Engine is "sputtery" at lower rpms

[Marcin]

Thanks @huck. I took your advice and after reading your post did a little bit of research but was soon after that sold. Bought it... The DHL shipping is super fast from those guys - to Canada in 4 days so US is probably even faster. Installation was a breeze and ultimately the bike runs much better. All the advertised aspects are checking out (I have the 2015 FJ09). The 3 power modes on the bike behave much better.

This ultimately is a game changer for how the bike runs and I can once again truly enjoy the bike. This makes especially a difference in places where ambient temperatures are high.

Great buy I think considering the improvements.

Also, I've read somewhere that this particular tuning aspect is not available via flashing (programming) of the ECU - but I was never able to confirm this.

[huck]

Wow Marcin! I posted that back in '18... I'm glad I could help. I have a '15 as well. and yes, I have done the flash which helped a lot, but did not take care of the off idle, low speed throttle problem, and I agree, easy instal, and instant response. To me it was a last resort as I was about to ditch the bike out of frustration. but the little gadget made all the difference. I have put on another 50K miles since installing it and hope to put on another 50. I understand the newer models have improved but I have not ridden one yet and don't need a new bike so I likely won't bother until it is time to replace this one. The only problem is that it does its job by faking the intake air temp. The new intake air sensor also feeds the on board temp gage rendering it inaccurate and unusable. No problem as I simply installed a stick-on temp gage to take it's place. Again, glad I could help. Once that dreadful problem was solved, and the true potential of the bike was "revealed" it became a keeper that I have enjoyed every day. I am not sure why these early units were set up to run so lean, Something to do with emissions? 

The only other problem I have had with this bike was the common problem of a broken clutch cable due to the badly designed tubular cable housing at the top (Lever end) that caused too much friction. The new version extended the tube in length, and built it with a larger radius. If you still have the original, I suggest replacing it ASAP. 

I have had a number of new Yamaha's over the years, and have never had problems like this before, so I am not really pleased in that regard. And, to my knowledge Yamaha has not offered any solution for the issue we solved with the Power Plug. Also, the faulty cable was not recalled, although clearly flawed, and we all had to pay for the new one. Again, not pleased that these issues were not dealt with by Yamaha like they did quickly with the recalled handle bar risers. Again glad my suggestion helped and you are now able to really enjoy the bike.

 

[2WHLOZK]

On 8/3/2018 at 7:20 PM, huck said:

I have flashed my bike as well, and it was a significant help, as everyone knows... But it did not fix the bad off idle lean fueling. a friend recommended the Booster Plug
Go here:
https://www.boosterplug.com/shop/frontpage.html
 
If you go to the site, there is a free 40 page book offered for free that explains everything you ever wanted to know, and more, about bike fuel injection, and how and why Fi bikes are delivered running very lean in aid of meeting certain standards. Because they are set so lean, and because bikes have relatively light weight fly wheels... The off idle and rapid shifting fueling is terrible. This is particularly bad on our FJ-09s. The Booster plug is a gadget that works along with the air intake sensor (Not effected by flashing) to correct the the fueling issue-all explained in the free book. And it is easy to instal. There pieces of body work, and one connector.
What I once thought of a a pretty good bike with crap off idle fueling, is now a very good bike with no... NONE, off idle stumble. It is like riding a carburetor bike. I can now ride calmly at walking speed without using the clutch, shifting in tight corners is smoothed out, and now, all three modes actually make sense.
The unit is unconditionally guaranteed so they do a refund if you are unsatisfied. I was skeptical of course, until I hooked it up and went riding... this is really a fantastic change for the better. In fact, I was very close to simply selling the bike and going to something else because of the frustrating low speed stumble and difficulty in riding slowly... But that is now simply gone. The bike runs better all around as fueling is now so smooth.
One thing... Because this unit effects the way the air temp sensor works, your dash meter thermometer will show 35 degreed F low. I simply bought a small stick on unit to take it's place.
I am not affiliated with this company, but the product is so good I wish I was!
Seriously, if the off idle stumble is as frustrating to you as it was to me, give this unit a try. It simply works as advertised.

Very interesting, thanks for posting this.  The off-idle stumble on my 2020 Tracer is my only niggle with the bike (well that, and the crap seat, which I'll remedy).  I wasn't sure what to do about it...check throttle body sync, get the ECU flashed, or just live with the inherent quirk.  I don't really wanna have a flash job done (wondering if ECU flash would affect my extended warranty, not to mention the hassle).  If the Booster Plug is a stand-alone solution without flashing, then $160 seems like a no brainer.   The easy-peasy install is the cherry on top.

Curious, any significant loss of fuel mileage?  (not that that's a deal breaker)  TIA

[2WHLOZK]

3 hours ago, Marcin said:

Thanks @huck. I took your advice and after reading your post did a little bit of research but was soon after that sold. Bought it... The DHL shipping is super fast from those guys - to Canada in 4 days so US is probably even faster. Installation was a breeze and ultimately the bike runs much better. All the advertised aspects are checking out (I have the 2015 FJ09). The 3 power modes on the bike behave much better.

This ultimately is a game changer for how the bike runs and I can once again truly enjoy the bike. This makes especially a difference in places where ambient temperatures are high.

Great buy I think considering the improvements.

Also, I've read somewhere that this particular tuning aspect is not available via flashing (programming) of the ECU - but I was never able to confirm this.

Cool beans.  

So I gather that at this point you've completely ruled out any desire to have your ECU flashed?

[huck]

2WKLOZK,  I had my bike flashed first, but as stated, this problem was not solved. The Booster Plug did solve it. 

In regard to your question regarding flashing. I had a fairly extensive email conversation with Lars, at Power Plug who suggested that this unit was indeed a stand alone product and that one did not "Need" the flash. You may want to discuss this directly with the the power plug folks. I di, and found them to be very responsive and very thorough in answering questions.  However, since I had the flash done first I can't reply with personal experience. Why not do the plug first and see if you are happy with the result. It carries a full money back warranty if you are not happy. You can get a list of what the flash does address. The flash does address several other issues, but you may not care about those specifics. Do give this a try, it really is easy to instal, and it really works. 

I personally experienced a slight increase in milage. But, that might have been because I no longer needed to use higher RPMs in lower gears to try and overcome the stumbles. 

I am not associated with this company, but I am a big fan. 

[2WHLOZK]

On 7/25/2020 at 7:27 AM, huck said:

2WKLOZK,  I had my bike flashed first, but as stated, this problem was not solved. The Booster Plug did solve it. 

In regard to your question regarding flashing. I had a fairly extensive email conversation with Lars, at Power Plug who suggested that this unit was indeed a stand alone product and that one did not "Need" the flash. You may want to discuss this directly with the the power plug folks. I di, and found them to be very responsive and very thorough in answering questions.  However, since I had the flash done first I can't reply with personal experience. Why not do the plug first and see if you are happy with the result. It carries a full money back warranty if you are not happy. You can get a list of what the flash does address. The flash does address several other issues, but you may not care about those specifics. Do give this a try, it really is easy to instal, and it really works. 

I personally experienced a slight increase in milage. But, that might have been because I no longer needed to use higher RPMs in lower gears to try and overcome the stumbles. 

I am not associated with this company, but I am a big fan. 

Well, the Booster Plug went in today.  After a three hour test ride I can confirm that the Plug has lived up to its claims, and has performed for me exactly as you described it did for you.  This will likely be the best mod I'll ever do to my GT.

Thanks again for posting about it!  Cheers.

[Wintersdark]

You for sure can get a flash that corrects these issues, as a flash is way more that just fuel mapping.  That's going to depend entirely on who's making the flash though.  I'd argue the plug's not as good as a flash because it cannot turn off the injector fuel decel cutoff which you certainly can (and I have) disabled during a flash.  However, a flash will certainly void aspects of warranty, and obviously costs a lot more and typically involves a chunk of downtime.  Particularly as a Canadian, shipping your ECU to the US and back is about $100 before you even look at the cost of the flash, and can randomly come with really long border waits and the dreaded fear of it just being lost in customs.

With that said, while the Booster Plug is indeed much narrower in scope (basically, idle, idle to throttle transitions, and partial throttle at low speed/low rpm only) it does what it does pretty well. It's not so much a performance mod like a flash (can) be, but it's definitely a rideability improvement and if that's your goal, it's the right product. 

BTH at this point I feel the Plug isn't amazing - I'm not as sold as @2WHLOZK is - but it *is* a good product that does what it says on the tin.  

Interestingly, I found that you get the best improvements in B and STD mode, and I was kind of expecting it to be more of an improvement in A mode.  In retrospect, I figure this is because A is abrupt by design so while it smooths the transitions and such, it's not so noticable.  But it makes B mode in particular ride WAY better, because that stutter was really noticeable when followed by how gentle B is.  

[rodb47]

On 7/25/2020 at 8:27 AM, huck said:

2WKLOZK,  I had my bike flashed first, but as stated, this problem was not solved. The Booster Plug did solve it. 

In regard to your question regarding flashing. I had a fairly extensive email conversation with Lars, at Power Plug who suggested that this unit was indeed a stand alone product and that one did not "Need" the flash. You may want to discuss this directly with the the power plug folks. I di, and found them to be very responsive and very thorough in answering questions.  However, since I had the flash done first I can't reply with personal experience. Why not do the plug first and see if you are happy with the result. It carries a full money back warranty if you are not happy. You can get a list of what the flash does address. The flash does address several other issues, but you may not care about those specifics. Do give this a try, it really is easy to instal, and it really works. 

I personally experienced a slight increase in milage. But, that might have been because I no longer needed to use higher RPMs in lower gears to try and overcome the stumbles. 

I am not associated with this company, but I am a big fan. 

I'm going to consider this for my 2017 FJ. I had a flash done which helped a lot but didn't fix the low speed aspect. I am not happy with the on/off properties of the throttle.

[huck]

rodb47  As I mentioned, I had the flash done first and was very happy with the mapping improvements, fuel cut, and all the other things that everyone knows about by this time. But, it did not solve the off idle stumble that I also found so terribly frustrating.

I have now had it installed in my bike for over 50K miles with no problem and know others with more than double that with these mods). No problem with the flash either. Both the flash and the plug are easily removed or reversed if one found any problem along the way, but to my knowledge no one has - at least I have not heard of any. 

I have been riding for a long time, and have had a lot of bikes, among them several Yamaha's. Before this bike, the '15 FJ-09, I had two FJR 1300's. One for over 10 years and well over 150K mi.Before that two Honda ST1100's, also trouble free and very high milage. While I did a bunch of suspension work on both, and in fact other bikes as well because I wanted more performance than the very adequate stock suspension offered (But I stress that this work was not necessary to make the bikes simply ridable), I have never had these kinds of problems with either carbonated (Absolutely loved my FZ1) or Fi bikes. I am in fact pretty disappointed with the fact that this otherwise pretty good bike has such serious problems with fueling. I have heard all the stuff about DOT issues, etc, but somehow other new bike of this era seem to have no such problems. As I mentioned, If the plug had not solved this issue I would have traded this one off. I went from the FJR to the FJ mostly to have a bike that was lighter. As I have gotten older, weight has become an issue. But the off idle problem was so bad with this bike that I was prepared to go back to a heavier FJR, or perhaps a Versys to regain the pleasure of riding a well sorted out bike. I still find this bike to be a bit more buzzy than I would like, but keeping the chain adjusted and wearing gel palm gloves takes care of that well enough. I like the light weight, and the peppy engine so much that I bought it thinking that what I had read about the flash was enough to overcome my worries bout the stumbles... I was wrong, but fortunately some research led me to the Booster Plug. My point is that it took a lot of work, a lot of time, frustration, and expense to get the bike to actually work the way almost any other new bike does out of the box. I will never buy a bike with such issues again. That is like buying new shoes that do not fit thinking they will "Break in" to fit. they will not. So I am grateful for the flash and the Plug, but disappointed in Yamaha. 

 

 

[hawk]

Glad I found this thread. I've been increasingly annoyed by surging/stuttering below 5000 rpm.  Just ordered booster plug but I'll likely look into a flash next winter too.

[Ride365]

I've yet to notice any significant issues, but I don't lug this engine either. I'll likely go with the booster plug in the future, seems to be a pretty good overall improvement in throttle response.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Ride365

[hawk]

Yeah I like to keep her above 5k but not always possible