a fly happen by and get sucked in. Maybe I worry too much about little, but that’s how I think. The adjustment screws are easy to get at once the airbox is off. On the FJR I may have used an angled tool, which I have owned for years, because most engines do this work with airbox in place, if memory serves, and at my age 73 it probably does not.

Last couple of days, I’ve been paying close attention to this “surging” issue during decel. It occurs consistently on my 21 T9GT. FWIW I ride only in D-Mode 1 and have not tried the other modes to see if it acts differently there. I assume that it does not. Decel in lower gears, let off throttle the bike decel strongly. Then, a couple seconds later (perhaps speed determined) the engine braking suddenly lightens up, as if compression were released or a tiny bit of gas is given the motor to lessen the effect of the decel. Afterward, normal slow to a stop. Weird. I can’t recall any other bike in my past that did this. It must be programmed in for a reason. I can’t imagine why. Maybe the designers felt the compression related decel is too strong for a normal slow to stop? If the decel continues for more than a couple of seconds, add a bit of gas to make it milder. But why?

I got one of the re-issues of the Night Hawk in 92. It was a parts bin special with a price tag of $3995. 750cc air cooled chain final drive. A fun bike but looked cheap because it was.

The worst bike I ever did valves on was my 97 Yam Royal Star. V4 with shim OVER bucket design. The cams stayed in and you used a “special tool” to depress the bucket while rotating the crank, then grab the shim with a tweezer. Very difficult. The special tool was all but impossible to deal with. Later, I also had a Yam Star Venture with essentially that same motor. I put over 150k miles on both bikes combined, and did a valve check/adjust every 26k. It was a lot easier to do the job every 16k on my 97 Hon CBR 1100XX which was more normal shim UNDER bucket. So much easier to just pull the cams out and work unfettered. it is a big job no matter what, but while you’re doing it, try to imagine that boy wonder tech down at the dealer shop doing it for you. Imagine how careful he will be to set the clearances juuuust right. And how you won’t know whether he did anything at all. And maybe just as well he didn’t.

I fueled up this morning near my house at a Chevron. Price=US$6.70 for premium. That's the highest I've seen yet. I recently traveled across Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, where the same fuel sells for less than $4 per gallon. Sometimes a little over $4. Taxes, of course. You'd think there'd be a lot more grumbling here in California about gas taxes, what with the state recently revealing a 90-something billion $ budget surplus. But there doesn't seem to be that much grumbling. In fact, none. I am one of the non-grumblers. The high price of fuel doesn't really bother me. I'm not rich. I live on a small pension. I value the gas highly. I burn it zealously. I enjoy burning it every day. I really don't care what it costs. If it goes to $20/gal I will eat less, but ride the same miles every day. I will cut out of the rest of my budget what is necessary to keep riding this motorcycle. In any case, prices will come back down. They always have, they always will.

Since I've only got 5k miles on my 2021 GT, and have not done much of anything to it but ride it and oil the chain, I'll reply by saying that, "in general," it is a very good idea to stick to the maintenance schedule. In the case of valve adjustment, many recommend going with the first adjustment a little early, for various reasons. Since you're right on top of the normal interval, you're due. I do my own valve adjustments. I started doing my own back when the bikes usually had threaded adjusters on the rockers, and therefore were easier to do than what we have on the Tracer. When I started riding bikes with direct actuated valves, I continued doing my own. Main reason I do my own is that I have a problem trusting anyone to do this work properly. I've encountered techs who will do a valve adjustment by "listening" to the motor and thereby determining whether any adjustment is necessary. I doubt this is possible on a modern engine, and so I don't trust that a shop tech will so much as take the valve cover off. I'd have no way of knowing. However, it isn't a job for a person that isn't pretty comfortable with hand tools, and working in confined spaces on delicate stuff. If you MUST find a tech to do this work, try to find the best, most reliable tech there is. And good luck!

I’ve seen Prius mentioned. I remember when Prius hit the stores. They didn’t sell. It took another couple of years and skyrocketing gas prices to get Prius going. as far as the Harley electric bike project, pretty sure they never expected to sell thousands of these early models. The project gives them ownership of the market space. Don’t see any electric Yamahas yet? That’s right. Harley is already there.

It does make you wonder. However, I have never heard of a multi-cylinder motorcycle engine that didn't need carburetor or throttle-body synch done regularly. Why? IDK. And it sure seems like something that could be eliminated. Maybe the manufacturers are loathe to make these machines as maintenance-free as a modern car. They understand that typical riders want to get their hands dirty on their bikes... Like most of my other bikes, I have done the synch according to the manual's specified intervals for the first few checks. After that, based on whether it drifts around much, I adjust the interval. Most bikes don't need much adjustment very often. Usually, it is something to be done alongside other maintenance that require body panel removal. I try to do as much of this stuff as possible so as to minimize the struggles with body panels.

The owner manual lays it out, but it is a bit hard to decipher. Those two small side panels slide out. They are held in by a hook on the fuel tank up front, and by two or three little slots in a plastic frame just under the panel. There may also be a push rivet in there somewhere. You will need to first remove the rubber space-filler-upper thing which is held with a screw. When you re-install the small panel, made sure to engage the hook on the fuel tank first. This always gives me a hard time. Also, with regard to the larger body panels up front, on my 21GT the rubber grommets were dry and very hard to push into. A bit of silicone lube on the male protuberances will make it a lot easier and harder to break something.

How ‘bout a gravel/sand carrier with his load uncovered, making a cloud of sand down the Highway. This is common in New Mexico. Not so much in California. Really burns me up.

Well, in this age of geezers like me not taking kindly to being told what to do or not do, I suspect that no amount of law will prevent this sort of thing. You’re better off going around the obstacle and letting the anger go. Motorcycling has always been so. The things we put up with….

My 2021GT will “misfire” from time to time but only at idle. It seems to “miss a beat” here and there. I don’t usually pay much attention to what any engine is doing at idle since idle isn’t what I bought it to do. I can’t say what other Tracers act like ‘cause mine is the only one I’ve encountered so far. I do believe the occasional unloaded missed beat is normal. As far as rpm “hunting” goes, my 2021 absolutely does not do this. However, like a couple other bikes I’ve owned, especially my 2014 FJR, as the bike moves over road undulations my throttle hand will also move. This will cause small throttle variations. A rider may not be aware of the throttle pipe movements they are so tiny. Is it possible that this is the cause of the OP’s rpm hunting at cruise speed?

One morning in 1993 I was riding my 92 Concours to work on a wet Texas back road in the dark. Approaching a 90-degree turn my brain farted, concluded my entry speed was too high. My I’ll-trained right hand grabbed what seemed like reasonably light pressure on the lever, but the road was too slimy wet for even that. While still upright, or even IN the turn, the front locked up and I crashed in heavy traffic, breaking the bike, a collarbone and a rib. It happened lightning fast. Anyone who has locked a front wheel on wet surface knows how fast the crash happens and how catastrophic it is. Yeah, I’m all in on electronic aids, but I won’t test them. I just hope they work when that panic moment comes. And it will.

Probably the cap, but even new rads can leak at solder joints. Either way there isn’t much mystery and it is an easy fix. I wouldn’t bother with a repair, if it is the rad body itself and not the cap. A new rad is relatively inexpensive, while anything “repaired” by our typically under-qualified techs will leave you with a nagging fear.

I’ve had several Corbin saddles on various bikes over the past 25 years. I’ve loved almost every one. The Corbin I had on my 2014 FJR completely renewed the bike. As far as this Tracer, I expected to need a Corbin ASAP, but as miles have piled up, I find the stock saddle to be not bad at all. I’m actually holding back on the Corbin for now, wait and see. I wish Corbin would build the saddle in two pieces, as with the FJR. I don’t ride with a pillion anymore, and want a nice flat saddle surface back there, which the stock pillion provides perfectly but the Corbin does not. What do I like about Corbin? A Corbin saddle is heavy. The seat pan alone is notably heavy. Corbin says a rigid seat pan is essential. I agree. These saddles are rather hard at first. They use a very dense foam. It takes quite awhile to break it in to the individual butt. Also I have found that Corbin gives consistently good service after sale. I’ve had a minor defect in stitching appear on a 3 year old saddle. I mailed it to the factory and they fixed it free. I probably will buy a Corbin for the Tracer, especially if they come out with separate pieces option, rider and pillion. But for now I’m ok with the stocker.

I think these Tracer panniers are “tough enough.” I use mine all day every day. My Tracer is my transportation. I don’t “tour.” Every time I get on or off, one or both of them open and close. These are nowhere near as svelte as the FJR bags but they are more useful. They seem to hold more stuff. As far as high speeds, I have cruised for extended periods between 90 and 100 mph and have never experienced any adverse handling. No wiggles or woggles at speed. I can’t even tell they’re there.