Stalled

[geeker]

I didn't ride my bike for a week until tonight. It started fine and as soon as the oil pressure light went off, I kicked it in 1st and pulled out of my garage. About 30 seconds later I was slowing for a stop sign at the end of the road and as I came to a halt, it died. Started back up right away and took off again. It didn't do it again in the quick lap around my neighborhood. Could it be because the bike was cold?

[csmith12]

Sounds like a cold bike to me. Any choke?

[old3]

As to why, probably not the cold engine, sometimes they will stall. Not often, I've had mine do it 2-3 times in near 2k miles and always while hot.

Why not let the engine and oil warm though? I start it and go get and put on the gloves and helmet for a minute or two. There are alot of dissimilar metals that need to expand and the oil flows better at the correct temps. Cold is bad in this case.

[geeker]

Originally Posted by csmith12

Sounds like a cold bike to me. Any choke?

Fuel injected.

[geeker]

Originally Posted by old3

As to why, probably not the cold engine, sometimes they will stall. Not often, I've had mine do it 2-3 times in near 2k miles and always while hot.

Why not let the engine and oil warm though? I start it and go get and put on the gloves and helmet for a minute or two. There are alot of dissimilar metals that need to expand and the oil flows better at the correct temps. Cold is bad in this case.

I thought letting your bike sit to warm was worse than riding easy as soon as the oil pressure light goes out because it could foul the plugs? Maybe that's just carry over knowledge from my 250? I switched to Rotella T6 a couple weeks ago so the startup weight is more fluid than the 10w-40 Kawi oil.

[oblivion007]

Originally Posted by geeker

I thought letting your bike sit to warm was worse than riding easy as soon as the oil pressure light goes out because it could foul the plugs? Maybe that's just carry over knowledge from my 250? I switched to Rotella T6 a couple weeks ago so the startup weight is more fluid than the 10w-40 Kawi oil.

What I heard. I think its on the ninjette wiki also.

[Alex]

Engines need to warm up, but they don't need to do so sitting at idle in the driveway. Just take it easy (low revs, low throttle) for the first few minutes, it will be up to operating temp sooner that it would have under no load.

I wouldn't worry terribly about it stalling once when cold, if it was a-ok from that point forward. On cold days, just watch it a bit closer when pulling away from that stop sign, and there's nothing wrong with giving it a little bit of throttle if it feels like the revs are dropping too quickly into a stall on their own.

[Tigerpaw]

Didn't someone predict the 300 would fail? Time for me to get rid of mine....cheap...before noone wants one anymore.

Seriously. FI SHOULD prevent this. No system is perfect though. Cold bike. Throttle position. Lean angle. Moon cycle. and PFM led to this once in a lifetime fluke. Let us know if it happens 2 or 3 more times...and your sure it's not a stall.

[Somchai]

Since many riders in Germany have the same probs with their FI-250's I think this is a common problem for the Kwakis.
Very important is that you DON'T TOUCH the throttle-grip when u start her when the engine's cold - let her idle for a lill moment.
And also common are starting probs when the engine's warm/hot already, that's known in Germany and my one is doing that also from beginning on and in this moment it's good to use the throttle-grip...
No big thing, just get used with it.

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by geeker

.......Could it be because the bike was cold?

Yes; fuel condenses on cold metal parts and more than normal mass of air enters the engine (cold air fools the volume meter): mix reaching the combustion chamber is lean.

Viscosity of cold oil is very high and imposes an important additional load to the engine.

Just keep the revs' higher than normal idle while the engine warms up.

[old3]

Better it warms with no load on it, remember the oil is cold too and that needs to run smoothly into very small bearing orifices. Thee internals need to expand to their running dimensions too. Same process I use with my MX bikes. Get to operating temps, which is like 2 minutes, before riding. Will you see catastrophic damage from riding it cold? Probably not as not many baby Ninjas ever break 10k miles in their lifetime. Not many own them for more than a year or two either. Even the owners manual for my KTM 950, (3 bikes since 03) stated clearly to warm the bike up to full temp, 3 bars on the guage, before riding it.

Most of the "ride away cold" advice is brought over from the auto industry where they are very MPG concious. I run my Mustang engine for at least a minute before driving, 4 cams, 32 valves and all the components associated to them.

Ask an engine builder. Mine all advise to get that oil and coolant hot first.

Foul the plugs?

Not an issue.

[Joshorilla]

Originally Posted by Somchai

Since many riders in Germany have the same probs with their FI-250's I think this is a common problem for the Kwakis.
Very important is that you DON'T TOUCH the throttle-grip when u start her when the engine's cold - let her idle for a lill moment.
And also common are starting probs when the engine's warm/hot already, that's known in Germany and my one is doing that also from beginning on and in this moment it's good to use the throttle-grip...
No big thing, just get used with it.

I wouldn't compare the FI-300 to the FI-250 as the 250 has a more expensive, arguably better system than the 300, I am lead to believe the 300 has no O2 sensor and the 250 does, although all the americans here with no experience in the factory system swore blind the 250 has no O2 sensor, so I can't comment for sure with the 300 never having seen one.

With my fuel injection, I notice on sub zero mornings if I rev to about 3 - 4 krpm it'll stay that high at idle after I pull in the clutch for the first minute or so, I can easily get it to stop doing this by pulling the clutch at 2kprm where it normally sits.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Joshorilla

I wouldn't compare the FI-300 to the FI-250 as the 250 has a more expensive, arguably better system than the 300, I am lead to believe the 300 has no O2 sensor and the 250 does, although all the americans here with no experience in the factory system swore blind the 250 has no O2 sensor, so I can't comment for sure with the 300 never having seen one.

Remove chip from shoulder at any point. The presence or absence of an O2 sensor isn't the be-all and end-all of whether the system is more advanced. Nobody has shared anything about the older 250 system suggesting it was capable of running in closed-loop mode, or doing anything particularly interesting with its O2 sensor. Seeing how there are any number of complaints of the 250's FI system, from poor running to impossible startup in cold weather, it clearly hadn't ironed out all of its bugs throughout its run.

[Joshorilla]

Originally Posted by Alex

Remove chip from shoulder at any point. The presence or absence of an O2 sensor isn't the be-all and end-all of whether the system is more advanced. Nobody has shared anything about the older 250 system suggesting it was capable of running in closed-loop mode, or doing anything particularly interesting with its O2 sensor. Seeing how there are any number of complaints of the 250's FI system, from poor running to impossible startup in cold weather, it clearly hadn't ironed out all of its bugs throughout its run.

I was quite annoyed / relieved when I discovered the lambda sensor as it means I am able to install a custom exhaust / filter with no mods needed, that's if you listen to the Thai / Indonesian chaps, but I spent so long being told "You have no o2 sensor! The 250 ninja you will need to put a power commander on and install an o2 sensor" by people that by all intents and purposes were guessing, so I wasted a lot of my time after that bad advise.

I've had little to no problem with my fuel injection other than once it started on one cylinder only "no biggie, turned it off and on", and occasionally it over / under revs when it's cold, and the radiator fuse blew causing the light to go on. The fuel economy seems to be much better than the carb'd model.

I would say that in colder countries than mine such as Germany I can imagine you would get problems, my problems only seem to happen in the very cold weather or if it's been raining sideways.

May I suggest seafoam to clean the injectors?

[geeker]

Originally Posted by old3

As to why, probably not the cold engine, sometimes they will stall. Not often, I've had mine do it 2-3 times in near 2k miles and always while hot.

Has this happened since you've installed the AreaP tuner?

[lgk]

happened to me,
when my temp enrichment tune was lean... and decel fuel cutoff was to low of an rpm.

has nothing to do with how advanced the fuel system is, has everything to do with tuning.

[old3]

Originally Posted by geeker

Has this happened since you've installed the AreaP tuner?

Nope but I only have about 250 miles on it in frigid temps.