Modern Offroad Bikes and EFI

[Steve Bass]

So as many of you may have noticed, more and more of the offroad offerings from KTM, Beta et al are coming with EFI, multi maps and the like, all thanks to modern miniature electronics. My latest Beta 390 RR even has traction control!! Thumb the starter and off you go, no kicking, on the side of a slope, balancing precariously in a mud pit...
This is wonderful stuff, so convenient and easy... except for when it isn't... let me explain...

All of this wonderous technology has a weak point.... the battery. Even though modern bikes are without a kick start now, for weigh and cost considerations, it would be absolutely useless if(when) your battery takes a sh!t.

So 4 weeks ago, a friend of a friend was taking strain on the trails with his Yamaha Yz250FX, a trail focused YZ. we could hear him revving, stalling, starting it up, revving, stalling and repeating ad nauseum. To the point where his battery didn't run low, it just stopped being a battery. Dead, kaput, expired. No warning, no slow cranking, nada. We eventually got it going by using the battery out of my Beta to get it started, ride out of the trail, bring my battery back and off I could go. Without a battery in the circuit, his bike just wouldn't run or run right.
All very tiring and frustrating but an isolated incident you'd think.... well, apparently not..

This Sunday gone, I got a few hours off from the missus and took myself out for a ride. All excellent and marvelous until the bike started running rough. I stopped and that was the last breath it took. battery dead, over, f#cked.... And it' even better because now I'm out on my lonesome, just me and the Canadia mooses, gooses and bear crap.... miles from anywhere. F#cked? Yep, proper f#cked... Oh, and mozzies that'll carry you away for lunch

So after I don't know how many hours of pushing the bastid thing (I swear if I had a lighter I'd have torched it and claimed on the insurance) I got it back to the car, took it home and put the battery on the Optimate LiFePo charger for it to be officially pronounced dead, cause unknown.

But the point of my rambling is this.... I would seriously recommend buying a small spare battery, like an Anti gravity 4 cell to keep in your backpack just in case you have a battery failure in the field on a modern, EFI equipped bike. it might be unlikely but given I've experienced 2 events in the space of a month, I'd wager it's less uncommon than you'd think...Apparently these modern Lithium batteries have a battery management system inbuilt which can fail rendering the cells useless. I suspect that's what's happened in these two cases.
Oh, and the kickstart option?? EFI dummy, no voltage means no fuel pump, no ecu, no brum brum...so a kick starter is as much use as t!ts on a fish when the battery is pooped....

Oh the joys of modern tech. And yeah, don't go to the woods on your own... Who'd a thunk it

Edited by Steve Bass on Tuesday 19th September 16:43

[KTMsm]

Hardly "modern" I'd guess most lost their kick start 10+ years ago

I'll admit that when considering what bike I'd take around the world I was thinking KTM 950 Adventure because it has carbs

I listened to a talk by Lindon Poskitt (well worth watching his stuff IMO) and when he took a 990 around the world he took a spare for EVERY electronic sensor on the bike

It's not just lithium batteries that can fail without warning - I've had several AGM do it

But so can every sensor on your bike, I've had ECU and loom failures too - but I just carry a phone and an RAC card

[smifffymoto]

Tokyo Offroad has done a video on a gadgett you can buy that gets around the kickstart/dead battery issue.
Caveat….I was only half watching the video so only got the gist,not the detail.Also it was for KTM/Husky.

Off course non off the above is any help when you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere.

[Steve Bass]

I've resolved to carry a small Anti Gravity SC-1 battery with me from now on. Nice bonus is it's the type I use on my Ducati track bike so not a complete waste but having been banjaxed by a battery, and seen another go just recently, I'm not risking it again. I'll get a small sealed container with bubble wrap and it can go in my small dry bag mounted on the front number board. And in a sense, my Sunday ride was local to me so not a real danger of being lost in the wilderness. Some of the places we go are proper wild and I'm not sure how you would recover a bike from them....Worst one previously was a friends KTM that he turned into a U-Boat on the Monk's Trod in Wales years ago... needed to cut fence wire out to fashion a tow strap and tow the bloody thing for miles

Yes, I accept that other devices such as fuel pumps can fail but sensors such as barometric and temp have a default value in the ECU for a failure meaning the bike will still run. But the ECU and fuel pump won't prime on a kickstarted voltage pulse and without the battery in circuit, the bike is unrideable due to the effect of the unstabilised voltage on the ecu...

First world problems I suppose.

[smifffymoto]

You can easily take off the seat with the push of a button on a Beta,unlike needing a socket on a KTM group bike.
Who ever thought of that was a complete fking idiot.

[KTMsm]

I've never needed to take the seat off when I'm out but I take a toolkit strapped to the bike, doesn't seem like much of an issue

If you want to talk about stupid KTM ideas, the air filter location is the one most raised in my club

It's a running joke that if you go through deep water at least one KTM won't make it out

They made it worse on the later models because the air filter cover is only loosely held on by clips so doesn't seal very well. I bolted mine on with sealing strips around the front and bottom edges

[Birky_41]

Good point this & I've seen it first hand 10 years back when KTM started running electric start on the race track

I would kick over my EFI CRF450 and saw more than once a KTM 450 conked out or running the starter motor but not firing up (It is a KTM so could be multiple reasons)

If given the choice I would rather EFI and electric start but definitely think a AG SC-1 and/or mini power bank jump pack should be carried for trails/racing as a backup

I have a couple of race 2 strokes from the 80s and 90s. The 80's stuff I cheat and use a roller starter as they are left hand kick start and can snap the shaft or kick start from the comp.

The 90s Hondas are good though and fire up easily. By the 00's/early teens they had it mastered inc EFI without a battery. I never had a single problem on my Honda's or Suzuki's

[gareth_r]

smifffymoto said:

Tokyo Offroad has done a video on a gadgett you can buy that gets around the kickstart/dead battery issue.
Caveat….I was only half watching the video so only got the gist,not the detail.Also it was for KTM/Husky.

Off course non off the above is any help when you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere.

A capacitor?

(As used as part of the Lucas electrics on British bikes in the 1960s.)

[Bob_Defly]

Steve Bass said:

Oh the joys of modern tech. And yeah, don't go to the woods on your own... Who'd a thunk it

Yeah, fell off whilst out riding on my own yesterday, this photo doesn't show how close I was to the edge of a small cliff, just behind the plants. My feet were right on the edge trying to pick it up.

[KTMsm]

I prefer riding on my own too

A mate came off whilst trying to avoid a big puddle as he didn't know how deep it was - he skirted around the side but the bike slid and he ended up in the puddle with the bike on top of him

It turned out to be around 9" deep and he had a bit of a scare trying to get himself from under the bike

"The embarrassment of being found, drowned in a puddle"

[Steve Bass]

smifffymoto said:

You can easily take off the seat with the push of a button on a Beta,unlike needing a socket on a KTM group bike.
Who ever thought of that was a complete fking idiot.

True but having the seat off doesn't make the bastid thing any easier to push around

Point being, Lithium batteries are great with their big cranking capacity and low weight but are they the right fit for an enduro style bike?

The battery Management System they employ seems to be a point where a small issue can render the entire battery dead, not even a low voltage sufficient to facilitate starting it up. I now also read that it's only the Anti Gravity brand that are waterproof... so the Unibat that Beta use isn't... how is that a smart move on a bike destined to be wet either on the trail or at the jet wash??

So I guess the Q is whether it's smarter to swap to a older type lead acid type battery for their simplicity rather than keeping the spangly and possibly fatally flawed lithium unit...last time I checked, Graham Jarvis wasn't rating me as his biggest competition this year or next so I'm not sure the weight penalty actually matters in the grand scheme of things...

[ywouldi]

I've got the original lithium battery in my 2017 KTM Exc, 450hrs and 13,000 miles and it's been 100% reliable. I never put it on a tender and it it running GPS and upgraded lights without issue. I keep thinking that I should replace it but don't want to tempt fate and get a duff new one!

[Steve Bass]

ywouldi said:

I've got the original lithium battery in my 2017 KTM Exc, 450hrs and 13,000 miles and it's been 100% reliable. I never put it on a tender and it it running GPS and upgraded lights without issue. I keep thinking that I should replace it but don't want to tempt fate and get a duff new one!

Then love and cherish it, lavish gifts, luxury holidays and expensive cars on it, it's surely a goodun'......