[lolibater]

My Experience with the EcoTrons EFI kit

First off, I just wanted to clear the air. A few people surely think I am here just to complain about the kit. I assure you that is not the case. I am trying everything in my power to make this kit work properly. I find this kit very interesting, and am happy that other users have had such success with it. This bike and kit have both been a valuable learning experience for me, and I have in fact had fun with both the components, and the way they work together.

When I first purchased my bike in early August of this year, I was told by the “electrical engineer” that this EFI kit was installed perfectly, and that I would never need to make any adjustments. It was my mistake for not researching this kit more, but I had no prior knowledge of motorcycles, and it seemed to be running as stated by the current owner at the time. There were no other modifications.

At this time it was the middle of summer, and I lived in an area that was consistently over 100* every day. The bike started fine and ran fine every day that I commuted to work. I decided to take a trip to Yosemite national park, and started to have trouble as soon as I reached about 8000 feet. The owner had left the bike in Rich mode, causing it to run horribly sluggish in the high elevation.

Once I had gotten back down home, I had put it back into Eco mode, so that it could dynamically map the AFR. It commuted fine after that as well, but I had no way of proving it was due to moving it to Eco mode, as it was running fine at my home elevation previously.

Fast forward to around late September / early October. A coworker of mine tells me that my valves will need to be adjusted soon, and that I should look into either getting them done, or learning how to do them myself. I looked on ninja250.org, a Haynes manual that I purchased, as well as the official Kawasaki (TDC) method, multiple times. We decided the easiest way would be the 250org method; making sure the lobes were not pushing down on the tappets, ensuring that you can wiggle each with your finger before adjusting the clearance. During this, we had blown a fuse by grounding a wire. At the time, I was convinced that this was the main event that contributed to all of our future problems. We replaced the fuse and wire, and the bike still wouldn’t start afterwards.

This is about the time that my friend and I were on the original EcoTrons thread seeking help. After adjusting the valves multiple times, as other forum users seemed convinced that we kept doing them wrong, not much had changed. The bike started fine most of the time, every now and then it had a hard start, but mostly it ran ok for the time being. We put on pod filters, and slip on cans, neither of which seemed to effect the actual performance of the EFI kit; mostly just made it louder.

I had found a few other things that the previous owner had done wrong in his “perfect install.” He had fixed the engine temperature sensor to the frame. Obviously that wasn’t too smart. The tubing used for the EFI kit was excessively long, and the fuel pressure regulator was not providing the proper pressure due to a leak. The previous owner had also broken off the idle adjustment screw, and had it rigged up with an improperly sized replacement which moved.

I fixed all these issues. I even paid a professional mechanic to come over to my house and give my bike a good once over, just to make sure it wasn’t anything mechanically related, as most people were still set on at this point. The guy who came over stated that my valves were adjusted perfectly, and needed no adjustment. He agreed that the tubing and pump location were far from optimal. We took the entire EcoTrons kit off, and reinstalled it with high quality, properly lengthened tubing. He also synced my throttle bodies, as one of them was slightly out of sync. At this point the bike would not start after being reassembled. The guy was seriously stumped, as he had just reinstalled the kit completely. He even gave me a new set of o-rings for my fuel pressure regulator, which made it run better, but not completely normal. I decided to flash the most recent s19 file that Matt had provided me, thinking that perhaps the fact that the ECU had been learning its data with all of these misplaced sensors was making it not run now that the sensors were in the right spot.

After flashing the s19, the bike fired right up and seemed to be working fine. I was happy for the time being. I commuted on it, and it was fine for the most part of the week. I had trouble getting it started as the following week came. The issues started getting progressively worse and worse, and the bike smelled like it was running richer and richer as time went on. I drove it around my neighborhood at 2000 RPM for about 30 min to log low rpm AFR data, thinking that this would help. It didn’t. I decided to leave the bike off for a few days because it was frustrating me.

This past Friday I started it back up and it seemed to be running fine again. I ran it around town a bit that day, and it started up fine after being taken to the gas station. I thought; let’s give it a test on Saturday to see how it really runs. I noticed that my tires were low on air this Saturday, so I left my house to get some air before I headed over to my friend’s house. When I started the bike on Saturday morning it was pretty cold out. The bike didn’t want to seem to hold an idle for some reason. I manually held the throttle at 1500 RPM until it warmed up. The idle stayed at my set idle of 1500 after that perfectly fine, so I didn’t think much of it. I went to the gas station, got air, and the bike started up fine after that.

On my way to my friend’s house, I needed to stop for gas. I thought to myself as I was pulling into the gas station; it would really suck if I turn the bike off and it doesn’t start again. That’s exactly what happened. I turn it off, fill it up, and it just cranks.

I wait there a few hours before my friend gets there, leaving the bike off the whole time. When he gets there, he was able to start it, but it was running richer than it ever has, was breaking up extremely bad at any rpm over 2000, and would not allow revs past 5000. We tried bump starting to clear all the crap out. After about 3 bumps every time, the engine would fire back up, but had the same symptoms from before. Eventually 2 hours after this we just left it at the gas station to pick up Sunday (yesterday).

We bring the bike back and put the stock exhaust back on, thinking that it was a backpressure issue with the aftermarket slip ons, as they had no baffles, and were basically a straight pipe. I flashed the s19 over again, as that’s what got it to work when the professional had come over to my house the previous weekend. The bike started right up with the stock exhaust. We had to hold the idle manually while it was starting up the first time, but after idling for about 15 minutes, it held it on its own perfectly. I was able to ride it down the street, and the bike felt better than it ever has. I even stalled the engine at the stop sign by my house, and thought it wouldn't fire back up again, but it did. I thought everything was good to go finally. I rode back to my friend’s garage and turned the bike off while we ate dinner. After about an hour we went to go fire it up again, and the bike is just cranking, making popping noises in the lower end like its backfiring, but not starting. We couldn't get it started, so I left it at his house.

I would really like to get this kit working. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am seriously all tapped out after confirming almost every mechanical system on this bike multiple times in the past few months. Valves are perfect, TB's are perfect, compression is there and equal, the injectors are spraying.