Rostra Global Cruise Installation

:yahoo: What a chore that turned out to be. I did not want to put in the vacuum cruise although I have one sitting here in my office, so I got to it. I had already installed the Rostra system in my ST1100 and it worked great. The FJR AE (yes I have the one with no clutch lever...and love it) has some SPECIAL problems with a cruse control of any kind. The AE has an extra computer that uses up the room directly under the seat so nothing can go there. Since it also has ABS and the grip heaters, then those normally-available spaces are not available. That leaves the only little space available on the bike, which is the area in the rear under the seat just forward of the tail-light assy and it BARELY fits. I will get some photos of the whole thing later and post them on the forum, but here is some high points.

The control unit just barely fits and the real problem is that the length of the acutaor cable is about 1 inch short of being long enough to get all the way to the linkage. My photos later will detail how I got around this, but basically I used a piece of 1/4 inch copper tube bent 90 degrees and greased the inside of it to make a bend to pick up a length of the beaded chain that comes with the unit to a screw mounted in the end of the throttle-stop tang. The other nice trick is to use the VSS signal available on the FJR, going from pin 18 on the ECU to the ABS CU. This is a white/yellow wire. Just tap into this wire and connect it to the gray VSS wire on the Global Cruise. This is a VERY high pulse rate. I set the setup switches on the Global Cruise to the max pulse rate (switches 3,4,5,6 to ON) and the gain switches both to off (1 and 2 to off). Selected "Automatic", did not use the "tach" input (but I grounded it to prevent noise). I also set it up for Normally Open swtiches and used two miniature pushbuttons on the left bar for "set/decel" and "resume/accel". I just connected the brown and red wires so the unit is "on" all the time but not engaged until the "set" button is pushed.

Has anyone else installed this unit on the FJR?

Ed Lee

what kind of price on this unit and how many hours installation time?

FJRMGM said:

what kind of price on this unit and how many hours installation time?

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I got mine through my son. About $100 at his cost. This did not include the control stem, or the magnetic pic up since I did not need either one. I could probably get a group buy together if there was enough interest, but I need to get some time on mine first just to be sure. I have had the same unit on my ST11 for three years now and it works flawlessly. On the ST, I tapped into the rear ABS sensor line for the VSS input. It was a nice square wave output. The 2007s and earlier FJRs use a two wire (passive) pick up device for the ABS, but the 2008 I understand uses an active three wire pickup for the ABS just like the ST ABS2 system does.

Ed

Had not heard of this one but it sounds interesting. I noted on their website that they do custom units for specific vehicles, so perhaps if their was enough interest the FJR could be the first custom motorcycle unit.

Let us know how it works out, and I could be interested in a group buy.

Sounds like a better mouse trap to me.

I mounted my audiovox unit in the tail of my AE without much effort. Here is my install for comparison. Note how I connected the control cable to the throttle stop.

BTW it has always woked great.

Wild72 said:

Had not heard of this one but it sounds interesting. I noted on their website that they do custom units for specific vehicles, so perhaps if their was enough interest the FJR could be the first custom motorcycle unit.
Let us know how it works out, and I could be interested in a group buy.

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OK, I will update the info when I have a trip on it under my belt. I have only had the bike a short while and never had the plastic off. I had a lot to learn while I was doing this. It was a bit scary taking the tank off with the gas hose disconnect (pretty slick actually), then taking the T-bar out and heat shield loose, THEN realizing I had to remove the injectors, connectors, vacuum lines and all that stuff (watch out for the little rubber o-rings on the injectors, you can drop them into the bowels of the engine...DAMHIK). All this is necessary just so you can SEE the area you have to work in. It took me about 8 hours to do the whole thing and half of that was figuring out how I was going to get a too-short actuator cable to work.

Ed

ARFJR said:

Sounds like a better mouse trap to me.I mounted my audiovox unit in the tail of my AE without much effort. Here is my install for comparison. Note how I connected the control cable to the throttle stop.

BTW it has always woked great.

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ARFJR, that roller gadget is the cat's meow. Damn I wish I had thought of that. I am going to dig back into mine and do the same thing. The copper tube lubed with grease works but the roller is so much more elegant and no opportunity for wear and should be less friction. That is a true tribute to Rube Goldbergs everywhere.

Ed

motorcycle-ed said:

Has anyone else installed this unit on the FJR?

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Hi Ed,

Some time back, Damocles also installed one and wrote about his experiences with the Rostra cruise control on his '04. You can find his tale over on the FjrOwners site on this page. His post is the eighth one down. He wrote this up almost four years ago, so I'm not sure his was the same model as yours. But it makes for interesting reading.

This install procedure worked perfectly, without this direction it would have been much harder, thanks Ed.

Only thing that was left out in the programming settings is, you need to set the engine/Setup timer to 8 Cylinder/Low. With this setting I'm able to lock in and hold steady speed as low as 50 mph. Anything below 50 will lock but does not maintain speed very well, The engine just responds too fast for the cruise.

Other than that the cruise is simply AWESOME. A bit of a pain to install?...YES, but well worth it.

Enjoy

If the vacuum unit that you have is an Audiovox CCS-100, would you possibly be interested in selling it?

Moto ED- what were your Dip Switch settings for the Engine Set Up Timer?

Would you mind Furnishing the Full Switch settings?

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ududududu etc...

Many Thanks!