viper electrical problems...help

C

camviperride

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Joined
Jan 27, 2007
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45
Age
46
Location
Clyde, ny
All right here's the problem. 02' viper, running along great for about 10 miles. I was cranking across a field and let off as end of field was nearing. Sled started sputtering. Hit the gas and just kept sputtering. Shut her down and let her sit a minute then fired her back up.Ran great for probably another2 miles and i came off the throttle again in fell on its face sputtering let it idle down and hit the gas and ran good. thought maybe i had some water in the gas or something. Got turned around heading back home and the dash started to turn off and the power back up. Dash kept doing this. Then the sputtering came back. Let idle down and was runnable again. Came to the road crossing and the thing lost all lights and dash totally died. I fought the sputtering for about another mile before it stopped letting me run totally. Sled idles perfect but just sputters when you hit the throttle. I read alot of the threads and have pulled the harness from under the motor and checked but have absolutely no rubbing anywhere.also checked under the handle bar pad but no rubbing issues there either. I disconnected the kill switch but no difference.pulled seat and dissconnected the wires..no difference. I also pulled both of the relays above the cdi and you guessed it no diffenerce. pulled cdi and checked all the wires in that area but nothing found. I also evendisconnected my heated shield wire just in case. I'm at my wits end with this. could it be the cdi? Thats kind of what i'm thinking...or the stator.
I would greatly appreciate any help from you guys...oh yeah this site rocks!!! :rocks:
 
I honestly feel you have a classic case chaffed harness, sometimes they are a real bear to find. Maybe you can start up the sled and grab a hold of the harness by the recoil and tug on it and shake it back and forth see what the sled will do, it only takes 1 strand of copper wire to touch the frame to make it go bonkers and flash the dash lights, sputter the engine and act just like you described. I have more checks for you to do if this doesnt get you anywhere, post back results. If the cdi was going bad it wouldnt flash the dash lights, just kill the engine. I know you said you checked it but alot of times you have to completely pull it all the way out from under the motor to find the culprit wire.
 
could he try bypassing the tors ,.I think its called...stuck throttle safety switch??
Some of what he descibed is the same as I experiance from time to time on my viper last year
disconnected the 2 wires @ the carbs and plugged them into themselves and the problem hasn't reoccured.

I also had the harness rub through. it showed up after the sled had around 4000 miles.
it was under the engine where it laid on the bottom.
 
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:o| all right, I pulled the wiring harness out from under the motor. As i said before there are no signs of any rubbing but i pulled off all the tape and checked the individual wires, found no issues in the wires. I retaped it all up and fished back under motor. I also checked the wires coming out by the magneto assembly. I then traced the wires up to the handlebars with no apparent issues. I then pulled the seat back off and checked what i could under the seat, also pulled the wire from under the gas tank and untaped and checked over. One thing i did find is that the master relay had a crack in it. I went and got a new one thinking this would be the problem but no such luck.
Sled will idle but that is it. sled only has 1700 miles on it. I bought it towards the end of last season and have only put on about 35o miles of that. This really sucks. Snow is finally here and i can't ride. I did disconnect the wires for the tors and plugged them back into eachother. :o| :o| :o|
 
Before you took out the harness did you try the tug and yank method on the harness, this would kinda give you an idea if your dealing with a broken wire inside the sheathing also? One other place I have found worn thru harness is the steering stem hoop, the plastic dash sits on thsi with the thumb warmers/key wswitch/choke.

Stator test can be done with multi meter, on the plugs, I would check it cold and then warm up the engine letting it idle and then retest plugs. usually when they go bad the sled will still rev up but be low on rpm up topend, and lights can be dim, or hard starting when warm.

another thing you can do is unhook both headlight bulbs and taillight bulb and see if the sled will rev up? that way all the power will go to the ignition system.

did you need the specs for the stator to check with digital meter?
 
i pulled and tugged on the harness while it was idling. nothing changed but i went ahead and took harness out to make sure. i disconnected the seat totally after putting the wire harness back in. Started it back up and tryed moving the wires around again. no better. went in for a break and came back out and got it running again at idle but not smooth at all . Had a hard time keeping it running. pulled the plugs and checked for spark and have a really strong spark.Maybe loaded up from idling? I'm getting really disgusted now! Yes i will need the specs for the stator if possible. I thank you for your help. I am going to run back out and check around the bars and hoop more closely.
:o|
 
It takes lots of patience on electrical problems, hang in there, we can find the problem, its just you have to be my eyes and hands.

Did you need the specs for checking stator?

all you need is a digtial voltmeter/multi meter to check this, I can walk you thru it.
 
Yes i need the specs for the stator. I have a couple of multimeters...so we should be able to test it. One thing i did't mention when i started the thread was that the kill switch acted like it was on a delay when i hit it. I disconnected it thinking maybe the switch was bad but it wasn't. Don't know if this helps diagnose this.
Thanks again!
 
down by the recoil, you will see some wires coming out of the engine, unplug them from sled wiring harness, your wanting the 3 wire plug with all white wires. Some of the white wires have a tracer color on them. The stator wires are the all white wires, you want that multi meter to be on the ohm scale at (ohm symbol x1), ohm symbol looks like upside down horse shoe. You should read 0.36-0.44Ohms at 68 degrees, this is between the wires in the 3 wire plug if looking at it upside down there will be 2 wires on top and 1 wire on bottom of plug where locktab goes, stick the positive lead in bottom wire and then check either and both of the top 2 wires. But check it cold, then start up sled and let it get as hot as you can, this is when they lke to show up they are bad. recheck it hot and let me know what readings you get.

The other wires you will see are a white/red, and white/green tracer, these are the pick up coil, dont see how this can be bad but the specs for it are 189-231 ohms
 
my meters lowest setting was 200 for ohms. I had a reading of .7 from the wire by the clip to either other wire. I tryed starting the sled but cannot get it to even start now. it fires and dies. runs a total of about 1sec.
 
Got any buddies with a viper or a 2000-02 srx?

1.)Will it start if you unplug the headlight bulbs and disconnect the tail light wire?

2.)On the side of the footwells you will see a blue and a white relay, unplug the white relay and try to start the sled, what happens?

3.)With all 3 sp plugs out and in the boots, laying them on the headbolts for a ground, does it have bright blue spark when you pull it over or orange?

check these in order for me and post back
 
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no i don't have a friend that has a viper or a srx. That would make it too easy. I unplugged both headlights...and still cannot get the sled to run. I pulled the plugs like you said and have a good blue spark most of the time. A couple of pulls i noticed a little orange tint to it. Also tried a new set of plugs but makes no diffrence. As far as the relays you are talking about, I beleive you are referring to the ones above the cdi??? Both are black on this sled. I pulled the left one...lighting relay i believe...and still couldn 't get sled fired up. I plugged the left one back in and disconnected the right one...which is brand new and still will not run. Thanks again for all your help , i really appreciate it.
 
no, the relays are white and blue, the black round tubes are smoothing condensors, i think the viper has the relays on right side footwell, they are opposite of a srx.
 
I'd like to check my stator if you have those specs. I have a 97 700 SX that just started having a problem last week. Was running fine and now will only idle. When you try to rev up the engine it seems like the TORS is doing its magic. I already tried bypassing the TORS with no change. I've been seaching for a short, but haven't come across anything yet. All three plugs have spark and I've gone through the carbs.

Thanks, Jeff
 
I went back out to check for the white and blue relays. If sitting on the sled, the right side footwell has the regulator and 2 smoothing coil tubes. The left side has the cdi box and above that there is 2 relays one of which i just replaced when I got this problem because it was cracked. It is the main relay , and the other one is the lighting relay. I'm figuring maybe they have been replaced and new ones are not colored the same as they are both black. I have the service manual on cd and it says that these are the relays so i'm 99% sure. I'd imagine you wanted me to pull the lighting relay???I have done this with no positive results. If i am missing something still let me know, but i now have the plastic totally off and this is what i see unless i am looking in the wrong spot. Let me know. THANKS
 
pull the load control relay, if it has a dead short in it it will start up the sled and just bypass the other stuff, its a limp home mode if you wanna call it that, see if it will start up and rev up?
 
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