Error Code 11, TPS reads 0 degrees, 0 voltage?

[kcander]

Welp, thought I had my '08 Uly finally sorted out after a sticky throttle issue. Ended up replacing the whole throttle body with a nice used unit off an '08 firebolt. Pieced it all back together, took it for a 20 mile test ride, everything great, better than it'd run in a long time. I take one last wide-open blast up a freeway onramp just before getting home, and the thing stutters and starts stumbling and runs like garbage. CEL on. I limp it home. Check what's up on the Buelltooth, Code 11.

Backing up for a second here—I'd had some stuttering issues in the past, had some help going through some wiring and didn't find any problems, then swapped to a race ECM which seemed to fix the problem. Well, lo and behold, eventually the race ECM died on me. So I swapped back to the stock ECM when I did the throttle body swap. SO...

Because of the past ECM issues, I assumed the old stock ECM was probably the problem, said to hell with it and ordered a brand new ECM from IDS.

Plugged the ECM in tonight thinking (in my Big Lebowski Walter voice) "OUR F$#%ING TROUBLES ARE OVER, DUDE!"

I do a TPS reset, fire her up...and she barely runs. Idles at about 2000 rpm, stumbles, flutters between 2k and 1k, and if I even think about touching the throttle, she dies.

So I break out the Buelltooth and ECMdroid. When I look at the Live Data with the bike running at idle, the TPD shows 0.0. I swapped that over to TPS Voltg, and that ALSO shows 0.00v. If this data is accurate, that seems...bad. I tried resetting the TPS probably 20 or more times thinking I'm probably just not getting a good throttle position reset, but it was the same result no matter what I did.

So now I'm wondering if my TPS sensor on this Firebolt throttle body is bad, or went bad. I still have the old one...but the old one caused the Code 11 to start with, which I thought the ECM would clear up.

Anybody know if I just missed something obvious? Please gaaaaawd?! Ha! This thing is driving me NUTS!

 

[rb70383]

With the bike connected, does the TPS show any life when you twist the throttle? if not, that's your issue. check for 5V, ground, as well as making sure the signal is getting back to the ECM.

 

[kcander]

Thanks, rb. I appreciate the reply! And now comes the part where I have to admit that I'm an absolute rookie when it comes to electrical, so at the risk of sounding like an idiot: I don't know how to do whatever it is you're saying there.

With the Buelltooth plugged in and using ECMdroid, I can see that the throttle just sits at 0.0 degrees no matter how much I twist it, and I can look at the "TPS Voltg" stat and see that it also just sits at 0. The other Live Data is working, so I know it's not a problem with the Buelltooth/ECMdroid stuff—I can see the RPM stat and a couple other stats moving around, but the TPS related stuff is just dead. I have the shop manual, which tells me the degrees and voltage should be...I can't remember the numbers off the top of my head, in the 3 to 5 range I think...but regardless, they're zero. I've tried it both with the engine off and engine on.

If nothing else, I can give this info to a friend with some knowledge of this stuff and he can maybe walk me through how to figure it out and test it...or come and help me out! Heh.

 

[Cooter]

On ECMDroid, you need to toggle the "Live data" switch to make that data active. Are any other numbers moving or reading? Once you know it is reading data (other numbers moving) THEN look at TPS data, and if you still have the problem, no amount of swapping ECMs or TPS re-setting will fix it.

I would first do what RB said. It is laid out in the service manual you have step-by-step.

A quick overview of what RB said, would be that the TPS (Throttle Position Sensor) is on the throttle body. It is the sensor that is on the throttle shaft, directly on the other side of the throttle cables. It has 3 wires going to it. One side should be a ground, the other side should be 5v with the ignition on, and the center wire is the reading you should be able to see on ECMDroid. It should vary between .2v-4.7v (0-5v approx.) as you sweep the throttle. If you don't have a DVOM, you can get a cheap one from Harbor Freight (or for free with a coupon even!)

 

[kcander]

On ECMDroid, you need to toggle the "Live data" switch to make that data active. Are any other numbers moving or reading? Once you know it is reading data (other numbers moving) THEN look at TPS data, and if you still have the problem, no amount of swapping ECMs or TPS re-setting will fix it.

I would first do what RB said. It is laid out in the service manual you have step-by-step.

A quick overview of what RB said, would be that the TPS (Throttle Position Sensor) is on the throttle body. It is the sensor that is on the throttle shaft, directly on the other side of the throttle cables. It has 3 wires going to it. One side should be a ground, the other side should be 5v with the ignition on, and the center wire is the reading you should be able to see on ECMDroid. It should vary between .2v-4.7v (0-5v approx.) as you sweep the throttle. If you don't have a DVOM, you can get a cheap one from Harbor Freight (or for free with a coupon even!)

Yeah, as I mentioned before, Live Data is working, other numbers moving.

HOWEVER

I have figured out the problem. And it's DUMB.

THE CLIP THAT HOLDS THE CABLE TO THE TPS LITERALLY POPPED LOOSE. Funny how things don't work when they're no longer plugged in, eh?!

So this clip that holds the cable to the TPS, it's really loose. Both on my new TPS and my old TPS, it just doesn't seem to hold very tight. It seemed okay when I originally hooked it up (because it seemed about as tight as it was on the previous TPS), but given how much these bikes vibrate, I can see how that could happen.

On the bright side, I don't have to hunt down to frayed wires and all that. Now I've just got to come up with a solution for holding the cable to the TPS...something more elegant than a wad of electrical tape, hopefully.

Thanks, everybody, for chiming in on this. Even though it ended up being a dumb problem, your advice did get me going in the right direction! Wonder if anybody else has had this happen? Searching now...

 

[kcander]

WOOOOW this post has become even dumber.

Turns out there's a tiny metal clip that holds that cable on. I didn't know this, because a friend helped take it apart, and it's not really mentioned and hard to see in the shop manual. BUT it was sitting in the container where I'd stored my Buell parts for the last year or so. Sure enough, it popped right on, holds the cable in place, PROBLEM SOLVED. Literally like a 5-cent piece of metal. Heh. Hey, if nothing else, I'm thrilled about how stupid and easy this turned out to be!