So I have had this thread on a few Kawi forums, and kinda came up empty handed. Only thing left for me to do at this point is to check the coil packs. Below is a list of my posts with updates on the bikes problem. If anyone has any ideas, I'd greatly appreciate the help!

Motorcycle mechanics .. ZX6R 636 Gods .. lend me your voice!

My bike has gotten to the point where I have no desire to ride it. At a stop/idle, the bike is surging very badly, and the result, when taking off from a stop leaves many things to possibly happen...

- Bike falls on its face (doesn't go anywhere), then lunges forward
- The bike basically "hops" forward
- Seems to want to stall, even at like 2500RPM's, then randomly gets power to go

...etc

It makes me feel unsafe riding the bike because every stop sign/red light, I never know how the bike is going to react.

I took a video, and around 2:08 you can see the RPM's fluctuate randomly up about ~400RPMs and you can hear the bike just surging on and off.

Another note in the video is that my cam chain is still loud even after the shop installed the APE CCT. They claim the guides are worn down, so they couldn't tighten it anymore.

So my question to you guys! Why is the bike acting this way? Did the cam chain possibly jump a tooth? I don't hear valves hitting or what not, only the cam chain .. but DAMN, I don't want to ride this bike with it acting this way!!

YouTube - 636 stumbling issues

The whole thread over on the KawiForums:
Something is wrong! Please view : KawiForums.com Kawasaki Forums: Kawasaki motorcycle forums

UPDATE:
So guys.. I couldn't ride the bike today (Left my helmet in my friends car for our MSF class) but I brought it out of the garage to start it up, and let it warm up to see if it'd continue to surge like yesterday.

Well .. just idling in my driveway from cold start to full hot (210*), and then a few minutes after .. the problem never repeated itself.

There was no surging like the video from yesterday.. it was just a constant smooth idle. Around 150*F the RPM's fluctuated by ~200RPMS a couple times, but besides that, RPM's stayed straight for the entire time the bike was running.



What the heck?! Doesn't sound like it'd be a vacuum leak issue since it should always be surging .. I'd say it wouldn't be a coilpack issue since the bike is running fine today at idle .. and if the Power Commander was bad, I'd again assume the problem would be constant/always there.

So .. any more solid ideas after todays development?

***NOTE: I didn't ride the bike today, so I don't know how taking off in 1st gear feels today. I also don't know if the bike surging at idle yesterday was a result of being ridden 30 minutes prior to the video. x_x

UPDATE:
Yeah .. so I came back to give you guys an update.

I grabbed my dads helmet and my old gear, and rode around my block for ~15 minutes. Did a lot of start stops. . . 2nd-to-1st stops ... 2nd-to-Neutral stops, then to 1st..etc

Well, it rode fine. Felt no hesitations/problems starting off from each stop, and the idle seemed "OK" (Fluctuated about ~100RPMs .. but jdgun says his does the same) so I'll consider everything NORMAL.

BUT!

I then park the bike in the driveway, leave it running, go around to my back door, (because I locked myself out the side door lol), opened the garage, came back to my bike to find it surging again. X_X

So, I assume is starts surging after being ridden for a bit, or even maybe just running for a bit. The bike totally sound completely different at idle when it is in its "surge mode" ... so, something definitely isn't right.

Gonna start tearing into it tonight and hope to figure something out!

UPDATE:
Okay, so I've ruled out ...

- Power Commander
- Vacuum Leak

Basically, rode the bike today.. started surging again. (SO, it only starts doing it after the bike is ridden for a while .. which means I doubt it is a loose electrical connection, because it only does it when the bike is warmed up and been ridden)

So, I go to Home Depot (Had to pick up some bolts for something else; bike was surging when I got there)

Came out of Home Depot, started the bike, still surging. I did a quick high rev .. and the bike GOES NORMAL!! The idle stayed steady as can be, just because I revved the bike. I was like WTF?!

So, I rode home, disconnected the Power Commander, and started the bike. Terribly rough idle, definitely not a consistent idle, and kept surging still.

Revved it again .. and the bike goes back to normal for about ~10 seconds before it started surging again.


W ........... T ............ F !!!??!?!???

 

Id say it sounds like an issue with either one of your coils or a faulty spark plug. the way it the rpms jump that fast, if it was gas related, it would take longer to vary, not "on off" like. Its possible you may have a fuel pressure regulator going bad, and its intermittenly dumping more fuel in, but it really sounds far too fast of a change to be anything other than a lack of spark on one of your plugs for some reason.

You could just have one of the coil packs not fully seated at the spark plug, or at the wire terminal plug.

Have you changed the sparkplugs? If so, do any of them look odd?, such as does one look different than the others? Darker, lighter...ect.

I don't think its anything mechanical. If it was, it would do it all the time, not intermittenly. I would say its electrical somehow. I also don't think its a timing issue since it doesn't do it all the time.

Since Im not 100 percent sure of everything you've done so far, I'll say what I would do if it was me just having the issue. First, I would pull the sparkplugs and look at them. I would pull the coils off and measure the resistance of each one and compare them. Im not sure what the proper range should be for your bike, but if one of them is different than the other 3, its more than likley the bad coil. But find the specs for it and test it. If the coils check out, change the spark plugs, then place some dielectric grease on the connections at the coil.

Oh, before you pull the spark plugs. Press down on each coil to make sure the wire is seated fully over the sparkplug. If you hear a snap, you can probably just stop there. Its very easy to not get the plugs seated into the coils. also try to push on the coil connectors to see if one of them may have been loose before unplugging the coils.

 

For being just a squid, you sure are helpful

I was actually thinking it could be the coil packs. I'll be looking into it on Monday!

I put some NGK Platinum's in the bike over the winter.

Thanks for the advice.