GRiSO running on one cylinder?

Already checked the valve clearances, no problem there.

How much oil? Is it just a bit tacky, or is it pooling? You might want to check for cracks in the box, if the filter was in correctly.

.

Is it a rattling sound? If so you might have blown the gasket above the sump spacer around the oil galley. Maybe you can upload a sound file and give us the link?

No pooling, just tacky, but very dirty.  

Ive noticed an oil residue on the front corners of the airbox beneath the the rubber intake hoses.  I thought it was coming from leaking rocker box gaskets and breather cover oil rings.  Could the oil be leaking and the dirt be entering the air box from around those intake hoses?  I really hope the engine hasn't eaten a lot of dirt.

I would say its not a rattling sound.  Beside I already had that gasket replaced a year ago.

Tacky is normal. It's virtually impossible not to have a wee bit of oil residue in the airbox. My intake hoses are the same. I doubt the engine is eating a lot of dirt.

I still think it's a spark problem. What's next?

Pull the ECU and check the pins.
Check continuity between pin 2 of the coil connector and pin 38 of the ECU 'M' (brown) connector.
Check the connector (and voltage) at the secondary injector relay and auxiliary fuses.

.

davper wrote:

......
New question, how is dirt getting in the airbox?  If the area under the filter is clean how is it getting in??  Im getting a bad feeling about this......

Other than cracked airbox, check for any other oppening... Maybe the airbox bleeding pipe is broken? Or the plug that close its end is lost? Any oppening downstream the air filter will provide an additional path for air (and crap) to get in.

About the spark issue, I'm thinking that as the coil has 2 circuits, one to the ECU and one to the plug, and the ECU shows no error, it may have to do with the secondary circuit, the one to the plug... Part of this circuit is the ground, a resistance there could result in low current - week spark. Always to the left coil, in combination with the slight lower power it gets to its primary due to longer wire.

There is one problem with my thinking: A ground contact that bad, would result in the bike not been able to start at all. Except if some modification is already done to solve starting issues... (bypass relay, solenoid direct feed, or other mod)

So, if the bike has "starter issue" related modification, grounding issue could be a suspect for week spark....

Could it be a bad functioning injector?

It could be any number of things. It could be that the faeries that control the thrunge grommet accumulator have gone on strike!

I personally think it's a spark problem most likely caused by the spark arcing to earth. Where it's arcing to earth I can't tell as my scrying bowl appears to be broken right now.......

Pete

The low voltage side of the coil is fed from the secondary injector relay. The ECU pulls the coil to ground to generate an ignition pulse. The high voltage side is grounded through the plug. Any short or low resistance to ground on the HV side will cause a bad spark. The ECU can't detect shorts on the HV, so no errors are generated. A poor connection or high resistance at the injector relay will give you less than 12V at the coil, which will give you a reduced peak HV and weaker spark. Either one will give you a sooty plug and poor combustion. The latter should generate errors.

I'm with Pete, the former is more likely, but don't disregard the latter.

.

ECU pins look great, there is continuity between pin 2 of the coil connector and pin 38 of the ECU connector.  

Should the bike be running to check secondary ignition relay/secondary fuses or can it be down with just the ignition on?

Should I use something like dielectric grease of the connectors to the ECU, relays, coils etc.?

Should have mentioned I have 12.4 volts to the secondary fuses and pin 5 on the secondary injector relay.

No grease, please.

Volts are good, but you should measure it while it's running, just to be sure.

.

What is making You sure that Your 2012 is rollerized from stock? Mine is an 08/2012 with now 17120 km on the clock and NOT rollerized. But the last 250 km the valves became louder and louder (maybe that's also Your described mechanical noise) and now I think it's roller time....

Secondary injector relay has 12V to pins 1,2 + 5 when ignition is on and motor is not running and with motor running it has 12V to pins 2,3 + 5.

I can see the roller lifters in the motor and i bought it new in 2012 so I figure its a factory roller cam.

Do you have GuzziDiag?

If so, remove the left spark plug and reconnect the boot. Lay the plug against one of the valve cover screws. Connect GuzziDiag and go to the 'Actors' menu. Select the appropriate ignition test (ignition L) and click 'Start'. You'll get the fuel pump/startup process, followed by 3 activations of the coil. You should see spark on the business end of the spark plug.

You can repeat for the injector. You'll hear the injector click as it fires.


.

Not long ago, I had undervoltage at the low voltage side of the coil, that trigered an ECU alarm even if the undervoltage was not so severe to cause any actual operation problem. As coils and injectors are fed from the same circuit, an undervoltage would triger any of ECU error 23,25,27,31. Those are labeld as "gnd" problems, Guzzidiag's label "too low" makes more sense as its trigered by too low current measured by the ECU. So, I think, having no error at the dashboard, its unlicely to be igniton problem due to low voltage.

High voltage arching ? Having NGK boots (without cracks), and changed plugs leaves as possible points the HT wires and the coil casing. The HT wires should be ok if there is no visual damage/weare of the outer jacket. You could try removing the coils from the frame, put some carton between the coils/HT wires and the frame/engine, start the bike, and see how it revs. You could try wraping something plastic around them, take care what it touches, not to melt on the heads/exhaust..

High voltage circuit not allowing enough current? Assuming that the HT wire is firmly pluged at the coil and the boot is pluged firmly at the spark plug (probably you hade done this many times), leaves what? HT wire strings cut, could happen if the HT wire is bended in a too sharp angle, or at the end of the wire, by removing-reinstalling the boot. Another point is the ground connection, the battery ground (minus) idealy is the same with the ECU ground and the engine ground, in reality its not, if (often?) there is a bad contact at the point that the ground cables conect to the engine. I think none of those would result in a sudden dramatical power loss... It would if the 5mm bolt that holds the cables cracks, only that, in that case, the bike would also have starting problems.

Coil secondary winding (HT) failed? ECU probably doesn't "see" this. The secondary winding is supposed to measure 6.5 ~ 7.2 KΩ to.... something, supposingly between the power outputs, the 1200 coil, has one single output!!! Of course, the best way to be surre is geting a new coil. If the Guzzi part is too expensive/too late to come, look at the coil for its manufacturer model, and get this from where ever. I think its a Champion BAE 850 AK?

ECU misshandling the ignition? ECU "sees" varius sensors to determine what to do. RPM, throttle, engine temp, air temp, barometric pressure, O2 (on closed loop). Failure (shorted or cut) of any of those - not sure for the barometric pressure sensor - trigers an ECU alarm. False readings do not triger an alarm, but could lead to a bad operation. The sudden apearance of the problem, indicates that is not a sensor reading "drift", it could be a sensor moving of its proper place. Take a look, are the sensors still located correctly and firmly, at the places they are supposed to be? You'll need Guzzidiag on a laptop (PC) or ScanM5X on android, to see what the ECU reads from those sensors and consider if those measurements make sense or not. Eg, it does not make sense to see the engine temperaure reading "stuck" at 30C, or the barometric at "recovery function" value of 1010hPA (for days)...

I believe that those are the possible cheap, easy, diy, troubleshooting steps, that have to do with the ignition.

Maybe, you should try something else:
Take a strip of paper, and hold it for some minutes at the exhaust oppening... Do the gases always blows it outwards, or, occasionaly inwards?

I believe my problem is mechanical....After using Guzzidiag to test for spark and injectors, all passed by the way, a little voice in my head said retrace my earlier steps.  So step 1 check valves, left side exhaust valves where way too tight.  How can this be??  I checked the exhaust valves (keep in mind only exhaust valves) last week before even posting here.  

I made no changes yet.......I needed to figure out how I made this mistake.  This is not my first time checking the clearances on this engine.  Over an hour of comparing the valve action of the left and right cylinders I found a discrepancy between the two.  At TDC on the exhaust stroke the left side exhaust valves are closed and I was able to slide the feeler gauge in between the lash cap and the valve as you would to check lash.  So I think oh this is how I made the mistake, I was in a rush, only checked exhaust and had the crank one revolution out no big deal, well yes it is.  

Something still didn't seem right so I thought let me check the right cylinder at TDC of the exhaust stoke to compare the gaps........At TDC of the exhaust stroke on the right side both valves are open, exhaust is closing and intake is opening. Wait what?!?!

So I've now checked this repeatedly and there is no overlap of the intake and exhaust on the left cylinder at TDC of its exhaust stroke while there is overlap on the right side.  Big lesson don't rush your checks.  Ive checked those valves numerous times, but this time i only checked the exhaust and did it too quickly and missed that the left cylinder was not at TDC of the compression stroke, but managed to get the right cylinder into the proper position.

My question, what has happened and what needs to be done to remedy this issue?  I think I'll try to make a video and post it to Youtube so you can see what is happening, but not sure how well it will turn out.  Until then any information that can shed some light is much desired.

When at TDC of the exhaust stroke all valves on that cylinder are closed. You were not on TDC of exhaust stroke on the right cylinder for sure


Sorry, made a mistake, meant TDC Compression/combustion stroke, not exhaust.

Follow the procedure here:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

No left side cylinder TDC exhaust stroke the exhaust valves completely closed and intake opening.  Right side TDC exhaust stroke the exhaust valves still closing and intake opening.

Very strange...

Not possible. You're in error with your TDC. Please tell us how you're finding TDC.


.

Rotate motor with with long Allen wrench in the spark plug hole. Watch as it transitions from up to down and split the dwell to find approximate TDC. Rinse and repeat for other side.

Here's a video I made showing the top end of the of the left cylinder as I rotate the motor. There's a link in the video description for the right cylinder. Have and look and tell me if you see any issue.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]