HELP! MT07 died?? Hard start, loud noise and smoke from exhaust

[Timo023]

Hi!

Just bought a used MT07 three days ago. Runned like clockwork sounded perfectly and was running very smooth. 

Until yesterday, I took her for a small 15min ride. Halfway thru she starten running unevenly revs were going up and down. Then she stalled at the trafficlight. Power surges up and down while keeping the throttle steady.

Problems seemed to be progressively worse today. Quite a lot of smoke from the exhaust and a lood knocking sound that wasn't there before.

I refuelled at the start of the ride. during the loud there were some loud backfire bangs from the exhaust and I guess thats where the problems started.

its a 2014 MT07 with the akra carbon race exhaust. Bike has a powercommander installed and is mapped to the exhaust by the previous owner. When I bought it everything was running perfectly. Change happend very suddenly and then quickly during the ride.

 

Can anyone help me? Am I screwed? any ideas what it could be?

Thanks for the help! is appreciated!!!

P.s. I have a video only its too large to post.  Will compress it and post it later.

Edited December 9, 2020 by Timo023

[mossrider]

Upload the video to youtube and put a link here.

Need to know more info. How many miles on bike. Hard miles? Easy? How old battery? Charge state? Any recent work on bike? New accessories? All wires and connections checked and clean and tight? We'll troubleshoot if we can. 

Meantime I'm thinking on it...

[Lone Wolf]

33 minutes ago, Timo023 said:

Just bought a used MT07 three days ago.  ...Can anyone help me? Am I screwed?

The seller is likely the person most familiar with that bike.  They installed Power commander, etc.

Although they may not have an "obligation" to help you, I would certainly help a buyer of a vehicle that I had just sold and broke down.

[Timo023]

Thanks for your reply Mossrider. 

Here is the link. I will try to make a better video tomorrow.

The Bike has around 30.000 kms on it. The first and second owner had it yamaha dealer maintained and kept the maintenance book quite tidy.

Guy which I bought it from three days ago worked at a racing car building company and installed the akrapovic Carbon exhaust, powercomander and quickshifter himself. When I test drove it the state was mint and it ran perfectly smooth. No problems whatsoever.

Problem specifically started to occur during my ride yesterday. two big bangs(I presumed backfires) and then it progressively got worse the 4 miles back home. 

 

[Timo023]

Battery seems to be fine. oil is a quite dirty but level is fine and was allegedly renewed 5000kms ago. the bike has handlebar heaters.  On the wat back home I pulled the wire of the handlebar heater on the ballhead because its quite short and breaks at maximum steering input. After I got home(200km ride) My rear right indicator and license plate light didnt work.(probably related to the pulled heater wire) didnt have time to fix this but I guess this will be an easy fix.

could the engine problems be Electronics related?

 

[Timo023]

10 minutes ago, Lone Wolf said:

The seller is likely the person most familiar with that bike.  They installed Power commander, etc.

Although they may not have an "obligation" to help you, I would certainly help a buyer of a vehicle that I had just sold and broke down.

I asked him. seemed like a good guy back then but so far I only got a reply that he never experienced this before and he suggested it could be the battery of poor octane fuel(which both doesnt make any sense I think)

[mossrider]

8 minutes ago, Timo023 said:

Battery seems to be fine. oil is a quite dirty but level is fine and was allegedly renewed 5000kms ago. the bike has handlebar heaters.  On the wat back home I pulled the wire of the handlebar heater on the ballhead because its quite short and breaks at maximum steering input. After I got home(200km ride) My rear right indicator and license plate light didnt work.(probably related to the pulled heater wire) didnt have time to fix this but I guess this will be an easy fix.

could the engine problems be Electronics related?

 

Yes. Check all those connections and properly disconnect anything that isn't legit so you can eliminate them as sources of the problem. It sounds as tho you have an intermittent direct short somewhere. Assume nothing, check everything. Are you getting any error codes thrown on dash display?

[Timo023]

8 minutes ago, mossrider said:

Yes. Check all those connections and properly disconnect anything that isn't legit so you can eliminate them as sources of the problem. It sounds as tho you have an intermittent direct short somewhere. Assume nothing, check everything. Are you getting any error codes thrown on dash display?

nope, no Error codes and no warning lights. Can running this poorly really be caused by Electronics?  I am used to be working on a 1996 custom cb500 which basically has lights and thats about all the Electronics you get.

[Lone Wolf]

19 minutes ago, Timo023 said:

The Bike has around 30.000 kms on it. The first and second owner had it yamaha dealer maintained and kept the maintenance book quite tidy.

Were the valve clearances checked and adjusted? That's not high mileage "unless" the valve clearance was neglected.

[mossrider]

24 minutes ago, Timo023 said:

nope, no Error codes and no warning lights. Can running this poorly really be caused by Electronics?  I am used to be working on a 1996 custom cb500 which basically has lights and thats about all the Electronics you get.

Absolutely it can. These are computer controlled which requires a nice flow of even voltage. A loose wire, faulty accessory, bad connection, corroded wire, blown fuse or anything else can cause in interruption in that juice. If it ran then didn't as you describe it's not valve related, that happens gradually over time. What you describe is a wire popping off or wiggling loose, an accessory burning out, a battery dropping a cell etc. 

[Timo023]

Valve adjustment was one of the first things that has crossed my mind. I dont know if this has been done so I assume not. 

Can a lack of valve adjustment result in a sudden drastic engine failure like this? 

[Timo023]

8 minutes ago, mossrider said:

Absolutely it can. These are computer controlled which requires a nice flow of even voltage. A loose wire, faulty accessory, bad connection, corroded wire, blown fuse or anything else can cause in interruption in that juice. If it ran then didn't as you describe it's not valve related, that happened gradually over time. What you describe is a wire popping off or wiggling loose, an accessory burning out, a battery dropping a cell etc. 

Ah happy to hear. I will get it somewhere dry and start dismantling it so I can check all the electronics. Only I am not so eager to drive it there because it might do damage. It was running perfectly.  definately not a slow degration happend in one right and I can even pinpoint where after a couple of bumps. and then the alleged "backfires"

[mjh937]

I suspect it is a wire somewhere in the Power Commander.  If someone installed the grip heaters in such a way that you cannot go to full steering lock without breaking it I would be very suspicious of their overall wiring techniques.  Good luck and keep us updated. 

[robbo10]

I have had something similar (not this bike). Backfiring (I lost the guts of the silencer), missing and then working for a short distance then back to the problem. It was a loose electrical connection somewhere (I did not fix it).  It was mystifying at the time. 

[Lone Wolf]

4 hours ago, Timo023 said:

Can a lack of valve adjustment result in a sudden drastic engine failure like this? 

Hopefully yours is a simple electrical connection. But if the valves are too tight (no clearance) and keeps getting driven, an exhaust valve can burn and effectively loose combustion pressure.  Here is a thread for an FZ-09 where the valves were not checked or adjusted and an exhaust valve burned at 56,000km  (nearly 35K miles). A compression test would determine if there was an issue, as well as simply checking the clearances.

Rough/lumpy idle, odd scraping/squeaking noise from front of engine | Yamaha FZ-09 Forum

---

Hello all, First time poster, long time FJ rider. I've got a 2015 FJ-09, 56000km, has treated me great over the past 4 years. No major...

 

[DewMan]

Valves don't suddenly  go out of adjustment without them being antiquated tap & screw type valve adjusters with a loose set screw. The shim and bucket type valves only go out of adjustment over an extended period of time in my experience. 

I'd still start with draining the tank completely and getting some fresh gas. Then step through the electricals.  And as @mossrider stated assume nothing. Use a good multi-meter to verify wiring where applicable. 

Good luck resolving your issue.  

[Dennis.Halmstad]

Is the powercommander maps for high octane fuel? Wich octane did you use last time?

Like said above, drain the tank and put new fresh high octane fuel in.

 

Sounds like its running on one cylinder and occasionally hitting on the other.

Do the easy things first

New fuel, check fuses, new sparkplugs, disconnect all electrical things not needed like handlebar heaters, check all wiring related to the powercommander, ignition and fuel.

Your battery sounds fine because you can start the engine but measure it anyway and also read the voltage while running to make sure the charging is giving correct voltage.

You said this happend after a roadbump? Might be worth to totally disconnect the powercommander and run without it if the powercommander did take a hit on the bump?

[Timo023]

9 hours ago, Dennis.Halmstad said:

Is the powercommander maps for high octane fuel? Wich octane did you use last time?

Like said above, drain the tank and put new fresh high octane fuel in.

 

Sounds like its running on one cylinder and occasionally hitting on the other.

Do the easy things first

New fuel, check fuses, new sparkplugs, disconnect all electrical things not needed like handlebar heaters, check all wiring related to the powercommander, ignition and fuel.

Your battery sounds fine because you can start the engine but measure it anyway and also read the voltage while running to make sure the charging is giving correct voltage.

You said this happend after a roadbump? Might be worth to totally disconnect the powercommander and run without it if the powercommander did take a hit on the bump?

Thanks for your response Dennis!

Fuses are fine. I ran it today at daylight and made some adittional video footage. After a while of running the engine was leaking water from the exhaust. Might be gasoline but definately no oil. Makes me think that its running on one cilinder indeed. After it was warmed up I dared to take it for a small spin and it definately felt like it was running on and of on half the power.

I filled it up with E10 which is 90 oct. Next time I will use E5 but I can't imagine its bad fuel. Never heard of such thing where I live. Use the same stuff for my honda 2 cilider and it works just fine. But I could try it out. Just have to figure out how to drain the tank...

Sparkplugs are the next thing I will try to check. However I have no experience on working on engines. Just some hydraulics and electrics. But I will figure it out. The power commander was very poorly attached by the previous owner so it could have taken a hit... Can it just be disconnected without the ECU going haywire?

Will get it indoors somewhere soon so I can take of all the plastics and have a good look.

Thanks for thinking with me Let me post some more video's later on.

 

 

 

 

[Timo023]

 

[mossrider]

1 hour ago, Timo023 said:

The power commander was very poorly attached by the previous owner so it could have taken a hit... Can it just be disconnected without the ECU going haywire?

Yes it can. Each wire 'arm' of the Power Commander plugs in line with it's related system. For instance, it plugs in line at the fuel injectors, the throttle position sensor, the spark plug igniters, etc. Just follow each lead, one at a time, mark it, unplug it, then reconnect the bikes original wire harness in its place. Leave it mounted and routed (disconnected) if you like. Then start the bike, it should run on the ecu. This will tell you if the PC is causing issues or something else is. If it runs and you want, you can reattach the PC paying special attention at each step to find the cause of the problem. 

[seven]

Check and clean all the connections with a good quality contact cleaner while you are there just to be sure.

Do you have an infrared heat gun to see if the exhaust pipes are at different temps? That could help confirm if one cylinder is firing less or not at all. 

Edited December 10, 2020 by seven

[Lone Wolf]

On 12/9/2020 at 8:11 AM, Timo023 said:

...Just bought a used MT07 three days ago.

Again, I would involve the seller. You mention "I have no experience on working on engines" so this is going to be very frustrating for you - especially because you are looking at something that was installed by another person.

Even though the seller was abrupt and not helpful when you told him it broke down, I would insist that he listen and at least help you diagnose. If I sold a bike that broke down that fast I would fix it or offer full refund, but that's me.

[fzar]

4 hours ago, mossrider said:

Yes it can. Each wire 'arm' of the Power Commander plugs in line with it's related system. For instance, it plugs in line at the fuel injectors, the throttle position sensor, the spark plug igniters, etc. Just follow each lead, one at a time, mark it, unplug it, then reconnect the bikes original wire harness in its place. Leave it mounted and routed (disconnected) if you like. Then start the bike, it should run on the ecu. This will tell you if the PC is causing issues or something else is. If it runs and you want, you can reattach the PC paying special attention at each step to find the cause of the problem. 

This right here..

To me it sounds like your hitting TDC with no combustion, compression seems to be there on both cylinders, lacking ignition on 1 cylinder, can you narrow it down to which one?

[mjh937]

I still suspect the Fuel Commander.  Disconnect that and see how it runs. 

[Dennis.Halmstad]

13 hours ago, Timo023 said:

Fuses are fine. I ran it today at daylight and made some adittional video footage. After a while of running the engine was leaking water from the exhaust. Might be gasoline but definately no oil. Makes me think that its running on one cilinder indeed. After it was warmed up I dared to take it for a small spin and it definately felt like it was running on and of on half the power.

I filled it up with E10 which is 90 oct. Next time I will use E5 but I can't imagine its bad fuel. Never heard of such thing where I live. Use the same stuff for my honda 2 cilider and it works just fine. But I could try it out. Just have to figure out how to drain the tank...

Sparkplugs are the next thing I will try to check. However I have no experience on working on engines. Just some hydraulics and electrics. But I will figure it out. The power commander was very poorly attached by the previous owner so it could have taken a hit... Can it just be disconnected without the ECU going haywire?

Will get it indoors somewhere soon so I can take of all the plastics and have a good look.

Thanks for thinking with me Let me post some more video's later on.

 

 

 

 

First of all, please contact the previous owner to see if he just put a fuel map in the power commander. If there is an tuned ignition map 90 octane may be to low quality!

This could make the engine ping or pre combust, wich could lead to engine damage.

If this is the case you could either have killed one sparkplug or blown your headgasket.

Why am I thinking this? You say there is smoke from the exhaust...

If one sparkplug is dead the unburnt fuel goes into the exhaust and evaporates to smoke.

If the headgasket is blown it might leak coolant in to your cylinder wich then creates smoke.

But if you are lucky the smoke is just from all the cold starts and the fact that your bike is stored outside in rainy weather.

 

Please check your coolant to see if levels are ok and that it doesent seem to be contaminated with oil or gasoline.

Change the sparkplugs.

Then continue with the long list of diagnosing your electrical system and the power commander.