Elefant 900ie

mike

A friend restored this lovely Elefant a few years ago, but reported that it wasn’t running quite right (suspected intermittent ignition issue on horiz), so I’ve offered to take a closer look at what’s going on.

I’ve popped her on the operating table for now, and started getting access. I’m off to Philadephia for a week, so will probably get first startup when I get back and begin troubleshooting.

Serjames

Such an uber cool machine… I would forego my fear of tall bikes, just to get a go on one of these beasties !

Bridgland

I do like the Desert X with this colour scheme too.

mike

I started troubleshooting on it at the weekend.

I wanted to give it a full check from basics, because the symptoms as reported by the owner sounded like it might be intermittently running on one cylinder. First test was to swap a P8 ECU in (from my 916), and validate the sensor readings (all fine - the point of swapping the ECU is that P7 ECU doesn’t support serial comms to connect a laptop, and the P8 is pin and signal compatible, allowing the sensor values to be checked..), then to get it running with a scope connected to the injectors and coils, which all look fine (for the observed period), though the horizontal cylinder is running measurably and significantly cooler than the vertical (300C on the vert exhaust manifold vs 60C on the horiz).

Travelling again this week, so investigation halted temporarily - but once I got it running last week, I was seeing symptoms of the revs hanging on throttle release, so I suspect that next steps will be to be look at fuelling and throttle body sync.

Serjames

Blimey that’s some diagnostic routine. Am impressed

mike

Yeah, perhaps overkill, but given that a few people have already looked at the bike, I didn’t want to jump to conclusions or make assumptions, so decided to try and trace and eliminate as much as I could along the way.

Bridgland

Wonder if it might be as simple as a partially blocked/poorly flowing injector? Good luck with the diagnosis steps.

mike

Hi Chris - it’s possible, but I know the owner had the injectors cleaned and flow/pattern tested during the restoration process.

I’ll likely be popping the airbox off this weekend, so should be able to get a better view of what’s going on with the throttle bodies.

mike

Finally got home yesterday after a work trip to India was unexpectedly extended thanks to current events in the middle-east..

Taking advantage of some bright (although chilly) weather today, I took the Elefant out for a test ride this afternoon, and it felt pretty good.

As I suggested in my post above, the throttle body sync was the main culprit here. The Elefant uses different throttle bodies to the 888/851 (and 907ie, I think), so it took a bit of fiddling to ensure I understood all the correct adjustment screws, but I managed to get it drawing evenly on both cylinders on the bench, whilst also sitting between 3.3-4% CO, which felt about right

I took it out for a little blast around the local country roads, and it was good fun! The front brake is a bit spongy and probably needs a bleed, but it’s a lovely thing to potter about on.

The owner has asked for a new set of belts to be fitted, so I’ll need to pull the tank off again and do that in due course.

One point of interest - whilst working on the bike a few weeks back, one of the ignition relays was persistently sticking on, meaning that once the engine was running, turning and removing the ignition key would not stop the bike. As many of you will know - these particular fused relays are difficult to find these days (and therefore expensive) due to the unusual pin configuration of them. Some years ago, I’d anticipated this with my Bimota, so when doing some electrical work on it, I’d rewired it to accept modern four pin fused relays - meaning that I had two spare relays, which I could install into the Elefant.

On the Elefant, there is a small black plastic cover on these relays, as they are installed in the cockpit. Here’s a pic of the two original Cagiva fused relays.

Here’s a pic with the spare relays that I had installed. Note the orientation change!

What I didn’t expect when I started putting the fairing back together was that the orientation change would suddenly become significant..

My solution is to design and 3d print a new cover with a bit more clearance..

I’ll report back in a few days on how well that works.

Serjames

Blimey - your attention to detail mate is incredible. Great read. And that bike is such a stunner. Would love a go on one of them. So cool

econti

What tool do you use to measure CO at idle?

mike

I’ve got an old gunson gastester device that does a reasonable job. You can see it in this short vid

mike

All things considered, I’m pretty happy with how the relay cover came out. The curve of the base that you can see on the design diagram was deliberate to match the curve of the fairing, and that worked well - it fits just like the original should. The surface of the print isn’t quite as nice as I’d like, but that’s also a consequence of it being curved, rather than flat. I could spend more time sanding and/or painting it, but I think it’s good enough for now.