Will do for sure. Been away with work for a little while so haven’t cracked into it.

I have the new sparks etc ready to fit and the TuneECU has arrived. Likely I’ll plug it in tomorrow and see where we’re at. If there’s no luck I’m going to go ahead and get a new starter motor.

Starter is up there on the unlikely culprits list. Requires taking the throttle bodies off to change so a bit of a chore.

You can take the cam chain cover off on the right side (the one towards the front held on by 7-8 surprisingly loose bolts) and see the motor turning when you hit the starter (this is fast and easy and affects nothing, just remove gently so you don't have to replace the rubber gasket). Unless motor is turning over slugglishly or not moving at all the starter is doing its thing.

If the motor is turning over strong it's definitely not the starter. Maybe bypass the starter solenoid to make sure it's not doing something odd. More likely than a starter motor which is a very basic electric motor that rarely goes south.

So the bike started up today first time.

I’m of the impression that this was because of leaving the fuel to dry out of the spark plugs and fuel rail as well as completely draining the tank and cleaning the fuel pump filter; I guess fuel quality was the issue here.

New problem, it’s sounds like it’s running on 2 cylinders. Plugged in TuneECU and sure enough it comes up with error code P0353 ignition coil circuit fault cylinder 3.

Can I please get a heads up on which one is cylinder 3? I believe as you’re sat on the bike, it’s the right hand cylinder?

I’ll take it off tomorrow and check the spark from it. So I can get ahead of the game, potential causes of this are the ignition coil, the spark plug, are there any other places to look?

1-2-3 left to right (#3 next to cam chain)

You should have paper labels on the coils with the matching number. These do rot off after some years though.

In my experience fuel is the primary culprit with hard starting problems.

So yours had no problems connecting to TuneECU?

It's a sweet thing when it works.

Couldn’t leave it until tomorrow.

Been out there working now and just went through all the sparks and coils again, unplugged, cleaned each and put back together.

Fired up and she’s running perfectly. Potentially a loose wire in the line somewhere. Such a nice sound after having troubles!

My guess is the starting issues were bad fuel, although I changed it from the tank first time around. This time I think emptying the fuel rail and leaving the spark plugs and injectors out the bike for a couple days to let what fuel was in the system evaporate has made the difference.

Would really like to take the bike for a run now to test it out for sure, but being a track bike it’s just not possible! I guess the next track day will be the real teller whether I’ve fixed everything 😂

Hope your mate gets his going. Feel free to message any questions that I found along the way digging through.

And to answer your other Q, yes no drama whatsoever with TuneECU.

What a magical piece of software that is! Been doing some digging and it looks like mine is running a map for an Arrow full system exhaust, yet I only have the Triumph TOR exhaust. May play around and see if it runs better on the correct map.

If I had to guess I'd say you got some water in your gas somehow. The underground tanks that store gas at stations all have water at the bottoms from years of condensation and possible water infiltration.

When you replaced your gas you likely still had some of the polluted stuff in the pump. This exact thing happened to me. I replaced the gas and still no start. Ended up towing it in to a shop and they cleaned the fuel pump and all was good.

You said the bike had never been in the rain but did you wash it recently? In my experience 10 + year old gas caps all leak. Any water that gets in there is caught by the little shelf at the filler neck where it should run into the drain hole and out of the bottom.

But I had a Gixxer that developed a hairline crack in the tube that runs from the filler neck to the bottom nipple (where it meets the hose that goes to the bottom of the bike) and water slowly accumulated in the tank until she no longer started. That probably took years but once water gets in the gas it sits on the bottom of your tank forever. In the U.S. there's this stuff you can buy called Heet. It bonds water molecules to the gas allowing it to burn. Only works with small amounts of water though.

No it hadn’t been washed, all my Track days for the 2020 season got cancelled because of the obvious, so it hasn’t moved from the garage unfortunately !

Not to worry, she’s running fine now. Going to delve further into TuneECU, looks like a useful tool. Are you aware of any equivalent for Yamaha’s? I also have a 2014 R6 which is for the road only, but I’d love a Tune ECU programme for that too.

Only thing I know for Yamaha's is Flash Tune. And only experience I have is with current generation R1s.

It allows you to basically link to your ECU and change just about any parameter. Around $500 though and it's licensed to your specific bike. Can be transferred if sold for a small fee.

Glad you got it sorted. It weighs on my mind when one of my bikes isn't right.