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SECONDARY THROTTLE VALVE ADJUSTMENT

72K views 104 replies 57 participants last post by  Missing Link 
#1 ·
Well, it's a long time coming, with me having to move to a new residence and such, but I promised AndyW I'd get the job done.

Secondary throttle valves....There are many thoughts on just what the heck they do. Some say it's for noise abatement, others think they just get in the way, and affect the true performance of the bike, and some would just rather remove them.

I should point you in the direction of my tech article about Carburetors.
More directed to the "Constant Velocity" type.

Since the introduction of fuel injection, we no longer require a pressure drop through a ventury to pull fuel from a fuel bowl, and introduce it into the engine. We have a fuel pump that sends pressurized fuel to fuel injectors, and thanks to IC chips, and sensors, we can spray the fuel into the engine. No need for fancy needle jets, main jets, primary jets, and airbleed jets. Nevermind making sure the fuel level in the carb bowls is the correct height.

There is one thing that's important with the CV carburetor, and that's how it keeps the air velocity constant through the intake ports regardless of throttle position. If you ever had flat slide carbs, and immediately opened the throttle, you would notice that the engine would take a big gulp of air, and hesitate, or even stall. Accelerator pumps were introduced to keep this in check. So, in regards to keeping air velocities constant especially at lower engine rpms, one concept for a fuel injected engine is to add separately controlled throttle plates that can move independently from the main throttle plates. This way, if the throttle plates are opened quickly, air velocity will drop, but with the Secondary Throttle plates lagging just behind, can keep the air velocity up, and help with atomization of the fuel injected into the engine. of course if you are racing the bike, and it never sees rpms below 6 to 7,000 rpms, there is no sense on having the secondary throttle plates there, and can be removed for some added increase of air. Most of us don't race, and use the engine through a wide range of rpms, and with the STV's installed really doesn't detract from performance, but keeps it more tractable.

Now, enough said about how they work, lets see how we adjust them.

Maui, aka (Dave), was kind enough to donate his bike, (and get some free work done) by yours truely.

We first started to check his Throttle position sensor... (see Chewy's killer Tech tip), and found that we needed to make a small adjustment.

After that was all and done, we had at the STV's.
There are basically 3 parts to this arrangement.
1. The STV's.
2. The servo motor that drives them.
3. The STV position sensor that tells the ECU where they are in position.

First thing to do is raise the tank, and remove the airbox assembly. Those Pair valve hoses are a BITCH! (Hint Dave...Loose the pair..)
There are several connectors that need to be uncoupled to facilitate the removal. Just remember where they go, once you tend to the task at hand.

First thing to identify, is the STV's it's kind of a no brainer, but we want to cover everything...This is pic #1

Next is the servo mechanism, pic #2

And finally the STV position sensor pic #3

We now want to find the connector at the STV positon sensor, the wire loom is actually folded and tied together. pic #4.
 

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#3 ·
STV's continued.....

We next want to identify 2 wires that are part of the connector at the STV position sensor...These will be the Black and Yellow ones. There are 3 wires, but we are just interested in the Black and yellow ones.

You will also need a test meter, with a way to check impedence (ohms).
First disconnect the connector and find the 2 wires.

next is to find the STV servo, and on the very end you will find a shaft, that you can turn, and it will open or close the STV's....

NOTE, DO NOT TURN ON THE IGNITION AT THIS POINT!
There is a voltage check that can be performed for trouble shooting with the connector plugged into the STV sensor, but we are more concerned with the resistance.

First step is to turn the shaft, and close the STV's. We then use the meter, and check the resistance across the yellow and black wires. It should be in the range of .58 Kohms. We found that Daves was out of spec.
Next, is to turn the shaft on the STV servo the opposite direction and fully open the STV's. Carry out the same metering, between the 2 wires. At this point we found that the STV open position relative to the STV sensor was out of tolerance and should be in the range of 4.38 Kohms.
We then unscrewed the set screws on the STV sensor, just loose enough to allow some resistance when turning the sensor....(safety torx as usual), you must purchase a set!

As I turned the sensor, I had Dave reading the Ohm meter, and calling out the numbers. We found that we had to settle in between the set range, but was still a lot closer than when we started. This was checking open STV's versus closed.

Once we agreed that we were in the range specified, we buttoned up the bike, and sent Dave on a little test spin. Dave came back and noticed there was more of a response in the low to upper midrange of the engine, and overall was a happy camper. I also got to rip the snorkle out of his airbox, with one good tug!

This day didn't actually go uneventful, because dave tried to kill the TLR, but that's another story..... :shifty:
 

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#47 ·
STV's continued.....

First step is to turn the shaft, and close the STV's. We then use the meter, and check the resistance across the yellow and black wires. It should be in the range of .58 Kohms. We found that Daves was out of spec.
Next, is to turn the shaft on the STV servo the opposite direction and fully open the STV's. Carry out the same metering, between the 2 wires. At this point we found that the STV open position relative to the STV sensor was out of tolerance and should be in the range of 4.38 Kohms.
We then unscrewed the set screws on the STV sensor, just loose enough to allow some resistance when turning the sensor....(safety torx as usual), you must purchase a set!
I was checking my STV's this past weekend. The readings I got were:
OPEN = 0.67 Kohms
CLOSED = 4.24 Kohms

I was slightly confused by the instructions on whether this is within spec. The instructions say "in the range of 0.58Kohms clsoed and 4.38Kohms opened". I'm unclear what the allowed range is because those are single point values without a +/- so where is the range ? Are my STV's in the allowed adjustment range ?

I'm probably misunderstanding something so thanks for the help and great post!
 
#5 ·
Thanks for the write up TLRman good job............. :supsmiley
 
#6 ·
Great write up and FAQ.........top notch :niceone: :beer:

Many thanks for your time and effort Mark...........appreciated.






Now, what can I ask you to do next?! :shifty: ..........:shocking: :lol:
 
#7 ·
So what you are saying here is you may need to make a slight adjustment to get the best out of them. We are looking for resistance outputs in the fully open and closed to be in the range given above.
If my understanding is correct here Dave’s bike used as the guinea pig were not fully opening and closing when required to
Or they were but just sending the wrong (RESISTANCE OUTPUT) signal to the ECU.
And if not then slacken the pot and turn into the correct position to meet the specifications given by Suzuki, a little like the TPS settings.

There may be more questions when I reset mine if out of speck.
 
#8 ·
I can definitely say, that after the mods... The bike is much smoother in the midrange, and seems to have much more aggressive response. If the valves were not opening fully... Makes sense as well, since we are talking about a 10 - 15% change from what was happening, though I am sure airflow is not a linear scale related to opening size....

Thanks again for all the help Mark. Wonder if anyone picked up the snorkel that fell of my bungee in Gloucester?
 
#9 ·
chewy22 said:
So what you are saying here is you may need to make a slight adjustment to get the best out of them. We are looking for resistance outputs in the fully open and closed to be in the range given above.
If my understanding is correct here Dave’s bike used as the guinea pig were not fully opening and closing when required to
Or they were but just sending the wrong (RESISTANCE OUTPUT) signal to the ECU.
And if not then slacken the pot and turn into the correct position to meet the specifications given by Suzuki, a little like the TPS settings.

There may be more questions when I reset mine if out of speck.
There is actually a little slop in the worm drive of the STV servo, so, you can nudge it to get the correct resistance, (just push on the STV a touch, and the reading will come into range. What we did was to find the happy medium between the open and closed values, without manually touching the STV themselves. I found that we couldn't get the full range of adjustment that we needed, it would bias too much closed, or not enough open, or vice versa. So by moving the pot back and forth, and considering the slop in the servo drive, it comes to being damn close to spec.
 
#11 ·
andmoon said:
great write up.

What's your opinion on just removing them?
As posted by Mark.....
There is one thing that's important with the CV carburetor, and that's how it keeps the air velocity constant through the intake ports regardless of throttle position. If you ever had flat slide carbs, and immediately opened the throttle, you would notice that the engine would take a big gulp of air, and hesitate, or even stall. Accelerator pumps were introduced to keep this in check. So, in regards to keeping air velocities constant especially at lower engine rpms, one concept for a fuel injected engine is to add separately controlled throttle plates that can move independently from the main throttle plates. This way, if the throttle plates are opened quickly, air velocity will drop, but with the Secondary Throttle plates lagging just behind, can keep the air velocity up, and help with atomization of the fuel injected into the engine. of course if you are racing the bike, and it never sees rpms below 6 to 7,000 rpms, there is no sense on having the secondary throttle plates there, and can be removed for some added increase of air. Most of us don't race, and use the engine through a wide range of rpms, and with the STV's installed really doesn't detract from performance, but keeps it more tractable.
 
#38 ·
Yes, I've done this last week. I too found that I cant get exact range set as the sensor is around 0.38 Kohm 'short' so I had to ballance it in beetween. Same with TPS. I thought they where faulty but it seems now this is normal.
I've noticed better fuel economy and smoother pick up from low throttle.
 
#16 ·
An interesting post, from the day I bought my bike i had a rough patch at about 4,500 rpm.(70 ish MPH) if you held a steady throttle you can hear the stv 's closing and opening causing a surge, since i fitted the tre this patch has moved down to 3,500 rpm so not so much of a problem but shall now see if adjusting the setting has an effect on this rough (lean) patch.
 
#33 ·
I had that closing and opening suge thingy at about 3000 rpm on a steady throttle. Balancing the throttle bodies cured mine. That was at about 12000 miles and they have stayed good still at 27,000 miles.

I do have a slight rattle sound coming from the air box I think at low/sub 3000 revs sometimes, any ideas as to what that could be ? almost seems like the slow pulses of air are rattling something.

Pete
 
#17 ·
I've mentioned this before...and you all get to read it again...The dl boys are removing them altogether and reporting crisper response w/ out any of the abruptness (that the secondaries are supposed to calm) or the drowning (as in flatslides)....I have removed mine and noticed no diff. I wonder if removing them equals running w/ them properly set.
 
#18 ·
John. said:
How does this differ from the Suzuki method of setting the STV position sensor voltage at full open?
There is a trouble shooting test that you use with key on, and metering the voltage.

The ECU is looking for the resistance of the STV sensor, so it can compare with it's map, to put the STV's in their proper place.

To remove or not remove...This Thread was directed towards properly adjusting the STV's, and how/what they do.
If you want to do a comparison, and spend some dyno time and $$$ to show results Installed/removed, then we can take this "hard" data and make comments.
I tend not to listen to anyone that states something works, just to have someone say it doesn't. It's all hear say, and I won't make any comments, unless I have some hard facts, or I do it myself.

The Title of this thread was "Secondary Throttle Valve Adjustment",
and not before and after removal results....
 
#19 ·
andmoon said:
I've mentioned this before...and you all get to read it again...The dl boys are removing them altogether and reporting crisper response w/ out any of the abruptness (that the secondaries are supposed to calm) or the drowning (as in flatslides)....I have removed mine and noticed no diff. I wonder if removing them equals running w/ them properly set.
Could be....Usually if the manufacturer puts time money and research into something, it's usually installed for a reason. Way back when the emissions thing just started with autos, it was somewhat of a challenge to get around these power robbing devices, just to get them to run better. Problem was that technology wasn't in place as it is today (cool computers, and software), to manage such changes. Most of it was a bolt on thing, make the engine run as lean as it could without dumping Hydro carbons out the tail pipe.(if you go too lean, the HC's will show rich!) anyway, they are there, the have adjustments, we know the principle behind them.....so......
 
#20 ·
I was bored out of my mind today so I pulled the airbox off and tried to see what's going on with the STV's. First I put them back on. I took them off this summer to see what would happen. Acutally, I think I lost a few MPG. That's all I noticed. Anyway, I got 4.36 volts with them open, but I was supposed to have .58 VDC with them closed. Lowest I got was .80 VDC. If I adjust the STPS, it will just mess up the open voltage setting, so I didn't adjust a thing.

What I really wanted to do was see if they modulate when the motor is hot. But my neighbors were home and I think they would object to the sound. I also noticed the fast idle cam is opening the main TV's when the STV's are open. Then as the STV's close, the cam drops the idle back to +/- 1200 rpm's. So they STV's must close a little when the motor warms up. The ECU doesn't seem "smart" enough to be able to reverse the servo motor and modulate it, I'd think you would need a servo amplifier. But maybe nowadays they can...:unsure:
 
#21 ·
Thats a lovely looking TLR you have there TLRMan.

Unfortunatly I can't understand a thing you were on about with voltage and resistance, but it looked impressive.

Pete
 
#22 ·
Well, I got a chance to run it with out the airbox on. I just plugged in all the sensors. When cold (engine water temp @ ambient), the STV's open all the way and the cam opens the main TV's a little for fast idle. They will close faster (if you shut off and restart) if the engine is hot. Anyway, as the engine warms up, the STV's close. I'd say they sit at 90% closed when at idle. Then as you blip the throttle, they lag behind the main throttle valves. I also tried to move the STVA when at idle, and it compensated like a servo amplifier by trying to hold set position. :niceone:

I guess this ECU is smart enough to control a servo motor. I know TLR man said this before but I had to see if these things were actually functional. I'm going to leave them in for fuel mileage purposes.
So, in regards to keeping air velocities constant especially at lower engine rpms, one concept for a fuel injected engine is to add separately controlled throttle plates that can move independently from the main throttle plates. This way, if the throttle plates are opened quickly, air velocity will drop, but with the Secondary Throttle plates lagging just behind, can keep the air velocity up, and help with atomization of the fuel injected into the engine. of course if you are racing the bike, and it never sees rpms below 6 to 7,000 rpms, there is no sense on having the secondary throttle plates there, and can be removed for some added increase of air. Most of us don't race, and use the engine through a wide range of rpms, and with the STV's installed really doesn't detract from performance, but keeps it more tractable.
 
#23 ·
Question (don't have my bike yet): Does fast idle speed drops by itself as the engine warms up, or do you have to blip the throttle to drop the fast idle cam like on carbs?? How high does the fast idle go? And what's the range of idle speed? I like 1K, but maybe twins need to idle a bit higher? Will start looking for a service manual so I can have it by the time my bike arrives.
JC
 
#24 ·
elp_jc said:
Question (don't have my bike yet): Does fast idle speed drops by itself as the engine warms up, or do you have to blip the throttle to drop the fast idle cam like on carbs?? How high does the fast idle go? And what's the range of idle speed? I like 1K, but maybe twins need to idle a bit higher? Will start looking for a service manual so I can have it by the time my bike arrives.
JC
Idle will take care of itself and I think "high idle" is around 1600, then it generally drops to around 1300-1400. I start my bike, then go back in grab my helmet and gloves, wait until she's hittin about 100 deg F on the LCD the putter off until I get her up to 160 or so then start easing into it.
 
#25 ·
elp_jc said:
Question (don't have my bike yet): Does fast idle speed drops by itself as the engine warms up, or do you have to blip the throttle to drop the fast idle cam like on carbs?? How high does the fast idle go? And what's the range of idle speed? I like 1K, but maybe twins need to idle a bit higher? Will start looking for a service manual so I can have it by the time my bike arrives.
JC
Yes it drops on its own and it is as high as maybe 14 or 1500 and then drops pretty quickly. Idle must be kept at around 1200RPM or you will get a lot of lean pop. Do some searches on T/B sync and TPS adjustment and I would recommend you do this asap when you get the bike. Maybe run it to its 600 mile breakin and do it all then.

Cheers
 
#26 ·
Oops, 2WIN's correct 1200 RPMs, hard to remember all these things, good thing for the FAQ page :headbang:
 
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