Triumphrat

rick05rocket · 09-06-2007

Took my '07 Bonnie in for an early 6K service (5K on the odometer) because the bike had been starting to miss, die, or become hard to start. The first symptoms showed up about 3 weeks ago, and 1 week ago I stopped riding until I could get her in for service.

The dealer, Pete's Cycle in Baltimore, has an excellent staff of mechanics, and the service mgr. Brian, and the mechanic, Joe, are first rate.

Nonetheless, after having described the problems, Joe serviced the bike and also went thru the usual culprits for the symptoms I had described.

Ultimately, they determined that there was a problem with the ECM, which I believe is an acronym for Electronic Control Module. As a temporary test measure, they took an ECM from a new Bonnie and tried it on mine. Worked fine.

However, then then reinstalled my old ECM, and voila! she ran fine. They are ordering me another ECM; they said these are serial #d parts, and thus they did not want to take the original from the new bike.

My question?? I know the ECM on my '05 Rocket could be reprogrammed, e.g., there were tuning settings based on changes to stock, such as new pipes, etc. DOES UNPLUGGING THE ECM, and then REINSERTING IT cause it to reprogram, e.g., go back to original settings??

Just curious, and I didn't think about this question until I was riding home.

Today, I took her on a 42 mile ride to my alternate work site, and she runs beautifully.

Let me know if anyone else has any experience with A) similar running problems, and B) ECM knowledge.

thanks

ride on

rick

PAAS · 09-06-2007

The ECM (or ECU) on the Bonnie is really only an ICU (ignition control unit) and is much simpler than the unit for an RIII as it doesn't control an FI system in response to numerous environmental sensors. It only controls the firing of the spark plugs via the ignition coils (including rev-limiter and ignition advance functions) and can't be READILY re-programmed in the way the RIII's unit can. I doubt very much if unplugging your original unit and then re-installing it will have made any difference to its programming, but it may have disturbed the associated wiring and connections, thus bringing about the (possibly temporary) improvement you have experienced.