I noticed a whole mess of problems today. First of all, my reserve light came on after just 60 miles.... I had filled it up to the top with 89 octane on the last fill. That works out to about 15 miles per gallon, not good. There is a strong smell of gasoline around the bike when it is running. Power delivery feels very weak, it seems like I have to twist the throttle much more than normal to get the same acceleration. Idle feels like it is way too low even though it is at ~1150. I had the bike die in stopped traffic with the clutch pulled all the way in (engine was at 225 when this happened.) The bike seemed fine yesterday! anyone have an idea what might be wrong with my f4i?

I changed the oil and filter on Sunday for the first time, put 50 miles on the bike since then. I used shell rotella 5w40 synthetic... could this cause the bike to run rich like this?

 

Thats not an oil issue.....Unless you put it in the tank.You may have gotten a bad tank of gas and now the ecu is trying to compensate by richening the mixture.That would be my first hope anyway.Maybe anO2 sensor?Did the engine start easily after it died in traffic?

 

Maybe try some sea foam and help clean itup abit. Good luck.

 

you might also want to try some fuel injector cleaner too. but i always run 93 octane in my bike, i don't know if makes a difference or not but thats what i use. I am getting like 35-40, in town and up to 50 on the highway

 

Did you notice a strong smell of fuel in the exhaust? If you do you should check your fuel pressure regulator. Also make sure you check your engine oil, if you have a bad FPR then you may have thinned out oil with fuel. This is not good for the engine. Just check the sight glass to see if you notice a rise in the oil level. Good luck and I hope this helps.

 

is your gas bad?

 

I'd second the fuel pressure regulator. I think it's actually calledthe return fuel regulator, but I think that's what whoever said that meant. My '01 F4i had a bad return fuel regulator and it ran way rich, smelled like gas, surged at steady riding speeds, and got horrible mileage. It didn't die at idle, but after I replaced the RFR I realized the guy I'd bought it from had cranked the idle screw far enough that it was idling at almost 4k rpm once it was fixed.

 

+2 on the fuel pressure regulator. My car did the same thing. Hesitated, horrible gas milage, ran extremely rich, black smoke out the exhaust when revved or idle, strong smell of gas. Fixed it and it's ran fine ever since.

 

Here's an update, with another question.

The FI light started flashing before I brought the bike into the shop. It was throwing code 2 (map sensor). So I paid the shop $130 for a diagnostic, and they say the map sensor needs to be replaced...

Could a bad map sensor alone explain all these problems? Is it possible that the fuel pressure regulator is also faulty?

 

Hey Bro, not sure if a bad MAP sensor alone would cause your bike to run that bad, According to the Honda service manual the bike should still run with a bad sensor. When my FPR went out there was no code thrown particularly for the FPR. I did get a bad pulse generator code though, I changed it and I still had an ill-running bike. Did you tryclearing the ECU to see if that maybe was an old code? Did your bike sit for along time without being run? Did you get to check your oil to see if it smelled of gasoline?
Is your bike in the shop still? If the bike is still apart at the shop you can have them put a new MAP sensor in and see how it runs and go from there. It also a good idea to check your plugs, if you are running that rich you probably have fouled plugs. I hope you find your problem, Good luck bro.