Last of the evil Cannonball voodoo purged... I hope!

I'm nearly two weeks late in posting this, but I finally figured out why my GTS wouldn't idle properly. It turned out that a crack had developed in the rubber boot on the intake manifold, which was letting more air in past the throttle body. When the lambda sensor saw the mixture getting too lean, it compensated by enriching the flow through the fuel injector, which lowered the RPM's and sucked less air in through the crack, causing the lambda sensor to lean out the flow through fuel injector and raise the RPM's again. This condition caused the motor to continually surge up and down in RPM's when idling. I discovered the crack when I was poking around at the motor and I noticed what sounded like an air leak - a small, pulsating, high-pitched swooshing sound. When I lifted up the throttle body a little, it sealed the crack which stopped the noise and immediately the bike started running fine. This was a relief, because I was worried that I'd need to spend an inordinate amount of time replacing sensors, wires, and various doohickeys, in order to track down the source of the trouble.

Thankfully, Rolf had a good intake manifold on his spare GTS engine, so I rode down there and we swapped it out. After it was all bolted back together, it ran like a charm again, nice and smooth - woohoo! It's been getting me around reliably since then, including a jaunt up to SF last weekend. The Heidenau tires have been quite comfortable in the rain so far, although I've noticed that the disc brakes don't grab as well at first in the wet. After a half a second or so though, once the water is pushed aside, they work just fine, so it hasn't enough to make me wary. I've simply been adjusting my riding to match the conditions, so that I have some extra room and time to slow or stop, as one should in inclement weather anyway.

So, that's one thing I'm thankful for - the fact that my GTS is now back in good running shape once again and the evil voodoo it managed to pick up during the Cannonball has now been (hopefully) banished once and for all. I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving... ride safe!