Hey people I need some help. I have an 01 f4i and I am trying to get it started up and ready for the summer season. Back in January I started up my bike just to get her going and to make sure everything was still fine. Everything went normal, nothing out of the ordinary. But now just last week I tried to get her going again but no go. Battery is charged and hooked up to my car battery (not started) so that the bat doesnt die within 10 seconds of cranking, the lights all turn on n crap, and the fuel pump kicks in nice and strong. Bike cranks like a beast too, sounds normal just wont catch, it wont even think about starting just cranks all day. Since I got her started in January the only thing I have done is replace the rear tire and take out the left headlight bulb to hook up an HID light. But I have the regular lights in the bike right now not the HID's and when you turn the battery on all the lights light up and work fine. Me and my buddy thought spark plugs could be the prob so we pulled those (they looked like crap) and replaced em the other day. I was confident that would fix it but nope. She still turns over and cranks all day but no start. So we checked the spark plugs doing a spark test and none of the plugs are sparkin. So my guess would be bad coils or something of that nature I really dont know. I'v heard about headlights trippin and then preventing the bike from not starting...I'm startin to get mad so any advice or knowledge that you guys got would really be helpful

 

are you getting a FI message? did you check to make sure its on the on position? is it in nuetral?

 

The kill switch is in the "On" position and it's in neutral. We pulled a spark plug and grounded it on metal and we are getting no spark. We arn't getting any FI messeges

 

do you have all the airbox sensors plugged in and the fuel pump

 

I'd call a dealer and ask. That's a pretty odd problem now.

I've had the bike in gear before, and had a mini panic attack cause I thought the bike was dead.

 

I have the airbox sensors plugged in, but the gas tank is not plugged in because if it was I couldn't check for spark by grounding the plug to the metal. Does the tank have to be plugged in to get spark?

 

yes it does, just loosin the back two mount bolts and take off the to front bolts the take a rope or strap and pull the tank up a few inches and tie your rope or tie strap to the rear passenger seat bar(take the seat off-its the mounting point on the rear cowl) then you can access the coils and check for spark

 

did you check to make sure it was all four plugs not firing?

 

Just plugged the gas tank up and still no spark. And We havn't checked all the plugs but we did check all the coils switching the one spark plug inbetween em. still no spark either way. I'l give the other plugs a shot next time im workin on her.
When I'm checking for spark I have the spark plug in the plug boot and then I just ground the plug itself by putting it up against a metal bolt on the bike then crank the engine and look for spark. This is the correct way to check for spark right? cuz if i'm doing it wrong that would suck

 

you want to ground the plug on the frame, and check all your fuses