1997 1100 Sport I, help wanted!

[KCampbellNH]

I have a 1997 Sport, almost 3 years ago I took it for a short ride after I had given it a quick wash, maybe that is irrelevant, I did think at the time maybe it was relevant. After about 30 minutes of riding, while on an Interstate highway the bike had a very brief "hiccup". When it happened I chalked it up to a drop of water in the tank from washing. About 5 minutes later the "hiccup" was back and now the bike wasn't running or barely running intermittently. It has never recovered So here goes, and it is going to be long. For some background, I purchased the bike from a former Guzzi dealer in Avon NY. It had 18K miles on it and has 27K now. They took it in trade for a Daytona. The dealer said the original owner dropped a fortune into it. Extensive head work, dual plug conversion, aluminum square cut timing gears, titanium bits in the valve train, one off Borla exhaust with carbon fiber cans, Will Ceedon chip, and anyone's guess what else. I am willing to bet at the time it could qualify for world's fastest Guzzi. So much fun to ride.
My first thought was water in the fuel. I will try to speed this up, so I removed, cleaned, replaced or tested every part of the fuel system. Tank, petcock, lines, filter, pump, injectors, TPS, pressure regulator, everything.
After ruling out anything to do with fuel I moved on to all things electrical. Started with things everyone would check, like relays, fuses, and connectors. Then disassembling, cleaning, testing the ignition and handle bar switches. There is no sidestand switch. Then I started replacing parts. Cam position sensor (that is all it has, doesn't have a crank position sensor), both coils, plugs, wires, checked condition of pressure sensor, temperature sensor, again, everything. Even checked and rechecked cam position depth and while it was out, pushed on the cog wheel the cam sensor reads to see if it were loose. Finally I turned to the ECU. Sent it out to a place in California to have it rebuilt and they sent it back saying it had "no faults". Spent the money anyway and bought a new ECU from the guy in Australia, the MyECU guy because the original ECU had been discontinued long ago and wasn't available. Didn't fix the problem. Put the original ECU back in. Then I started digging into the harness, pretty much traced every circuit, rechecked all the connections again, pulled the ignition switch apart again and installed new stronger springs, checked all the grounds, jumped out the handle bar switch, opened up the multipin connector on the ECU to check that, jumped out all switches, fuses and relays. I have tried everything.
So here are the symptoms. With a spark flasher installed in one of the sparkplug wires, as you crank the engine, sometimes there is no flash (spark), then spark lights up and the engine fires but only for a second or a few, then the spark goes out and the engine stalls. So the engine will start occasionally, but only for a second or three. The fuel pump seems to be running okay but the spark seems to light up and drop out intermittently. Looking through the wiring diagram, the same relay supplies constant power to both injectors, both coils and the fuel pump. I cut the harness open to find that junction and it was rock solid.
Has anyone seen this situation before? Because I am at a total loss and any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[wpgnorge]

Frustrating as he'll isn't it. I don't have knowledge of your bike and it sounds like you have done alot. You didn't say you replaced the spark plug caps but you probably did. Second is it only not sparking on one side properly or both sides? Ie something common or unique to one side. One of the challenges with these types of problems with Guzzis is that they are few and far between. So you can't just call up a buddy with one and start swapping parts.

I had an intermittent ignition problem on my Laverda. All was good at constant speeds but ignition would cut out upon acceleration with the headlight on, but work fine with headlight off. Finally traced it down to a broken spade connector on one of the coils. The plastic cover on the connector held broken connector parts together and with headlight off the increased current would jump the flakey connection. I tried swapping out a lot of components and it took me several times checking the wiring to finally find it. Good luck, hopefully you get some other ideas to try.

 

[V700Steve]

Was it doing this before you twin plugged it.?Problem solving : If it's not electrical, maybe it's mechanical. Have you tried just using the outer plugs? It looks like you have covered bout everything. I also have a MyECU. Well versed over the last 12yrs of mapping it etc.
That ECU 16M had some glitches, one I found was the barometric pressure was connected to airbox. The rest could be tuned out. This was before the latest Creedon chip that addressed issues. I worked on mostly Centaro's w/16M only 1 Sporty. The ones I did had no glitches like everyone else's. They hate it that I moved. Keep thinking out of the box, you'll get it.
Hey, ever try a PC & autotune?
Time to try diagnostic software, it plugs in to tell you errors & such. Lots of info. I have some if you want to plug it in. I'm somewhat close, 30mi west of Athens, GA

 

[KCampbellNH]

Hi guys, thanks for your suggestions. Both are great and on target. My background in mechanics tells me it is still most likely a poor, intermittent connection that I haven't found yet. I think my son has some Guzzi diagnostic software, if we can find the right connection, we will try that too.
In the meantime, my neighbor, who is an electrical engineer suggested it may be ground issues, which I checked over and over. He further suggested to upgrade the existing grounds and add some. So that's what I did today. It is probably coincidence and not really related to the upgraded grounds, but I have got it to run longer and it still drops the spark, especially at lower RPMs. Above 2500 it seems to be better but still drops spark.
I might be getting closer. Thanks again and I will keep you updated.

 

[V700Steve]

You might be real close, don't know the wiring on FI Sporty but I am intimate with the Centy loom. Had one go up in smoke under warranty---BAD GROUND WIRE ! I had to cut it open & fix! They had no looms then w/new.
The ground that went from front section to the rear section was too small. I ran thick gauge wire the length of loom and connected all grounds to it. PIA but it paid well, 8hrs shop time. Same engineers at the time, similar looms?

 

[MotoGuzziFan]

Occam's razor...

Ignition wires? Internal breakage from age.