Ducati Monster Forum

G'day all

I'm hoping somebody can tell me what could be causing the some issues with my new Termi/DP ECU/DP Air filter kit.

I just had them fitted to a S2R 800 07, we had some initial problems with the wrong ECU being supplied with the kit to start with, but after 6 weeks of dicking around with new computers and other stuff, the correct computer is now fitted.

A couple of issues have cropped, nothing to bad, just a little annoying and I wanted to see what others thought before taking it back to the dealer

1. very minor surging at constant/partial throttle openings, at first I thought it was just the normal jostling you get riding along our roads here in northern Australia, but I got on a brand new section of road that was ultra smooth, and sure enough it wasn't my imagination, it is surging, but it's so minor it's very hard to feel it on all but the smoothest of roads.

2. I went for a ride during lunch, bike's oil temp got to 105 degrees (C) and I pulled over to admire the view for a few mins, when I got back on and gently rode off, I got a couple of pops through the airbox, it's summer over here in Australia and the temp was about 30 degrees (c) with about 89% humidity, it coughed once more about 5 mins later.
It did this once before when I went home at lunch time, it was also a hot day, bike sat for about 15 mins, had a cough through the airbox as soon as I rode off, and then was OK.

The pop through the airbox is more like a cough, not very loud, but the bike loses power for the split second it does it, and then seems fine. could it be the hot engine heating the fuel and getting some pre-ignition of sorts?

When the kit was installed, the DDS system was used and the mixture reading was spot on and the TPS was also checked and set.

Any thoughts?

it's too lean.  wind the air bleeds in half a turn.

Thanks for that brad, I was hoping you might pop in with a suggestion  [thumbsup]

Now for the silly question....

Where may I find said screws? :-[
I have a rough Idea, but I just want to make sure before I start making adjustments.

Thanks.

In the Ducati service manual, are they what Ducati refers to as Bypass screws?

Small brass slot headed screws, down in little 'wells' in the throttle bodies.

Right hand side, directly rearward of the cable spool, left hand side directly below the TPS.

In my opinion...  A little bit of choppieness is normal for a DP ECU.  This is because the fueling is a lot richer. If you want good throttle response at the low end this is the price of that.   I switched to Iridiums and it improved somewhat.  As far a couging through the airbox , have them recheck the TPS and fuel pressure.  If throttle response is slugish it might be a fuel pressure issue.

I had the Termi kit installed with the DP ECU and open airbox on my '07 Monster 695. The reason was because it, and many of the closed-loop Ducatis, run way too lean due to Euro3 regs and at that time the only cure was the Termi kit. I experienced the same coughing/surging as you before the kit, but I've had it installed for nearly a year and that problem has completely gone away. It runs perfectly. Yours should too, and for what you paid, I'd take it back to the dealer and make sure everything was installed correctly.

I will adjust the screws as Brad has suggested and see how that goes, It's only a minor issue and only when the bike is above 100 Degrees (C) a tiny amount of surging (and I mean tiny) does not worry me, like I say you have on billard table smooth roads to feel it (and there are only 1 or 2 of those here in Cairns)

It's more the cough through the air box that has me concerned.

I suspect with any big change on a bike like this there will be some minor adjustments needed to get it right, that's life, I'll try the screws, if that brings no joy, I'll return them to there original positions and get the dealer to have a closer look.

I'll report back with what I find. Thanks

CairnsDuc, I get a very similar pop through the airbox, pretty much the same specs as yourself (my07 s2r800, DP ECU, no cat straight through exhaust and DP open airbox).. when the engine is running warmish (~100C) I get an inconsistent POP! out the airbox, generally when I am rolling along with maintenance throttle after giving the bike a bit of a workout. The pop is disconcerting, especially if you are rolling around  corner (it's like a 1/4 of a second of chopping the throttle, followed by a loud POP, which is bad)


I am due for my 10K service within the next couple of weeks, I'll get it check out then and let you know if I have any joy.

I've made the adjustment as Brad said, the first thing I noticed is the Idle has dropped to 1000 rpm, but the bike is running cooler, I tried riding stuck behind some slow traffic and the bike normally get's pretty warm doing this, but this afternoon it seemed to be running cooler.

The hesitation is hard to detect, if it's there at all, I managed to get the temp up to around 100 degrees (c) and pulled over and shut the bike off for a few mins, restarted and rode off and it didn't pop at all.

I'm going to try it again in the morning when it's a little warmer.

Now I just have to lift my Idle back up. but so far it looks promising  [thumbsup]

What you did with the air bleeds is make the bike ever so slightly more rich.  Now that you know that you confirmed a little richer solved your problem, you can either live with the lower idle or go to back to the dealer and have them reset idle speed and TPS.

I have the DP ECU/open airbox w/ midpipe and partially cored stock cans on my 06 S2R800 -had the same cough through the airbox once in a while when I opened the throttle. Also have the 'slight' surge you are talking about. I can feel it @ partial throttle on smooth roads. I checked all the exhaust clamps and one exiting the midpipe was loose. After I tightened it the pop went away and the slight surging has become slighter. I also cleaned/regapped the plugs as the tips were a bit misaligned and the gaps weren't exactly correct (stock plugs). Plug color is normal but it seems that there are still some flat spots and very slight surging in the power delivery. Might be time for a PCIII.

I might just leave the screws where they are for now, I'll lift the idle a little just adjusting the idle screw, the bike is due for it's 12K km service very soon any way (it's got 11500 k's on it now) so another week or 2 it will go for it's first major service.

The day of it's service, I'll put it back to the old settings and let them sort it out so they can reset the idle and check the TPS.

Crappy running at low rpm is pretty standard for when the valves need adjustment.

I think you're on the right track.

you mean the screw on the throttle bodies covered in paint that you're not meant to touch?  adjusting that will make the tps reset procedure inaccurate because you've changed the baseline setting that never gets adjusted.  could make it worse.  get the idle mixture richened to suit the original air bleed position.

maybe ask them to check the idle mixutre as it is now and then once they've wound out the air bleeds to where they were get them to replicate the previous mixture.  do you know what they're setting the mixture to?

No, I decided against changing anything else, the idle has now settled around 1100rpm, so I figured best not to play around with things.
I kind of figured if something is all covered in paint, then they (Ducati) obviously don't want it moved or fiddled with, and I figure if I screw around with that, I then have to adjust something else, and then something else, and on and on it goes.....
I'll eventually need a flux capacitor to get back to where I need to be  [cheeky]

I'll leave it this way until service, return the air bleed screws to the position they were before and let the guys at the dealership have a bit of a tweak with the DDS and there magic Ducati hammers.

After the service I'll see how it is going from there and report back, but for now just with the tweak of the screws, it is running much better.

Thanks everyone for there assistance  [thumbsup]

if you leave it the way it is, take it in for service and say "it was surging so i wound the air bleeds in X amount and now it doesn't surge.  can you please check the idle mixture now and then wind out the air bleeds to make the idle speed right again then reset the idle mixture to what it was when i bought it in" then they'll know exactly what you want and why you want it and if they're any good at customer service they'll do what you asked.

otherwise you'll just end up back where you started and they won't know 1/ you're not happy and 2/ how to get you where you need to be or 3/ how to fix it if it happens again, to you or someone else.

without being rude, customers like yourself annoy me because instead of giving us the facts you let us "see what we can do" without knowing what target we're trying to hit and then you continuing to have an issue when we miss said target.  it's pretty easy to miss this sort of stuff on a test ride, and even if they do notice it they might consider it normal because "everyone we've done is like that" without knowing it can be better.

communication can be a real help.

I intended to return it to the original positions and let the guys know what I had done, and what improvement it had made, and let the Techs make the decision, once the DDS was plugged in and they could read all of the settings and use the gas analyzer and make the call on if the computer, air bleed screws, or a combination of both would be the correct way to solve the issue.

I misunderstood our conversations Brad, I got the impression that this was a temporary fix until it could put back on the DDS and corrected through the computer and in conjunction with the screw settings.

Sorry I should have put that in the previous post.

I was a little cagey though because some dealers get very touchy about customer fiddling with things like this due to warranty issue's, also there is a 6 week back story to this upgrade with computers not working and a series of other dramas due to a mismatch between the instrument cluster/air sensor and the DP ECU.
There were a some other issues going on with regards to this upgrade kit of which would were not aware, this has been a long ongoing saga.  :)

my point is (stepping up onto the soap box):

don't be cagey.  if they don't like being told that you had a problem, you played with it, now it's better and you can tell them all about it then why the make the beast with two backs are you giving them money?  it's nothing to do with warranty.  and it's nothing to do with info on the internet.  every importer we deal with (well, used to) mocks the internet and the people on it, but it's the biggest source of shared info and data base of what people are experiencing.  if they give you attitude over it remind them who's paying their wages.  i used to say that to the other techs i worked with when they started the "internet bashing" after a customer had said "i was on the internet....".  sure it can cause issues, but that's mainly because it's not handled correctly.  if a customer wanted me to do something i thought was silly i'd just make it clear we could do whatever HE wanted, with the consequence at HIS risk, after i'd explained my view of it.  simple.  and sometimes i'd learn stuff - it's amazing what can happen when you step down off the pedestal and actually listen to people.

the dds tells them nothing.  it's a tool that lets you do stuff, but it will tell you absolutely nothing about what your bike is doing on the road when you're standing there looking at it in the workshop.  a little bit lean is not something that is the result of an issue that will log a fault code.  faults get logged when things are very wrong.

there's two things to do to set your bike up with the mods you've done.  1 is tps reset.  2 is idle mixture setting.  tps reset they have no control over, assuming they're doing it right.  idle mixture they do.  ask spider about his dp ecu experience and the difference in what two workshops (me and someone else) did with it.

winding in the air bleeds has richened the bottom of the map so to speak.  it will also lower the idle speed as you found, but that's not an issue as such as that's their function - to adjust idle speed - so you expect that.  but richening the low throttle mixture is what you wanted.  tell them it's too lean on the trimmer BASED ON YOUR RIDING EXPERIENCE ON YOUR BIKE.  remember it's YOUR bike, if it's not right or different YOU will know it.  subtle stuff that a tech can't pick up on a short road test of a bike he's ridden a few times at best will be obvious to you if you've spent 10,000km on it.

off soap box now.

I have a 900 with Duc ECU/Termi/open air box. VERY similar behavior. I have a low idle (1000 rpm when warm). If the bike gets really hot on a warm day, I will get very minor little pops up through the airbox on occasion. That being said, it pulls like a locomotive, never stumbles and never stalls. No complaints.

But surely we shouldn't have to put up with popping, surging and other problems with what amounts to an expensive Factory approved part

But really, with the surging, popping and limited hot weather performance offered with this kit, I mean where I am in the tropics, I dread when summer really hits! we are averaging 31 Degrees (C) at the moment, but when we hit 35 - 38 Degrees (C) and 98% humidity (Nov to April), it means I'm going to have a very expensive Ducati with a permanent case of the Farts and cough's until the cooler weather arrives.

And it would appear I'm not the only with problems with the DP/Termi upgrade kits, I really think they are not worth the money or the hassles involved, it would appear that a lot of dealers can not set them up to get them to work, We should all not have to rely on on a specialist like Brad Black to get the best out of a very expensive Dealer fitted, Factory supplied part!

but after 6 weeks of computers, adjustment after adjustment, visit after visit, I really think for the time and effort involved, I think leaving the OEM cans on was a better Idea!
I'm going to get the 12K service done, give them a final chance to fix the surging and poor performance(I told them about adjusting the Screws, They flipped! They advised they never touch the screws!)
If it's not sorted after this visit, it can all come off and be returned to stock.

don't let me near the soap box again.

what really shits me is that it's not hard to do.  and that what you're saying is heard quite a bit, across many models.  we fitted a heap of s2r800 kits and they all worked fine.

the 900 is a touch different as it runs the older style non linear tps that is set up via a manual procedure, but again it's just basic steps using the right equipment to get the desired result.  it's not like i fell out of the sky totally skilled in this stuff.  i've just learnt it, so anyone else can too.

i wish you luck.  it annoys me that people in service departments treat customers like they're idiots.  granted, some of the customers i've come across are, but it's amazing what you learn as you go along and talk to them and listen to stuff they've tried.  over the years i've found that we could have solved more problems had customer's felt able to say more without prejudice directed at them or been listened to better.

It just seems to be an issue that the a number of dealers have no Idea how to set them up correctly, now from an outsider perspective, who's at fault?

The Dealer - Staff not trained enough or just not willing to listen to what the customer is telling them.

Ducati - For making a kit that appears to be beyond the level of training for the average Ducati dealership

The customer - For believing the Hype that being a Factory part and upgrade, it should fit and work perfectly, because it was designed and setup by the guys who built the bike, and installed by the guys that service your Ducati all day every day.

Again, The Customer - Who after taking it back time after time (Or never do), thinks that is the way it is meant to be, and put's up with popping and poor hot weather performance, because they think that's how these Kits are.

I respect what your saying Brad, they might be an easy kit to fit, but it would appear that it would be beyond quite a few of the "Factory trained" Service Staff.

Well, I have just gotten back from the Dealer, The bike has gotten dramatically worse in the last couple of days,
The bike decided to have a coughing fit half way through a corner on wed morning and damn near kicked me off!!

I have just dropped the bike off and the guys plugged in the DDS, They had Coil errors and a couple of other errors, As the guys said have that amount of errors all at once is almost unheard of, so they checked the battery voltage, Ding, Ding, Ding!!! We have a winner, battery is stuffed, it starts the bike fine, but the battery is that bad it's dragging the voltage right down when the bike is running.

They dropped in a known good battery from another bike, and it all appears fine, but I have left them with it, they are putting in a new battery, they will reset the idle, the TPS and then run it over to a local tuning shop to give it a run on there 4 gas analyzer to double check the DDS is reading right and check it all appears OK.
One of the guys will ride it home tonight and check it's all OK, and everything is all smiles I'll collect it tomorrow.
Fingers crossed that this saga will soon end.

does that mean the dealer doesn't have their own gas analyser?

i would have thought that once started, the alternator would take care of all electrical loads.

+1

unless the battery had a dead short...

in which case it wouldn't start the bike. :-\

That is odd.

I've had a car battery with a broken terminal, it would work fine for weeks, then go 'open', car would die.
Wait a couple minutes and it would start up and run like normal.

The alternator takes care of all loads as long as output is sufficient.  Typically, motorcycles have low output at low engine speed.  On an FI bike you have to power the fuel pump, computer and lights.  This means you need a good battery for the bike to run properly.

As speeddog noted, this is even a problem on some cars.  This is why wattage has been growing in car alternators in recent years.

Yes, the one that plugs into the DDS, but he wanted to check that the readings he was seeing with the DDS were correct, plus also with the amount of silly things the bike is doing, he wanted more information on what was coming out of the exhaust to try and figure out what the fault might be. as he said it's insurance to also confirm the DDS or it's exhaust sensor were not faulty or in need of calibration


Yes, but the battery was putting so much load on the Alt, that when running the voltage was barely touching 11 volts. when holding a steady rev of about 4K. why did the bike start with such a rooted battery? who knows, but it did, Why did the bike keep running on such a low voltage? again, who knows, but it did.

When the original battery was removed and another from another bike was put it, it started up and ran fine, In hindsight now I realized the Fuel pump did not sound right every time I started it in the morning, with the new battery in place and the ignition switched on, the fuel pump sounded loud and proud, and the engine had a nice quick turn over, not like it has for the last 3 weeks or so.

But the guys are not putting all bets on the battery, just in case the problem is deeper, that's why he kept it yesterday to run it up on the gas analyzer, reset the TPS and the Idle. Do a output check on the alt to check it has not been damaged because of the battery.
And then he'll take it for a ride home for the night and ride it back in the morning to try and confirm that all the bugs have been ironed out .

Voltage of 11V with it running, an 07 bike with a 'dead' battery... I'd be looking at alternator or reg/rect, really. New battery from another bike just means that the alternator doesn't have to do as much work. Actually, I'm pretty sure if it's at 11V at 4k rpm the alternator is most definitely iffy. Even with a completely dead battery it should be up to a charging voltage at that point. Reg/rects usually end up overcharging.

Yep.  Charging system problem.

point of my post

The new Battery is in and it all appears to be running fine, The alt has a healthy output, but the thinking is the battery has a short onboard, they tested the voltage regulator and it also appears fine.

Why did the bike start? why did the bike run? Why did the voltage drop that much when everything said it shouldn't have, A lot of things have not made sense with this Termi kit, but it would appear that a light is now on at the end of the Tunnel.

I heard it this morning at the dealer and it was running well, much better than it ever has since the kit was fitted, it was running very rich though, so I said for them to keep it until monday rather than rush the job through on a saturday morning, and I'll keep enjoying the Hypermotard they have lent me  [evil] Pity I have to work all weekend  :'(

Update:

Got the bike back about 20 mins ago, and guess what, it still runs like a bucket of shit!

They have taken it back and I have the Hypermotard back again.

7 weeks of this crap, I might be time to take it all out and return it to stock.  [bang]

make the beast with two backsing muppets. I still vote something wrong with the charging system.

Pretty sure Ducati Australia wouldn't pay for it to be freighted by Bikes Only down to Brad, him to fix it, then freighted back to you. Which is a major pity.

By George!!! I think they got it, I got the bike back late yesterday and they approached me rather red faced and admitted they loaded the wrong fuel map, they went for the test ride and everything was OK, when they went back to the shop amix up occured and one of the Mechanincs misunderstood the Senior Tech and he reloaded the old map back in, so when I picked it up the old map made the bike run like crap.

New map is in, and it would appear to running quite well, It handles hot running (Caught in traffic) and the higway runs very well, it has more power, and no coughing or farting.

It's idleing around 1000rpm (Don't know if that is good or bad) but at least, for now it all appears to running like it should.

I shall keep you all posted.

That explanation from your dealer doesn't add up, but if its running OK then the objective was achieved.