I was having a problem starting my bike when it was cold. The bike would crank like normal, fire up easily but then stall straight away. It refused to start after that no matter what I did unless I turned the ignition key off and then back on again and then it would start up easily and was fine for the rest of the day only to repeat the hard starting thing the next day I rode it.
I took it the Yamaha dealer and they replaced the fuel pump. They said it was running out of fuel at the top end of the rev range so they thought it may not be priming the fuel system properly and causing the starting problem. They also found that the clutch switch was broken. Gotta love Yamaha parts durabilty, the bike has less than 11,000 easy ridden kilometers on it and only ridden on the weekends.
Unfortunately it still wouldn't start when cold sometimes. I took it back to the dealer and they had another think about it and they remembered an "undocumented feature" of the R1. When the cranking voltage of the battery gets below about 10.9 volts the engine immobiliser is switched on. They checked my battery and sure enough the cranking voltage was under 10.9V. Even though the battery had enough juice to spin the starter easily. They charged up the battery and all was well for a day or two. I didn't ride the bike for a week, went to start it and it refused to start again even though the starter spun the engine easily.
I bought a battery tender, the battery stays fully charged and everything has been sweet ever since. It seems that for some reason R1's and FZ8's need a lot of power to run the electrics.
I took it the Yamaha dealer and they replaced the fuel pump. They said it was running out of fuel at the top end of the rev range so they thought it may not be priming the fuel system properly and causing the starting problem. They also found that the clutch switch was broken. Gotta love Yamaha parts durabilty, the bike has less than 11,000 easy ridden kilometers on it and only ridden on the weekends.
Unfortunately it still wouldn't start when cold sometimes. I took it back to the dealer and they had another think about it and they remembered an "undocumented feature" of the R1. When the cranking voltage of the battery gets below about 10.9 volts the engine immobiliser is switched on. They checked my battery and sure enough the cranking voltage was under 10.9V. Even though the battery had enough juice to spin the starter easily. They charged up the battery and all was well for a day or two. I didn't ride the bike for a week, went to start it and it refused to start again even though the starter spun the engine easily.
I bought a battery tender, the battery stays fully charged and everything has been sweet ever since. It seems that for some reason R1's and FZ8's need a lot of power to run the electrics.