Hi I've just taken my beloved 998s (owned from new) out of storage after nine years. Spent several weeks prepping it (belts, much oil-priming, plugs, forks, etc.) and today was the first run out. OMG it's like going back in time! Anyway, all good except one thing - Very intermittently, (but always if I short-shift) the bike "misses" for about half a second and then picks up again. If anything, I'd say performance is subdued somewhat overall, but this could just be down to elapsed time not riding it. Anyway, I wasn't for totally caning it when I knew it wasn't running right. The issue isn't at a specific rpm range and (apart from feeling like the thing isn't quite so sharp as I recall) running doesn't feel lumpy at all. In fact, apart from this, it feels bloody great! What I also noticed is that the rev-counter needle is fluctuating quite a lot all the time (say +/- 500rpm). I think in the half-dozen instances where it coughed, the rev-counter needle may have dropped to zero for a split second (I stopped short-shifting to avoid the problem, so didn't always catch the behaviour). The only thing that's changed since the bike going into storage is that I had to bypass and remove the Meta alarm as it had failed. Anyway, as ever, any advice would be appreciated very much. Thanks in anticipation! L
I had the same problem on my track bike. Cut a long story short my sprag was slowly eating itself and some metal crap had attached themselves to the crank position sensor. It became more difficult to start and on top of that the rev counter went screwy and I had an intermittent misfire. Anyway did the necessary and never had a problem since.
Hey Skidmark66 - thanks for your message. I hope that's not the case with my bike; the starting process doesn't seem to be compromised in any way. L
I hope its not as well just letting you know my experience. Them sprags can be little horrors when they want to be.
on the 999 with the same Testastretta engine, the front coil is a known weak point. If the bike was put away with a hint of corrosion in this area, then that corrosion could have continued. Well worth checking it out and giving it a clean up. New plugs wouldn't hurt while you're at it. Another simple thing you could look at is relays. Being electro-mechanical, these are subject to corrosion too and simple and cheap to replace. Worth a try.
L, intermittent or irregular rev counter indications, flashing dash light, blowing bulbs and similar oddities are often down to poor earth connections or earth continuity failures (broken wires or burnt connector pins). When you took the META out did you totally strip it or just pin it out? They take a while to remove but can be totally removed without leaving anything other than soldered insulated repairs to the existing loom. The meta system will have a connection/splice into the +12v close to the fuse box and a second +12v which is probably on the switched feed to the ecu (orange/blue) amongst others such as the safety relay, starter solenoid, indicators, horn, seat switch and the tell tail led as well as a couple of earths. Any of the wire splices from that alarm would be a place to look. I would check the round connector under the tank RHS for clean and dry contacts but especially look for the two black earth pins in that plug, check for burning. Next check the ecu earth is correctly located and tightly done up, next check that switched ignition supply to the back of the bike they probably used that orange/blue line which goes to the ecu via the fuel pump relay. If you removed the alarm completely did you solder/insulate the repair or use connectors - if the latter you need to get some heat shrink tube and solder them up.
Denzil I have a feeling of being "not-worthy", since the warnings you gave on an earlier (and honestly, unrelated) post! As it is, I'm extremely grateful for your response. My Meta alarm was a real challenge. As you can imagine, I spent three weekends preparing the bike for a restart (belts, oil system priming, plugs) after spending so long laid up. At the end of the process, when I built up the courage to hit the starter button, neither of the alarm fobs would play, so I went back to the emergency process with the supplied key-code. All was fine (I repeated the process twice more to convince myself) and left the bike a week "safe" in the feeling that the following week would be plain sailing. After that week passed, the Meta LED was on solid and it wasn't playing ball at all. A few calls to auto-electricians suggested the unit was goosed and I'd be better removing it. I followed this link to remove / isolate it, without necessarily removing the whole sub-loom, as I'd expect to replace it at some point in the near future. I twisted the wires together tightly and wrapped them with heat shrink. I didn't solder them, but will certainly do so at the weekend, and then follow the rest of your great instructions if that doesn't work. Thanks again L
L, If you want the pin out data I have it for the 357T, V2 and an older system but will only pm them. However without soldering the wires or using a clamping connector (even a choc block for fault finding) you are off to a bad start. I have removed two 357Ts myself, both of which caused odd failures or intermittent issues, one of them was positively diagnosed by a whisp of blue smoke and an electrical burning smell coming out of the alarm unit. Sometimes the reason they break down is crap installation, but they all seem to have a finite lifespan and will inevitably end up being removed. Despite that they were considered to be one of the best systems in the trade.
The 998 doesn't have the same coils as a 999. I have seen the exact same symptoms, which turned out to be the flywheel nut coming loose and backing out into the crankshaft outrigger support bearing and circlip. This caused metal particles to stick to the ign pick up sensor. The nut was jangling on the end of the crank, which damaged the threads in the nut but luckily the crank and Woodruff keyway were ok.
Denzil Would really appreciate a copy of the pin-outs, if possible. Mine is the original MT357. The installation appears to have been done very well, but it sounds like my bypassing might be the "smoking gun". Let's hope it's that and not the LH crankcase-related issues highlighted by others. Thanks in anticipation. L
Does the 998 have conventional coils and ht leads then? I had the nut come loose on my SS but that had pick ups from the flywheel, so kept dropping onto one cylinder until it would only run on one. The loose flywheel also produced a knock. Luckily I too had no damage other than the pickups. I was told that later Ducatis don't really suffer from this problem and I would take that to include the Testratetta 998. Is this not the case?
Yes the 998 has coils and leads like the 916 etc. No noise or rumbling from the engine. When the lh cover was pulled off the flywheel came with it. Always stick plenty of Loctite 270 on the nut now. I looked into fitting a large Nordlock washer under the nut but felt the nut was too hard for the washer serrations to bite into. It may be worth checking the connector for the ign pick up for bad contacts etc.
L you have a pm, not sure if the you tube link was for a M357T or a M357TV2 - they each have different pin outs, I have sent both of them with the plug, pin and wire identifications so you can confirm its a M357T.
Denzil (and others) Thank you so much for your help. She's running beautifully now. I replaced the fuel filter (it needed to be done anyway, and I heard that old ones can cause pumps to put unnecessarily heavy load on the circuitry. I also soldered the wires from the alarm bypass (thanks again, Denzil - these were the wires I'd previously spun together, but they're now soldered, taped and cosy in black heat shrink. Finally, I re-seated the ECU and cleaned up all contacts, including ECU earth. What I found was that the lower ECU clip that holds the clamp in place had become brittle and broken off. Thankfully, I found it possible to tie-wrap the clamp so that it can't move. Last week, when I first rode her again, I mentioned she didn't feel as fast as I remembered. Of course, with the misfire, I wasn't riding above 7 or 8k (much like the Hypermotard I have). Well tonight, I was pleasantly reminded of the top end that starts at 9k and then goes banzai. Welcome back, Honey!
