Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech EFI

I have an 09 America, my first fuel injected bike. I notice on cold days the fuel pump makes a abnormal squeal when I turn on the bike. Yesterday I decided to start up the bike because I haven't done so in a while and I haven't had a battery tender on it all winter. Being it was only 25 degrees I had to pull the breather nob out to get it started. It started fine after I did that,then I immediately pushed the nob back in and went inside and let the bike run for a while. When I went back outside to turn off the bike and return it to the garage, the bike was way louder then usual, clearly it was running extremely rich, the bike got so hot that even the chrome exhaust covers turned blue. I shut off the bike and checked the breather nob. apparently the breather nob somehow worked its way out half way. Today I decided to check out the bike and the bike won't even start. When I turn the ignition key the pump turns on like it should, but every time I hit the starter button the bike won't start and the fuel pump resets itself, meaning you can hear the pump turn on again. Is this a EFI failure? has anyone experienced problems with their pump like this?

When you hit the start button, is it turning over?
If not, I would give the battery a charge, the voltage may be droping when you hit the starter.

I just went outside after I posted this to try and start the bike again and it started right up. I'm still concerned about my pump sqeeling on cold days like it does. Anyone have the same problem?

They all squeal as the pump is primed. Disregard.

What you call the 'breather nob' is the called the choke in the owners manual. But it does not enrich the mixture like a normal choke - it merely increases the idle. It won't hurt to leave this on for a while. I generally keep it on for about 4 minutes - 3 minutes of warming up and about a minute into the ride - and the air temperature doesn't get cold here in Australia.

<<...and went inside and let the bike run for a while.>>

You must have left the bike running for a very extended period for the engine to get that hot that it blued the header covers.

The ECM (engine computer management) requires at least 12.6v (from memory) available from the battery to turn the engine over (on some but not all EFI bikes). Yes - I think that is unreasonable.

The choke has three positions, off, halfway and fully on and it clicks into each of these positions so its possible you only shoved it to the halfway, especially as the engine didn't cut out
Which also means that while you were inside the engine was running as if you had the throttle partly open, so I'm not surprised an air cooled engine got extremely hot while stationary

As for not starting then starting later, the battery probably recharged itself just enough

The EFI bikes still have a choke? I find that odd.

ya, I think I left it running for 15-20 minutes, and like someone else mentioned on this thread, I must of only pushed the joke in halfway. Thank goodness it was 25 degrees and not 85 degrees. Anyway, I like a little bit of bluing on my header covers, reminds me of my old Bonneville. Thanks for the info, I now feel comfortable knowing I didn't damage my bike.

Most fuel injections I know of don't have anything like that rather the cold start sensor tells the fuel system to make the mix richer.

I think that it might also be like a manual cold start sensor, cos it wont catch when cold just by opening the throttle up
Maybe the sensor was sacrificed to go with the retro look?

Makes sense, it's probably a manual enrichener instead of doing it with a sensor.

There is an idle speed adjust knob as well.