Long-Distance Endurance MT10 Project

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Took the LD project bike out for a 80-miles test spin out on the High Plains of eastern Washington yesterday.


JoeCoolJan2023.jpg


This also gave me a chance to check out and confirm the reputed crummy gas mileage... yep, there are some challenges to work thru here:


31.5.jpg



I am about to take it back into the shop for a week or so to finally finish all the electrical mods. Those are fairly tedious and require a good amount of tear-down first, but I can't continue to put them off.
 
Any chance that Ivan has a tune that could improve the mileage?

According to the MT10 community, there is a premier ECU tuner not too far away in Kirkland, WA, who know this engine inside-out. I emailed them once about this very notion - to flash the ECU with the goal of maximizing MPG. No can do, according to their reply... :cry:

The bike already runs super lean from the factory to maximize fuel economy and to meet emissions standards. Properly tuning the bike will reduce fuel economy (while massively improving performance and engine longevity), and there isn't any way to improve it over stock.

Nate Phipps
Operations Manager
2 Wheel DynoWorks


Bummer, but sounds about right. I will take the rear sprocket down from factory 43-teeth to a 41-teeth, and see if lowering 500-ish RPMs at cruising speeds will buy me anything for more range. But if that fails to yield much, and I'm stuck with a 220-ish mile range I'll be forced to look at the last resort option: carry more fuel.
 
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You can't go wrong with a 2WD tune.....loved how mine ran after! Then changed to a full Akropovic exhaust and they updated my tune for FREE!

Only sold the FZ10 because of the terrible fuel economy and resulting range.....o_O
 
According to the MT10 community, there is a premier ECU tuner not too far away in Kirkland, WA, who know this engine inside-out. I emailed them once about this very notion - to flash the ECU with the goal of maximizing MPG. No can do, according to their reply... :cry:




Bummer, but sounds about right. I will take the rear sprocket down from factory 43-teeth to a 41-teeth, and see if lowering 500-ish RPMs at cruising speeds will buy me anything for more range. But if that fails to yield much, and I'm stuck with a 220-ish mile range I'll be forced to look at the last resort option: carry more fuel.
I forgot about them.

That sucks. If the sprockets don't help enough, may have to do a bigger aux tank to extend the range then.
 
That sucks. If the sprockets don't help enough, may have to do a bigger aux tank to extend the range then.

I was really hoping to avoid that. These customs cells are a metric shit-ton of money. Still, it may come to that. :cry:

My fabricator is willing to cut into my steel factory tank and enlarge its capacity by 1.5 gallons - that would actually do the job, combined with my existing cell. A total of 10.3 gallons should still give me a solid 300+ mile range.
 
To get the kind of power that bike makes it takes fuel and a lot of it
HP isn't extreme - 158 or so from what I read. I think it was mentioned that the original owner had it as a track bike. I wonder if it was flashed for performance already to the detriment of fuel economy? Perhaps messing with sprocket choices will help to improve mileage enough to give the desired tank range. Pretty sure it will still have sufficient power to bring a smile when the throttle is cracked.
 
I was really hoping to avoid that. These customs cells are a metric shit-ton of money. Still, it may come to that. :cry:

My fabricator is willing to cut into my steel factory tank and enlarge its capacity by 1.5 gallons - that would actually do the job, combined with my existing cell. A total of 10.3 gallons should still give me a solid 300+ mile range.

Wow. That's GL1500 territory.
 
I have little doubt my MT10 already has a flashed ECU, which would help account for my fuck-all MPG numbers. 🥺

Observed circumstantial evidence: the Exhaust Valve servo motor has been removed and the valve has been hard wired open. Without a Servo-Buddy plugged into the servo motor connector, such an arraignment would normally throw an Engine Light. I don't have such a light.

More circumstantial evidence: factory throttle has 3 modes of operation: 1 - aggressive, 2 - standard and 3 - rain. Even when set in Mode 1, the throttle is velvety-smooth, no flat-spots, no rpm "hunting"... that is behavior is not consistent with typical factory fueling settings in Mode 1, which normally results in an abrupt 'on/off' throttle, surging/hunting, crappy low-speed fueling, etc.

I am going to go back to the Kirkland Tuning Gods and re-visit this issue with them. I am fine if they can't do anything to improve MPG; I know that isn't a typical concern of theirs. I am just wondering it they can tell if my ECU has been flashed, and, more important, can they re-flash back to factory settings? 🤔
 
<<snip>>I am going to go back to the Kirkland Tuning Gods and re-visit this issue with them. I am fine if they can't do anything to improve MPG; I know that isn't a typical concern of theirs. I am just wondering it they can tell if my ECU has been flashed, and, more important, can they re-flash back to factory settings? 🤔
Dale, cooling fan temperatures might be a clue. My experience has been the flash folks lower fan on/off settings to turn on at much lower temperatures than factory. 2WDW flashed my Tenere and lowered the fan "on" temperature from the factory 221F to 205F. Ivan does same with the FJR flash.

~G
 
Weather is about to crushed us with another arctic blast after today, so it's a good time to go back into the warm shop and continue working on this beast.

I am about to send off the Aux Cell Mounting Plate to my fabricator so he can re-do the countersink holes to marry up with the Givi rack mounting holes:

AuxCellBareRacks.jpg


It was stunning to see that the two rear-most Givi mount holes are an exact fit with the existing rear-most Mounting Plate holes - score!


plate_bottom.jpg


plate_fitment.jpg


Now four more countersunk holes need to be drilled: the two forward-most holes, and 2 additional holes where yellow circles are:


4HolesToDrill.jpg


Lifted and removed the fuel tank for the first time, need to see how much room this is to work in this area... not much, unfortunately:


Undertank.jpg


ChassisInspect.jpg


While the tank is off, I need to run some circuits up forward through the engine bay to power up some goodies... Oxford Heated Grips, Aux Lamps circuit, Zumo GPS, Klingon Cloaking Device, etc. The cockpit is starting to get a pinch crowded here already, and there is still more to come:


CrowdedCockpit.PORTRAIT.jpg
 
More fun times in MT10 Electric-land! :rolleyes:

Always a rat's nest until the looming and taping are done. There is a lot happening in this pic: I am back to using micro gang-assemblies for the task of creating multiple sets of the same 5 circuits:
  1. Running Lights
  2. Brake Lights
  3. Left Turn Signal
  4. Right Turn Signal
  5. Grounds for all these

    RearRatsNest.jpg
The above rat's nest will service the Signal Dynamics License Bracket with red LED light bars, another Signal Dynamics 6" red light bar to reside at the bottom edge of the Aux Cell, the running, brake and left turn signal lights for the left V47 Givi bag, also the running, brake and right turn signal lights for the right V47 Givi bag. The Givi circuits are up next.

The Givi V37 cases themselves still need to have their red/amber LED strip lighting installed, that will be a tedious job for another day.

Once I am done here, I'll brake out the loom/fabric electrical tape and pretty this scene up. Most of this will be covered up by the currently removed seat latch cross-member anyway.
 
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