my mechanic says the bike is running like a bag of nails after a service... fires on 1 cylinder then both then stops after about 2 mins, he's checked throttle bodies etc etc (been through the bike with a fine tooth comb he says and all is in place), changed the battery, even put it on a ducati diagnostics machine (apparently it came up with every fault imaginable). Thing is though it was running well before winter and had no problems at apart from the fueling needed checking, along with a service & MOT, to his credit he's been on it a week and only charging me the minimal price for labour etc (they're a large bike importer/dealership in stoke on trent area). He seems to think the ecu is on the way out, how can i test for this and what can be done to replace/repair it, i only want the standard one (with map). Also what does this entail changing the ecu. Any other ideas on what it could be? It's a 2003 bike on an 06 plate had it since new and only has 6800 miles on the clock. Thanks in advance Chris
The cheapest way would be to get a second hand ECU. As your bike is a 2003 the ECU is likely to be an IAW59M. These don't tend to come up often on eBay. You could try Jim at Bike Enders 01708 455530. You could consider upgrading to an IAW5AM which the post 2004 bikes used. This opens up things a little as you can pick an ECU up from a later bike (848,1098,1198,SF and HM). The beauty with these is they are all virgin ECU's, means you can use your Red key to code the immo and keys. If you get one of the later ECU's I can help with flashing the map for the 749 onto it. If you can get an IAW59M then I can remove the immo and clone your ECU to the second hand one. PM me if you are interested.
Sorry for the late reply, Yeah im interested but just got the bike back today finally and admittedly it was a git to start, but once running it was fine on the 7 mile trip home, im gonna test it over the next few weeks and see what happens (also have to save some money just incase), if it really is that or their incompetence. I'll be in touch one way or another! Cheers Chris
There's some simple things you can do that may improve things 1. Replace the Injector/Coil relay (found top left of the battery box, just pull it out of it's square rubber retainer). £1.90 + p&p off eBay. Put di-electric grease on the connector to keep things dry 2. Run a secondary earth lead from the -ve terminal of the battery to the earthing point on the left side of the engine.
Defo replace the relay as Chris mentioned. I think on yours, you'll find it bottom left behind the heat shield, just underneath the starter relay. The coil sticks are also notorious on the early bikes, especially the front one. The later coils are a straight fit and use a fly lead for connection rather than being a direct connection to the top of the coil stick. Last check is the earth connection to the ECU. Again it's behind the heat shield 'round the back of the battery housing. It's fitted to the left hand side ECU mounting screw.
So the bike was running ok before the service and after the service, your mechanic has got it running rough and is charging you to correct the fault that wasn't there originally?
Nelly changed the coil sticks when I got the bike for the later ones.. so can count them out. I'll try the relay (is it the petrol pump relay or another one?) and the earth to make sure. Final Edition it ended up he has just charged for a new battery (I knew it was due sooner or later) and a few hours labour, he'd checked the belts, shim clearances etc, I'd marked the respective access points/parts and they've been moved so cant disagree with him on that. He's had it 3 weeks total and was indeed in bits. He's made a massive loss on it so he says, and to be honest i was a bit sceptical too. like i say i came home and all was well I left it a few hours and started her up again and she struggled a bit (back fired) and didnt like sitting on tick over until up to a decent temp. I'm obviously trying to get rid of the cheaper possibilities before the expensive ones. thanks guys... Chris
The relay pulls in most of the fuel injection system, incl. the fuel pump. Also puts 12V on to the injectors and coils.
JC749 yes its fresh fuel in it. Nelly cheers i'll get one (just looked and cant find what im after on ebay whats the part/alt part number?) Chris
Worth a thought. BTW if you ever need one in an emergency, you can get the 3 pin replay from Halfords. Funny thing is last time I checked they were more expensive
Checked or incorrectly adjusted?? Seems odd when work has been done and its worse after. Guess some of the pulling and pushing an sometimes move something or jar something else which creates a technically non related issue
right sorry for taking so long to update, i got hold of the relay's changed it and no difference, i did the earth lead too and still the same, so i can only conclude it is the ecu that is corrupted and needs either reflashing or another on (probs will be second hand and flashed). Thanks for all your help guys but i feel expense coming on lol/
I had a similar problem with my 2005 749 that was intermittantly only firing on one cylinder, struggling to tick over, and it slowly got worse. I changed the battery, swapped the coils, had the ecu diagnostics checked (didn't show any faults) and was faced with a potential ecu failure. Turned out it was a lack of compression due to a valve not closing because of carbon/burning round the valve seat. New valve and set up sorted it but still wasn't cheap.
I have a similar problem with the front cylinder. Did your valve issue not show up with a compression check?
The valve issue did show up with a compression test, which is something I couldn't do. I had just checked and eliminated all the simple things I could and then contacted a local Ducati specialist, I then popped in so that they could have quick look and check the ecu but no compression test was done. It was at this point I was told what it COULD be, how long it would take to diagnose and what it COULD cost. The conversation gave me the impression they didn't want to take the repair on. I then decided to take it to a main Ducati dealer and just get it sorted. The dealer called the same morning with the results of the the compression test and said they would investigate further if I was ok with the extra labour. They found the fault with the valve, ordered the parts and I had the bike back within a week. It also ran better than ever. It had never really ran on tick over properly and would stall at lights, a common problem with 749/999s.
I'm new on the forum but not new to iffy Ducati electrics; I've looked around at the multiple options for fixing my problem but nothing has worked so far; basically EOBD light comes on when under load and errors are 10.2 (mostly), 12.1 (injector 1 earth) and 37.3 (immobiliser disconnected), but only sometimes, another rather alarming side effect after limping home on one and a half cylinders is the front exhaust was red-hot, to the point of melting the belly pan; great more expense!!! I've swapped out the front coil for a new one and the upper one was replaced at the last service (Sept 2013) with the later sealed version. A few years ago the infamous injector relay packed up and was replaced, I had a look at this but it doesn't look corroded and makes all the usual noises on start up; starting isn't an issue. I also cleaned up the earth from the ECU and made sure everything was as it's supposed to be/look! So would it be worth changing the injector relay in the first instance; does this also supply the coil packs. I understand it can throw all sorts of error codes out that seem unrelated? Is the part number 46520411 for this, the replaced one on the bike appears to be a pattern one, can I just get a relay from some other source? I'm hoping it's not the ECU, although I know these can go on the earlier models; my bike is a 2004 749s, no idea whether I have a 5.9M or a 5.AM as when I took it out it has no part numbers or labels on it! I shipped my Duke out from the UK and live in NZ so this stuff is hard to track down and good Ducati mechanics are as rare as rocking horse sh*t! Any help would be appreciated!
