Coils, cruise, camera – action!

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid Renault V6 HASS ignition coil - 413745171After waiting a week for the delivery from carparts4less, the Capo is happily running on four coils again! 😀 I bought the Renault V6 coil (413745171) made by HAAS. While plug’n play at the LT connector, it does need some excess plastic removing and the HT end requires a modification. I’ve seen this coil modified in a couple of ways – one simple and one requiring a bit of soldering skill. I chose the latter because I think it gives a more positive connection. New page here.

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid INNOVV K1 rear HD camera 1920x1080With the bike buttoned up, I ran the INNOVV K1 cameras again – no sign of RF issues anymore, so that’s a step in the right direction. It was about 6pm and dark inside as well as outside the barn as I stood tweeking the throttle and glancing at the INNOVV DV recorder while it captured the rear K1 camera. I watched the vapour from the exhausts to the left and right of the camera as it swirled in the red glow of the tail light. Then it all went blank and the INNOVV rebooted again – WTF!!! 👿 

However …… in that moment I saw something that was a revelation. A real game changer as they say. The fact is, I started to suffer an intermittent fault a few months ago and as any engineer knows, you’ll go bald fast if you waste time chasing an intermittent fault – wait for it to come to you. I think of these sorts of faults a little like the TV serial killers on any number of cop shows – they always want to get caught. At some point an intermittent fault will give itself away, that one clue that unlocks the puzzle. In this case, when the INNOVV rebooted, I saw a momentary flicker of the red glow from the tail light out of the corner of my eye. If I hadn’t been doing this in the dark I would never have spotted it!

This fault goes back quite a while, back to a hot summer, a long day on French motorways and a cruise control that would occasionally stop working. Sometimes it would engage for the whole 1½-2hr ride, the next it would drop out after a few minutes or maybe after a ½hr – it was completely random. However …… I did find that by turning the headlights off, the cruise could be re-engaged and would work just fine! At that point I was suspecting a fault with the headlight loom, the 6-way connector is known to burn if the Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid light switchEarth (Ground) connection is bad. Unfortunately all tests and checks came up with nothing. So I sat back and waited for the fault to give me the one clue I needed to bring the bugger to justice!

In that momentary tail light flicker, all the parts came crashing together. It was the light switch all along! You see the switch isn’t just one switch but two-in-one. One for the headlight and one for the sidelight …… and this is the circuit that the MCCruise control AND the INNOV are powered from! The switch was stripped, the hard dirt-filled goo that had once been grease that was stopping the springs working was cleaned out and the contacts treated to a splash of contact cleaner and fresh lubricant. Now it looks better, works smoother and above all, delivers a constant voltage to where it’s required. 😀 Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid Innovv K1 camera screenshot

And afterwards? Well a couple of days eating up the miles and clocking up the hours have been rewarding (and fun!) to say the least. Both cruise and cameras have worked perfectly and the Capo is pulling like a little train again thanks to its refreshed ignition!

MCCruise control revisited

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid MCCruise CIU throttle servo cablesWhile the Caponord was stripped for the vacuum check-valve replacement, I decided to get my act in gear and finally, once and for all, unequivocally ….. Sort out the MCCruise control/throttle cables. Last year I relocated the CIU (Cable Interface Unit) to the left hand side of the throttle body. This had pros and cons ……….. The upside was a lighter feel on the throttle grip, the downside, the Servo/CIU and CIU/Throttle body cables were overly long and the Servo cable fed into the CIU from the wrong side. However, the cruise was working perfectly and so it became one of those ‘mañana’ jobs!

Well today is that tomorrow! First I jotted down a list of what had to be done:

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid MCCruise CIU cable interface unit1. Make a spacer to fit onto the side of the CIU. This is to move the throttle cable adjuster further out and make the inner cable a better fit on the spool.
2. Drill new cable holes in the CIU so it can be rotated 180° so the Servo cable enters from the rear not the front as is the current arrangement.
3. Shorten the CIU/Throttle cable while allowing for the new spacer at the CIU – 350mm down to 190mm.
4. Shorten the 1,150mm Servo cable to a more reasonable 750mm!

I have to say here and now that I do like learning new skills or adapting old ones to suit a new task. I also have to admit that in a good few years on this Earth, I’ve never made up or adjusted Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid throttle cablethe length of clutch/choke/throttle cables before! So time to adapt the electronics soldering skills and brush up on required technique courtesy of the Internet. Now I’m not going to bore you to tears telling you how to do it – there is tons of advice on various websites/YouTube. Suffice to say, sort out the duff advice from the good, have the right equipment to hand and practice, practice, practice  …… do the job once and do it right! All the cable bits and pieces I needed came from Venhill in the UK.

By late afternoon everything was buttoned up and the cruise control recalibrated after the throttle bodies were rebalanced, fault codes cleared and TPS reset via TuneECU. As the sun faded behind the hills I cracked open a cold beer happy with how the day played out …. Time then to put the tools away and get back to revising for the next Amateur Radio Exam!

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid MCCruise controlThe MCCruise has been installed for approx. 25,000 miles and worked perfectly throughout. The CIU was relocated because the initial location proved to be problematic – causing slight binding of the throttle cable. This meant that the cables supplied in the kit (as specified by me) were now the wrong length and the orientation of cable entry into the CIU was wrong.This is not the fault of MCCruise, what they sent is what I asked for! Should anyone else wish to go down this route I will of course be glad to provide notes/measurements etc so a kit will be a simple bolt-on job.

Stuff …. 6 months and 12 months on

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid dashboard - new right-hand indicator repeater!A couple of anniversaries this week ….. firstly the dashboard. Yes a full 12 months since it was finished and put back into the Capo for the last time, resplendent with its new inlay to complement the electronic changes. The auto-dimming back lighting and split indicator repeaters have been absolute winners – I couldn’t go back to a standard board again without missing them. Moving the side-stand and low-fuel lights toAprilia Caponord ETV1000 & Rally-Raid Voltmeter and re-located side-stand light on dashboard accommodate the twin indicator repeaters has had no impact, positive or negative. The voltmeter has been a different kettle of fish …. generally unused as the Sparkbight battery monitor handles voltage feedback when riding around – however it has proved a real benefit during start-up when the dashboard goes through its self-test phase. Now it’s become second nature to eye-ball the tacho needle to see what the battery voltage is pre-start. >12.6v and I know I should get a good kick from the battery!

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 & Rally-Raid MCCruise controlThe second anniversary, although shorter at 6 months and a tad over 11K miles, is the MCCruise cruise control. After a rushed install (not clever) I knew I had a heavier throttle than pre-installation ….. this was purely down to throttle cable routing and nothing to do with the cruise control itself. It simply didn’t like being re-routed behind the radiator, so I gave up and relocated the CIU (cable interface unit) to a new location by the throttle bodies. Now everything works fine – a light throttle and a happy cruise control. It’s been 100% Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 & Rally-Raid New MCCruise CIU locationreliable and functional. As a demonstration of its finesse I ran the bike in 1st gear at 25mph and let the cruise control take over the (100 horsepower!) throttle – all I can say is WOW! I would never have believed that the system could have the sensitivity to operate the throttle with such precision, but it did – up hill, down dale – never an ounce of jerkiness. Ok I admit no one wants to ride around in 1st gear …. but as an experiment, it proved to me that MCCruise have indeed developed an absolutely fantastic piece of kit.

mccruise ……. active electronic motorcycle cruise control Pt1.

MCCruise cruise controlLet me start by saying that as of now, the cruise control project I’ve been working on has been put on hold indefinitely ………. why?

A couple of weeks ago I contacted MCCruise in Australia about buying a couple of parts to make my own cruise control install go a little easier – off the shelf stuff, not impossible to do myself, but just easier to purchase rather than make. After a lengthy phone call with Tony Guymer, I was convinced to take an in-depth look at the new electric servo kit* with the view to fitting it to the Capo. Unfortunately, of the current 120+ kits they make, none are for Aprilia. I’d have to start with a universal kit.

Now I’ll say loud and clear, here and now …… I’m not keen on the word ‘universal’. So the idea of a universal kit just doesn’t do it for me at all and that goes for a cruise control. Maybe it’s just me, but I hate the one-size-fits-all approach to anything, they never quite look right, not factory-fit enough for me I guess. No, it has to be a bespoke kit to fit the Capo and this is where Tony eventually sold me on the idea.

Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 Rally-Raid. Mock parts and mounts tested for fit, in this case the 'CIU' that connects the throttles.Tony suggested that if I were to get some data from the Capo – measurements, connector types and locations, wiring routes and mounting places for the main units, then between us we could map out a bespoke fitment kit, a kit as close to plug’n play as is possible. Now I like that idea and being able to get involved is the icing on the techie cake for me!

So last week the Capo was stripped …… dozens of photographs, pages of notes and CAD plans for mounting brackets were compiled and sent to the MCCruise in-tray. After a few quick techie emails back and forth, Tony gave the green light on the kit and as you read this it should be working its way across the planet to little old me!  😀

I just hope that after all this time, effort and expense my wobbly-wrist appreciates it! 😉

At the end of the day, they need to sell 10+ kits for it to be viable for them, so to offer a helping hand I’m hoping to have something to show at ACIM in a few weeks time and I’ll also stick a few flyers on the bike when its parked up to nudge a bit of interest.

*Tech details in Pt2. / **Fitment details in Pt2. as well, kind of a Pt2+ I suppose!