Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

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thesteve
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Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#1

Post by thesteve »

After picking up an 83 GL1100 as a project, I soon discovered that the carbs were both gummed up and leaky. Cleaning the carbs didn't faze me, but upon reassembly I found they leaked from nearly every gasket and something was wrong with the accelerator pump. Rebuild kits looked to be nearly $200 for some rubber pieces, so I decided to convert the bike to EFI. This will be the third bike I've completed this conversion on; the first was a 1992 Suzuki Katana and the second was a 1997 Suzuki GSXR.

Let's begin.

Here's the new toy:
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The previous owner said the carbs were just cleaned and had a receipt showing it was done earlier that month. The shop completely took him for a ride, and after the carbs were "cleaned" and $1000 worth of work completed that didn't fix anything, the shop said he needed a pulse generator which they couldn't get. Basically saying "we can't figure it out. Here's your bill; come get your bike." I began the process of stripping it down:
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I then sat down and thought about it. The pulse generator didn't fit the diagnosis. All 4 cylinders fired and it would rev slowly to redline. This was a carb issue.

After opening up the carbs, I found that they were mostly clean. They leaked at every gasket and the didn't work well, but they were clean. Found some threads showing EFI conversions were possible, so I decided to start collecting parts.

So here's where we stand.
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I'm stripping the excess weight and touring parts from this bike at the same time; I have the FJR next to it for actual long distance riding. For the purpose of this thread I'll skip most of the weight loss and style changes and focus on the EFI conversion itself.

GL1200 plenum has arrived:
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Had to remove this air blocking plate to make some room:
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Tons of room now:
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Initial test fit with the left side bolted up:
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About .6" overhang as expected.
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Planning the cuts:
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Chopped out the 0.6" section with an angle grinder:
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Needed a bit of cleanup:
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Bolted up the two sides and found the TPS hits the motor mount:
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I marked the offending section with tape and trimmed it up.
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Now that the mount is out of the way, here's how it bolted up:
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Not bad. Slight gap, but small enough to fill in. Plenty of room to move it around as needed.

Back off the bike and prepping for JB weld. Backed the gap with duct tape so keep the epoxy in place while curing.
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First application of JB weld. Hard drive for weight.
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I recommend taping it better so you don't glue it to your desk like I did:
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First coat dry, tape peeled off:
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Looks pretty good. A bit thin in some areas.
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Started tapping on it with a screwdriver to test the adhesion. Had a couple sections fail:
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No matter, time for round two:
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Round two worked great. Ground some of the excess down with a Dremel and moved onto the throttle linkage. Had to drill a hole to accommodate the shortened plenum:
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Since I was going for a more stripped down look, I removed the ugly rubber boots from the injectors:
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I bent the fuel rail at this time. Don't do that; wait until it's on the bike. This hit the fan and had other clearance issues.
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I replaced the fan thermoswitch with a coolant temp sensor. Unfortunately this is on the cold side of the thermostat. I drilled a small bypass hole to prevent the sensor from lagging too far behind.
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JB weld is dry, and now the plenum is bolted into place:
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Making good progress:
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Mounted the fuel pump under the bike. It's tucked up in there higher than it looks. There's no way it could be hit by any road debris.
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High pressure rated fuel filter:
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Petcock size vs pump supply line:
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Line from pump to filter, coming up from next to the driveshaft:
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Sealed up a few emissions holes and began looking at the idle control. The junction boxes with the red hoses all had reed valves in them for some reason. I removed the reeds so they're now free-flowing junctions. The hose at the top will go to a GM style stepper motor IACV.
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IACV housing from diyautotune.com. Fits an early 90s Jeep Cherokee IACV:
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Throttle cables connected with no modifications:
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Airbox lid from a GL1200. Sectioned to match the plenum.
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Tight squeeze:
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Perfectly centered. Entering the home stretch now.
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GL1200 air filter. Smaller hole is plugged, larger hole fits the intake air temp sensor.
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No room for the airbox itself, but the filter fits in nicely:
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I decided the petcock was too small to feed that fuel pump, so I bought a few 5/16 barbs:
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Fuel return off the pressure regulator:
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Fuel feed from the lowest point in the tank next to the air suspension:
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Both fittings were threaded extremely tightly into drilled and tapped holes in the tank. I used JB weld as a threadlocker to keep them from leaking or ever moving. I've used JB weld before in fuel-submerged applications and had no issues. Between the tightly threaded fit and the JB weld I've had no leaks.

Finding a spot for the O2 sensor:
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Welded the O2 bung in place:
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Bracket made for IACV housing on the front right motor mount:
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Decided to put the Megasquirt here where it's accessible from the fake gas tank:
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Relay panel. Left relay is for the radiator fan (now controlled by the ECU), right relay powers the Megasquirt, injectors, and O2 sensor (Innovate LC-2). There's a third relay next to the battery for the fuel pump.
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Wiring for the fan. This used to go to the thermoswitch.
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These wires next to my relay panel go to the ignition coils. They'll work nicely for the MS's tach input.
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Wiring harness complete. Intake air temp sensor threaded into drilled/tapped hole in filter.
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Vacuum lines. This one at the base of the intake elbow crosses over the engine and goes to the pulse generator's vacuum advance.
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And she runs!
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Apologies for the blurry pic there. I'll get some videos uploaded soon. I'll post some info about the wiring and tuning a bit later.
Last edited by thesteve on Sat Nov 07, 2015 7:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
thesteve
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Re: Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#2

Post by thesteve »

Wow, those pictures are huge. Let me see if I can resize though. One of the other forums auto-created thumbnails so I didn't realize they were that large.
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robin1731
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Re: Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#3

Post by robin1731 »

thesteve wrote:Wow, those pictures are huge. Let me see if I can resize though. One of the other forums auto-created thumbnails so I didn't realize they were that large.

I thought the same thing. Saw your post on another site. You did a very nice job on this.
1976 Goldwing Super Sport
1985 Honda Elite
1976 KZ900 Dragbike
1992 ZX7 Dragbike (KZ900 style motor w/NOS)
and a rotation of various purchases
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Re: Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#4

Post by wingrider »

Wow! Lots of work in a short time! Interested to see how you go about the Megasquirt! I have a 1200 EFI I am tossing in a 78, but plan to use the stock 1200 brain.

Do you have any pictures of the Kat? Loved looking at those in my younger years. Also had a 94 GSXR that had an 1100 stuffed in it. Would have been nice if that one was EFI....
2002 1800 Wing
2001 Valkyrie Interstate
1978 1200 EFI Wing with Motorvation Coupe Royale sidecar
1977 1200 Wing cafe/bobber project
1974 Suzuki GT550
thesteve
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Re: Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#5

Post by thesteve »

Yup, I have the entire build thread posted. It was years ago and I didn't know what I was doing nearly as well, so that build was littered with mistakes and having to do re-work to get things right. Still a good read though: http://katriders.com/vb/showthread.php?t=84789

I think to make those pictures fit I need to attach them to the board instead of link to imgur. I'll do that tomorrow.
olchris
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Re: Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#6

Post by olchris »

thesteve wrote:Wow, those pictures are huge. Let me see if I can resize though. One of the other forums auto-created thumbnails so I didn't realize they were that large.
Mind you if you said "fanny" it would be sorted in a blink.... :lol: :lol: :lol:
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thesteve
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Re: Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#7

Post by thesteve »

Resizing those images now. Hopefully it wont take too long to upload them.

I've been out tuning all morning, and the bike is running great! Nice smooth idle at 950RPM, good throttle response, and it's mapped under most loads up to about 7000RPM. I can't do a whole lot more in terms of high speed tuning until I get my brakes sorted out though. They don't work very well and if I have to panic stop for any reason it's just not happening.
thesteve
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Re: Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#8

Post by thesteve »

So I'll detail some of the wiring work next in case anyone's looking for a more start-to-finish guide on doing this. Most of it was pretty easy; you don't touch much Honda wiring at all, nor do you deviate much from the Megasquirt's own wiring guide here:
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You can see that there are only a few points where the MS is wiring into non-EFI stuff. It's pretty much ignition power, lots of grounds, the fuel pump, and the radiator fan. I ran 14 gauge wire from the battery to the relay panel I mentioned in the first post. The main relay is triggered by one of the wires going to the horn and signal fuse. This relay powers the MS, injectors, and O2 sensor.

The fan relay isn't wired to the battery at all. It's merely reconnecting the two wires cut from the thermoswitch. It's coil is powered by the main relay and it grounds through pin 30 in the diagram above. Pin 30 has been reassigned away from it's idle valve duty and is now set to trigger at 200 degrees to switch on the fan relay, which of course drives the fan.

The fuel pump relay is about 2 inches from the battery under the side cover. It's connected directly to the battery and is triggered by pin 37 on the Megasquirt. This way the pump is only run when the engine is running, plus a moment to prime the system.

The MS's tach input (so it knows engine RPM) is driven directly off the ignition coils. I'll refer to my crudely drawn diagram from when I converted my Suzuki Katana, because it worked so well I did the exact same thing here:
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Of course, instead of the CDI box we have the small ignition modules on the front left corner of the bike under the fake gas tank.
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The coils are fired with the blue and yellow wires. I intercepted both of them and T'd off each of them with a diode (banded side towards the factory wiring). Tie the non-banded ends together, solder them with a wire. That wire goes to pin 25 on the MS. Inside the MS you'll want to install a 12V pull-up resistor. This gives a very clear 12V-0v-12V-0v pulse to let the Megasquirt know how fast the engine is going. One thing to note with this method is you can't control ignition timing with it. To do that, you'd instead trigger off the VR wheel itself inside the pulse generator (which causes a few other issues I can cover later).

Other than that, you don't need to touch any of the bike wiring.
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Re: Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#9

Post by 82aspy »

:shock:
"there is a Darwinian element"
Yoda said, "There is no try or not try; there is only do or don't do."
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Re: Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#10

Post by robin1731 »

Those pics are much better. Loaded almost immediately.
1976 Goldwing Super Sport
1985 Honda Elite
1976 KZ900 Dragbike
1992 ZX7 Dragbike (KZ900 style motor w/NOS)
and a rotation of various purchases
Randakk approved Carb Rebuilder
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Re: Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#11

Post by wingrider »

Had you mentioned which version of Megasquirt you are using? I am starting to think it might be an easier route for me vs using the 1200 stuff.
2002 1800 Wing
2001 Valkyrie Interstate
1978 1200 EFI Wing with Motorvation Coupe Royale sidecar
1977 1200 Wing cafe/bobber project
1974 Suzuki GT550
thesteve
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Re: Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#12

Post by thesteve »

Oh, I guess I didn't mention that. Important detail to forget.

I used the MS2 on the 3.0 board. The MS2 is needed to drive the stepper motor IACV. I think the 2.2 PCB could work with the MS2, but I'm not sure. Either CPU and board can handle the tach signal from the coils. The only real dependency in my build is the stepper IACV. With a different idle control, an MS1 2.2 would work just fine.
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Re: Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#13

Post by sunnbobb »

Most impressive post, and thanks for taking the time to share
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Re: Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#14

Post by wingrider »

Thank you much for the info! I must admit, I get lost real quick in EFI wiring related talk. You make it look pretty easy!

I will certainly be watching for any more helpful info! anim-cheers1
2002 1800 Wing
2001 Valkyrie Interstate
1978 1200 EFI Wing with Motorvation Coupe Royale sidecar
1977 1200 Wing cafe/bobber project
1974 Suzuki GT550
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Re: Another GL1100 Megasquirt EFI project

#15

Post by wingrider »

One other thing, how Are you controlling the timing? Through the pulse gen, or another way?
2002 1800 Wing
2001 Valkyrie Interstate
1978 1200 EFI Wing with Motorvation Coupe Royale sidecar
1977 1200 Wing cafe/bobber project
1974 Suzuki GT550
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