Excessive Idle on cold start up

I had the high cold idle from brand new also. Did the hose blow out, didn't work. I turned the nut 5 flats and got a good cold idle speed. Been great all these years now.

I know your not supposed to, but I don't think it was right from the factory.
 
Ride Review for Saturday. 27 degrees at departure time. Started my bike. Idle speed began at 1500 for 20 or 30 seconds. Gradually increased to 4500 rpm for 1 minute and slowly decreased to 1500 rpm. Got on the bike and had to ride 10 miles to rally point. During this 10 mile ride the wax valve apparently froze up again and it was idling at 4000 rpm on arrival. Until the temp got up in the 40's I had to start the bike by putting it in gear, pulling the clutch, hit the starter and riding off with an extremely high idle speed. As the day went on and warmed up in the 40's the idle speed came back down to 1500. It never went below 1500 all day.
 
Certainly sounds like a lack of coolant reaching the wax unit. The wax unit is also exposed to the ambient air in the V under the throttle bodies, so when stationary the engine heat will soak there and drop the idle. Then when you are moving cooler air will reach the area and cause the wax unit to lift the idle again. But in any case, 4500rpm is way too high, my 09 will rise to about 2000 rpm immediately and then slowly drop back to 1000 over a couple of minutes (or however long it takes me to don my riding gear).
 
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TerryS said:
Certainly sounds like a lack of coolant reaching the wax unit. The wax unit is also exposed to the ambient air in the V under the throttle bodies, so when stationary the egine heat will soak there and drop the idle. Then when you are moving cooler air will reach the area and cause the wax unit to lift the idle again. But in any case, 4500rpm is way too high, my 09 will rise to about 2000 rpm immediately and then slowly drop back to 1000 over a couple of minutes (or however long it takes me to don my riding gear).
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That's what my bike does in warm weather. 4 weeks ago everything was fine. Then cold air moved in and has changed everything.
 
Patmlem said:
Thanks for all the input. You nailed several issues I've had with this bike. Now I will try doing a proper coolant flush and remove all that tin foil and fix the bike the proper way. I will update once I flush and cleanout all the coolant lines and synchronize the throttlebody with a vacuum gauge. And adjust the nut back to factory.
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Ok today tearing into the cooling system. Found a few odd things that explain the high idle issue. For some reason they looped the coolant line back to itself on the thermal control valve. Not sure why this was done. I also found a broken coolant line that was plugged so maybe instead of fixing the broken clogged fitting they just bypassed it? Not sure why. Also found a pinched wire going to the intake boot.
 

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So it was definitely connected wrong? The rubber hoses weren't in the proper orientation? If so, why would anyone do that?
 
Kevcules said:
So it was definitely connected wrong? The rubber hoses weren't in the proper orientation? If so, why would anyone do that?
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After seeing all the messed up work, I have a theory. I don't believe they intentionally bypassed it. Here's what I believe happened. For some reason they had to pull the thottlebody off. When they pulled it off they disconnected the hose at the thermal valve and they disconnected the other hose coming from the thermal valve at the front of the left bank. When they haphazardly slapped the whole thing back together. They sandwiched the wires in the front right boot. They plugged the radiator hose to the left bank instead of the thermal valve. And the thermal valve coolant line they plugged back into the otherside of the thermal valve. A total hack worked on this.
 
When I'm in there again, I'll have to check my hose routing as well. I have some weird idle issues when restarting the engine when it sits for 20-30 minutes sometimes after a run. Like it's not sure where to idle....good description and pictures of your situation.
 
Sounds like you found some bad stuff. I can't recommend Igofar in Tucson enough. If you are within a days ride of him....I would ride over and let him give it a once over. You would be amazed at what he can do for these fine machines. He makes them better than new....
ToddC
 
Thats a great recommendation. Igofar has been a tremendous help. His experience has really saved me allot of headaches and time I would have spent chasing my tail. Wish I had this knowledge back when looking for an ST1300. I would have had a better idea of to look for. Hopefully once I get her dialed in this will be a good bike.
 

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Patmlem said:
Thats a great recommendation. Igofar has been a tremendous help. His experience has really saved me allot of headaches and time I would have spent chasing my tail. Wish I had this knowledge back when looking for an ST1300. I would have had a better idea of to look for. Hopefully once I get her dialed in this will be a good bike.
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