2017 McCruise, Quick Shifter, Heated Grips problem?

[Heli ATP]

I had OEM heated grips added on my 2017 FJ-09 at about 350 miles by the dealer when it was in for a checkup, but never used them until yesterday. I installed the OEM quick shifter myself at about 500 miles and it works flawlessly. At 650 miles I added the McCruise  with some trepidation as I'm not very knowledgeable of electronics. It too worked flawlessly as the McCruise step by step directions made it such that a 12 year old could install it.  

So back to yesterday. I rode for about and hour turned on and used the McCruise for a bit and arrived at a large parking lot on the way home where I practice..... quick stops, s-turns etc. Most of my turns were really slow in first and second gear without issue. My hands were chilly so on with the heated grips before I set off for home. When I left the parking lot it was all downhill so there was no load on the engine but something didn't sound right. At the end of the hill I made a right turn to a slight climb and in 2nd gear the engine rpm's took off. When I looked down it was approaching 12000 before I rolled off.

I thought maybe I had inadvertently leaned on the throttle and caused this (still learning), so I turned off the engine with my left thumb, put her in N and started up again. Started to move in 1st gear and when I changed into 2nd the RPM's took off again. I turned the engine off and thought Oh no how am I going to get home. I turned off the grip heaters and McCruise and was looking at a better spot up the road to park. Again I started moving, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, no problem and only 5 miles from home so I went for it and no further issues. 

I got busy last night and this morning and put it out of my mind.  Went for a ride this afternoon turned on and used the McCruise for a few minutes and then turned it off without issue. After 30 minutes of no problems I pulled over in a quiet spot, turned on the grip heaters and started off... 1st, 2nd and engine RPM's took off. I duplicated this problem a couple of times before I turned off the grip heaters and again drove home without a problem. The throttle was ever so slightly open each time the RPM's took off and rolling it off brought the RPM's under control. It almost feels like the physical throttle was not retarding completely after the grips got warm.

Recently someone on here said Quick Shifter's don't play well with the MC Cruise in '15+'16 model FJ-09's but the '17 had got over that. Searched the forum but couldn't find any references, and certainly none for  grip heater/McCruise issues. I just emailed McCruise to see if they have come across this before.

Awaiting your guys input.....

[betoney]

Well, I have MCCruise and oem heated grips but no quick shifter, so 2 of the 3 variables.  Up until a few days ago I hadn't heard that the QS and MCCruise weren't compatible.  Sorry I cant be more help.

Maybe send Frank or Tony an email at sales@mccruise.com - they are usually very helpful.

I'm sure others with '15 and '16 models would be curious to see what they say about QS compatibility.

[Heli ATP]

In my initial post I wrote 1200 RPM instead of 12000. I have edited this but mention it here so it will make sense when reading Franks reply below from McCruise. I will be visiting the dealer who installed the grip heaters soon. I played with the throttle while cold and it seems to roll completely off when released.

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Hi Michael,

 

This is one I have not heard before!

 

You said “At the end of the hill I made a right turn to a slight climb and in 2nd gear the engine rpm's took off. When I looked down it was approaching 1200 before I rolled off.”

The idle speed on this bike is around 900~1,000rpm from memory, 1,200rpm is only 200rpm higher.  Is that correct or is your bike doing 12,000rpm (redline or above)?

 

When you said “ The throttle was ever so slightly open each time the RPM's took off and rolling it off brought the RPM's under control”.

 

Do you mean that physically rolling the twist grip off dropped the engine rpm’s?  That implies that you are accidentally holding the throttle open a bit or the throttle is binding an not returning to idle when released.

 

If you then release the throttle do the engine rpm’s come back up or does it stay at idle or do you have to ‘push’ the throttle back to idle position?  This implies that the heat is either moving something (heat expansion) or is making the twist grip bind so it no longer moves freely and the spring no longer returns it to idle.

 

When the cruise is NOT engaged, the signal from the throttle grip to the engine is a ‘pass through’, the wires feeding the TPS signal into the cruise computer are physically connected to the output wires with no interference at all.  Turning the cruise on or off makes no difference to this.

 

When the cruise is engaged, the cruise ‘reads’ the twist grip signals and outputs appropriate signals to the engine to control the throttle, in ths case there is no physical connection between input and output wires.

 

So, when the cruise in NOT engaged, there should be no interference with the throttle signal.

 

There is a couple of other possible causes here that I can think off.  One is the heated grips are grounded on the bike’s signal ground (this is a separate ground used for all engine management signals) and turning the heated grips on is interfering with the signal ground.  This seems very unlikely though.  The heated grips should be connected to a ‘normal’ ground, not the signal ground.

 

The other possibility is that you are running at very low rpm’s and the engine management is ‘adjusting’ the idle speed.  The engine management controls the engine idle speed, so if while riding you go slow enough that the engine speed drops below normal idle speed the engine management will apply more throttle in order to restore the idle speed to the correct rpm.  If you then pull the clutch, then engine will overspeed slightly and the engine management will then adjust the throttle to bring it back down to idle again, this usually takes a few seconds for this to happen.  This is a characteristic of almost all modern motorcycles and cars.  This can be seen when you cold start, usually the engine rpm’s are high initially when the engine is cold and after a few seconds the engine returns to normal idle as the engine warms.  The engine management is controlling the throttle to achieve this and continues to do this all the time.

 

I use this ‘feature’ in slow traffic, I select a gear that has the engine at idle at the speed I want and allow the engine management to stop the engine stalling.  It is surprising how steep a hill the bike or car will happily idle up without dropping speed because the engine management applies more or less throttle as required to maintain the correct idle rpm’s.  Obviously there is a limit to this, and the response time is fairly slow, but in steady state slow traffic it makes slow speed control really easy, just using the brakes gently to modulate the speed of the vehicle and not moving the throttle at all.

 

I have not ridden the FZ/FJ-09 a lot, but other bikes that I have ridden have the engine idle speed control linked to gear position/clutch operation as well, the engine idle speed changes slightly depending on clutch operation and gear position in some cases.  I am not sure what this is supposed to achieve, but I have noticed this on a number of bikes.

 

I don’t know if any of this will help you at all, but I can’t think of another cause for this.

 

Best regards,

 

Frank Guymer

Director

 

    

MotorCycle Cruise Controls

[skipperT]

I like everything that he wrote back to you. Great stuff. 

my guess is that heat expansion is binding the throttle, especially since you mentioned that you can “roll the grip forward” and it returns to normal idle speed. Make sure that you have 3-5 mm of free play (which is often set incorrectly out of the crate and missed at servicing). An experiment would be to bring a 4mm (3?) Allen wrench with you, turn on the heated grips and loosen the 2 mounting screws of the cable/throttle housing assy, then see if the engine idle speed returns to normal. Re-tighten the bolts and If binds again, the grips are your issue. 

in their defense, it’s tricky to get that cable looped around in the housing just right so that it moves the way Yamaha wants - and the plastic guide has to be inserted correctly as well. 

I wouldn’t stress about a cruise/grip interference issue yet - that would indeed be a weird scenario and not quite sure I buy into it. 

He’s also correct about grounds- Yamaha uses a “clean” ground for most sensors that is separate from chassis ground, although obviously the 2 are connected. The heated grips should plug into their own connector on the Rh front area of the bike.

HTH,

skip

[Heli ATP]

I dropped my bike off at the dealer a couple of days ago to look into my engine going to 12000 rpm in 2nd gear with heated grips on. Just got a call back to ask if my heated grips were Yamaha's. I said yes, you guys installed them a couple of months ago 🙂 

He told me that they will be covered under warranty as Yamaha told them this is something they have seen before and they will be sending replacements.

[skipperT]

Interesting. Glad they are taking care of it. I wonder what the issue is/was that they’re seeing?

-Skip

[Heli ATP]

On 4/26/2021 at 10:17 AM, skipperT said:

Interesting. Glad they are taking care of it. I wonder what the issue is/was that they’re seeing?

-Skip

Not sure till I hear back from the dealer. While searching online I noticed that the Yamaha Heated Grips are listed as discontinued.

Hopefully they can source parts to fix my issue under warranty. I will update here when I have more info.

[Heli ATP]

Replacement parts on back order till 6/15/21. Tech didn't have a update on issue.

[Heli ATP]

Just got back from my Yamaha dealer who replaced my Yamaha heated grips under warranty. I drove home adjusting the heat levels while trying each gear and no issues. Even though it was not Cruise Control related I jumped on the highway and worked the cruise up and down just to be sure.

No explanation from the tech, he had not heard of this issue before so I can't add any light to the issue. Just to refresh.... the engine RPM's were  maxing out in 2nd gear with Yamaha heated grips that were installed by the same dealer.

[DR_DR3I]

Interesting, thanks for following up. I have a '16 FJ-09 and I think it came with heated grips from the factory, but I'm not sure since I'm the 2nd owner. With the menu buttons near the left hand grip, I can cycle through either the menu views or the heated grip setting (Off, 1, 2, 3).

I've ridden in some colder weather this March when I bought the bike, using the heated grips on various settings, but never experienced engine surge of any kind. Definitely would be concerning to feel like you're on a runaway bike almost.

[Heli ATP]

5 hours ago, DR_DR3I said:

I've ridden in some colder weather this March when I bought the bike, using the heated grips on various settings, but never experienced engine surge of any kind. Definitely would be concerning to feel like you're on a runaway bike almost.

Luckily I caught the surge the second it started but was startled some. I was a little nervous this morning after picking it up as the tech doing the work thought he was just replacing inop parts and wasn't fully filled in on the issue. Before the replacement parts the grips heated up well at idle, but when it was put in second gear the fun began. Luckily I'm a newish rider so second gear for me is by the book which is about 19mph 😅 Could have been scary if I had taken off like a bat of of hell.