Damn you throttle!
 

A couple days ago, my 01' F4i started to jitter back and forth while trying to maintain a constant speed. Especially at low speeds and low RPM's (around 4-5K rpm.)
Throttle just feels very notchy around those low RPM's, the smoothness is pretty much gone.

The throttle is fine when I accelerate and it idles fine as well.

A bud of mine recommended Sea Foam/Lucas snake oil?

I've never experianced this kind of problem before on my F4i for the 13K+ miles I've ridden her, so I'm not familiar with the two treatment products I mentioned above. Will they treat and solve the problem or simply aleviate the situation temporarily?

What do you fellas recommend I try?
What do you think the culprit to the notchy throttle is?

Thanks in advance for the help fellas.

P.S. Only performance mod is a Yoshi TRS SS Slip-on, although I don't think it has anything to do with the problem since I've done 5K+ with the slip-on with no problems.

Anyone?

Kinda have to get her back in ship-shape condition since she's my work-horse and i do my daily 65-70 mile daily commute on her.

Any ideas anyone?

It the notchyness in the grip or the motor? If motor I would check the throttle bodies for smooth motion and check for pinched cables.

Seafoam is powerful stuff. You can add it to the intake for valve cleaning, oil for crankcase+valvetrain cleaning, and fueltank for injector cleaning. Used it in my car (97 Camaro SS) a few times with great results (and a big smoke show that your neighboors will love). Just make sure you do an oil change right after to rid your crankcase of all the gunk it loosens up. Your oil will be pure black.

During re-assembly one time I guess I had pinched my throttle return cable under the front lip of the fuel tank which caused the throttle grip to get stuck in a few places. I was freaking out until I discovered what happened.:icon_doh:

Maybe something similar?

not sure Joey...does it surge forward or does it seem to lose engine rpm?

Thanks Sick, I'll give the clearance issues a look-over, maybe my problem is similar to what you had goin on.
The throttle does seem sluggish returning/snapping back to 0% throttle, maybe it needs a lube? (Don't know if that even matters, lol)

I want to say that the notchy-ness is on the engine, since I keep the grip at a perfect constant throttle feed, yet the motorbike lurches forwards and backwards until I increase throttle and RPM's, then the notchy-ness goes away.
The bike pulls fine, it's just trying to keep it at a constant speed at low RPM's when the lurching starts.

I'm pretty sure it surges, on and off, the rpms are there, but the engine seems to lurch around while i keep the throttle grip on a steady position.

All of it goes away when i accelerate.
Weird.

You can definitely run Sea Foam through there (in the fuel), at 1oz. per gal. ratio. Maybe it's because it acts as an upper cylinder lube, but my bike seems to run smoother with it in anyhow. Gumout Complete System cleaner with Regane, and Techron Complete are good too. I don't know if that'll fix your problem, but it can't hurt. That surging might be associated to your FPR.

Is the FPR a going part like the CCTL on our bikes?

Oh God I hope not, I'm super strapped for cash. Friggin holidays..
I guess I'll give the Sea Foam a go, hopefully it fixes this.

Thanks Incog.

I don't see any harm in trying the sea foam idea, like said above its really good stuff it will clean your system right out. Thats what I use in my bike for winter storage. But anyhow its 1oz per gal so you will only be using about a 1/3 of the can and be sure not to just dump the whole thing in because that could cause damage. I would try that, check your lines.. and maybe check out your fuel filter, bad gas could have clogged it.

Ah-HA!
I was waiting for someone to come up with a suggestion like this.
Having no owners manual, here comes the imminent question....lol, where is the ol' fuel filter and how can I check it for bad-gas and debris cloggin it up.

Cuz now that I think of it, all this started a couple days ago when I was running on fumes and let the tank go to bare minimum.
I filled up, and on the way home the stuttering and throttle jerkyness began.
Maybe it ate up some gunk at the bottom of the tank?

Many thanks XJoe!

Yea it is possible, im sure most gas always has something in it and it could have been building up in your tank and when you ran it dry you just pulled it all thru. Anyhow im not exactly positive where the filter is, but I would assume its under your gas tank so I would start there. I believe you should be able to look at it to see if its ok or not, or maybe even try blowing some air thru it. But when you put it back on be sure you put it back on the way it came off, they are directional. And again its possible it made it past your filter to your injectors. Which the seafoam should correct.

So check your filter, run some seafoam. Should be good.:icon_wink: