What is Surging???

I had an 03 Beakster which never surged, and like you I wondered exactly what surging is. I took the Beakster in for it's 6000 mile service, and on the way home from the dealer, accelerating away from a stoplight, the RPM's jumped uncontrollably and spontaneously fell off again. It was a single-spark model, and about a week later, I traded it in for a new 04 twin spark RT. I have not experienced any "surging" through 4000 miles with the RT so I hope the twin spark has solved the issue, but I am waiting for a potential "late onset" as with my 1150R.

Bob- hope your RT serves you well. FWIW, from your brief desciption, your R was not surging. not sure what it WAS doing, but surging is not typically experienced while accelerating. it tends to occur under conditions of steady throttle at middle rpms- whereby the FI keeps looking or "hunting" for the exactly correct amount of fuel to provide. the single 02 sensor kind of says "yes this much, now less, now a bit more, now less, now more" but when accelerating it just says "YES, gimme MOOOORE!"

bikerfish1100 said:

Bob- hope your RT serves you well. FWIW, from your brief desciption, your R was not surging. not sure what it WAS doing, but surging is not typically experienced while accelerating. it tends to occur under conditions of steady throttle at middle rpms- whereby the FI keeps looking or "hunting" for the exactly correct amount of fuel to provide. the single 02 sensor kind of says "yes this much, now less, now a bit more, now less, now more" but when accelerating it just says "YES, gimme MOOOORE!"

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Dude - I thought I was surging - glad to hear that reports of my surging were greatly exagerated! Doubt my twin spark RT will do anything unexpected other than to please me....

dano said:

I was instructed to put some more miles on the bike, and they would then "address" the issue at the 600 mile servicing.

Well by then, I had come across a couple of internet BMW sites / forums, and learned all about "surging".....more actually than I ever thought possible. By the time I returned to the dealer for my 600 mile service (turned out to be closer to 1200 miles) I was fully prepared to tackle the surging issue.

Turns out, the dealer knew very well what surging was.....they just didn't know how to cure it. BMWNA flat denies that it exists. I guess if they deny it, it won't exist.....or something like that. BMWNA was of no help at all.

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Dano, you're not alone. So many BMW owners experience EXACTLY what you've experienced I have a hard time believe "Surginglausible Denials You Must Know" isn't a BIG chapter in the BMW Tech Syllabus.

>It's just some folks don't think they have surging until some tells them.

Mark, that's exactly WHY we need to tell them. Over on F650.com we get a lot of first time bike owners, a lot of first time BMW owners, who are flabergasted that they bought a BMW that runs like crap, service managers who deny they have a problem, and a sometimes unsympathetic moto-community. Those of us who have ridden for years and are a little mechanically inclined KNOW when we ride a bike with a POS fuel injection system, BMW or not. Some folks don't have that kind of experience and need our help.

ride4j said:

I have a 04' RT, and have read several post's about surging. What is it , and how do you tell if you have it?

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I looked at these bikes for EIGHT years befor I bought my 04RT. The surging problem was just one of the reasons it took so long. The dual plug head fixed that. Down here in the Carolinas we have been dual plugging Chrysler Hemi motors and H-D's since the 1960's..cures ALL kinds of drivability problems. I have 4800 miles on it now with NO surging at all.


MTBATP

Careful tuning, especially a careful valve adjustment, will get rid of most, if not all surging issues. Any remaining issues are easily cured with a 0=0 TB adjustment and a set of Autolite plugs.

KBasa said:

Careful tuning, especially a careful valve adjustment, will get rid of most, if not all surging issues. Any remaining issues are easily cured with a 0=0 TB adjustment and a set of Autolite plugs.

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Not true 100% of the time! I've "been there and done that". You might be able to REDUCE the surging a little, but what you mentioned, IS NOT a sure cure, by any stretch of the imagination.

The surging issue is much deeper than a valve adj. / TB synch, and a pair of sparkplugs.

>I can't recall any other brands that exhibit surging, including HD, Moto Guzzi, and all the Japanese machines.

FWIW, when Triumph first released the TT600 (first 600CC sportbike w/FI) it had pretty severe surging. Triumph and Sagem fixed it within the first year. And as a bonus, Sagem released their code so that someone could write the "TuneBoy" software so anyone with a PC could set their FI. What a concept, eh? No more $80/hr techs and their $250K computers.

>The surging issue is much deeper than a valve adj. / TB synch, and a pair of sparkplugs.

Actually I don't have the numbers to prove it as I own one of the vastly superior Aprilia-built Funduros, but my WAG is that the single greatest improvement many surge-bike owners lives came at the hands of a simple extended-tip NGK spark plug. More details in the F650.com FAQs.

The '94 R1100RSL that I used to own was, apparently, one of the few that never had a surging problem. It did "creep" in an upward fashion. I am fascinated by the phenomenon in a detached sense.

Here's my take....I owned a brand new 2000 R1100RS.....at the same time in my garage was a Honda 1998 VFR. My BMW surged (hunted) like a btard...I had many friends with R bikes that claimed their bikes didn't surge. I'd ride their bike and be amazed at the amount of surging. They had just gotten used to it. Once I put them on my VFR, they realized what a surge free motorcycle felt like. I always like the response "that after 20-25 THOUSAND miles the surging would go away!" It never really went away, you just become real used to it! Any BMW R bike with a throttle lock will really show up the surge issue. Around 40-45 mph with the throttle locked and see if you can feel any surging.
Now that said, I had ridden a few R bikes of that vintage that had very little surging, but they still surged. I have never, repeat never, have ridden an oil head, I don't care whether it is 2 spark or 4 spark that didn't surge a little bit. Some folks on the internet blamed the surging on not enough cylinders and fuel injection. I stated collecting motorcycles and have two fuel injected, twin cylinder Moto Guzzis that didn't surge. I have a twin cylinder fuel injected Aprilia Tuono that doesn't surge. I have a Suzuki V Strom that does surge a little bit, but for some reason it doesn't annoy me. Maybe because it's a $6000 motorcycle and I accept it. see them all here http://public.fotki.com/Rbertalotto/
In any event, I tried to become the world's leading authority on R bike surging. I tried every chip available and even made a couple of my own. I built an entire exhaust system so I could remove the catalytic converter and run the bike super rich.
http://public.fotki.com/Rbertalotto/bmw_custom_exhaust/
I made a device that allowed me to set TB Sync while underway with a TwinMax strapped to the tank. I could do TPS with my eyes closed. I could get the bike close to no surge, but never get rid of it. I finally got rid of it by trading the R bike in for a K1200RS....End of surge!
I suggest that the whole surging issue is a personal thing. Obviously lots and lots of BMW riders don't find it a problem. But some folks are very sensative to it and find it unacceptable. In my case I found the R bike couldn't hold a candle to the Honda VFR. The Honda was extremely smooth, no surging, had no goofy low battery ABS issues and cost half as much. But I wanted a BMW for the advanced engineering and fit and finish that I thought I was getting with the R bike.........Now the K bike is a whole different story. No motorcycle that I've ever owned or ridden brings more joy to me than that bike. It's now three years old and has been on one major cross country trip and a bunch of 4-5 day trips and it is just a delight to own and ride. It always amazed me that the same company produced both bike. They are so radically different...
This is all probabaly way more than you wanted to know, but I was in the mood to type...

So, basically the gist of it all is: to eliminate surging, (if you don't have it now, you will evetually on an RT bike) is to sell the RT and buy something else?????

My dealer (knowing how unhappy I was at one time with the surging) strongly suggested that I sell or trade my '03 RT in on an '04 RT.

I'm so happy knowing that my dealer is always looking out for my best interests.

Motorcycles are a very personal experience. I would never suggest that someone trade a bike for a different one on someones suggestion. If you ride an R and like the experience, then enjoy and just ride. Matters not what others say. But if the surging annoys you, I suggest you are going to have quite an adventure trying to sort it out. Some folks like the adventure. I have to admit that at first, it was interesting for me. I just couldn't believe that a BMW, which I thought to be the ultimate motorcycle, could have so many issues right out of the box. And even more amazing was how so many folks in every magazine and every internet forum acknowledged these issues and yet BMW simply denied they ever existed. Whole industries were formed to deal with them (techlusion). But after a while, and when I started to long distance tour, the vibration and surging became more than I could stand.
I think BMW is caught between a rock and a hard place. Like all air cooled motors it is very tough to meet emission standards without water cooling (see VW, Porche, HD). Moto Guzzis next series of V Twin motors will have a radiator and water cooling. BMW certainly has the engineering to build a superb motor. Witness the "K". But the BMW motorcycle masses want a boxer. And they don't want a radiator. So BMW has done the best it possibly can with an outdated powerplant layout. And I say good for them....it's smart business to accomplish what they have done. And who knows, maybe with the 1200 series they will sort it all out.

I have a friend that bought a BMW on my advise last year. I tried to get him to go with a K bike, but he went with an R1150R. Here is the email I just received this morning as he picked up his K1200GT yesterday.....

"I picked up the bike yesterdayWOW! This is what the K has in common with my old R: The gas cap, the system bags and the key is the same shapeoutside of that this bike is a different animal! Smooth, fast, loves the twistys; this fulfills the promise of buying a BMW.

Nuff said.................Ride well!

ride4j said:

I have a 04' RT, and have read several post's about surging. What is it , and how do you tell if you have it?

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Well by now, you know what surging is.

Now for the fun part.

Long before I considered buying an oilhead, being an airhead owner, I had fun reading all the "surging" threads and came up with groups for oilhead owners.

- those whose oilhead never surged, because it just didn't.
- those whose oilhead actually surged.
- those that couldn't tell if their oilhead surged even if it hit them in the head.
- those that couldn't admit their oilhead surged because it was too embarrassing.

If they didn't surge, someone would have never come out with a little black box to help fix the surging issue.

I think the surging was due to an uneven and inconsistent burning of the mixture causing the oxygen sensor to continuously correct the mixture. The twin flame fronts now help to produce a more complete combustion.

BTW, neither of my two 2 Spark oilheads surge and I'd know if they did.

Surging

I always thought that surging was a "just off throttle" blip where fuel delivery didn't meet up too good with timing of the engine. I've read somewhere that tuning a boxer twin is basically like trying to get two completely separate engines to work together seamlessly. I must take talent to do this.

When I tested out a used R1100R it had a "surge," but in my opinion, it was because I didn't know how to feather the throttle (and clutch) to bring the engine "on" smoothly. The same surge was present in the Buell Lightning I rode a week or so later, although I attribute this to it having a slightly over square powerplant.

Is their really a fix for surging, probably so.

I just purchased a 03 RT and you guessed it surging is their. I'm sure someone in the aftermarket line has figured a fix, does anyone know what it is?

coolmg said:

I just purchased a 03 RT and you guessed it surging is their. I'm sure someone in the aftermarket line has figured a fix, does anyone know what it is?

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Techlusion Inc., makes an after-market "component" that supposedly works quite well. How it works exactly, I'm not sure of, other than it recalibrates the air / fuel mixture to some degree.

Some owners have pulled plugs under the seat in the fuse compartment. I did at one time (the pink one I think) and my RT did seem to surge less, but the bike seemed to have lost it's "edge" (responsiveness).

Still others say all that is needed is a "good" valve adj. / TB synch.

My RT is an '03 and I just turned 17,000 miles.....and I've learned to live with the surging.

Is surging isolated to any MYs or production dates? I'm considering an oilhead (moving from an airhead), and this surging issue dosen't sound fun.

My suggestion, would be to ride the bike you are considering buying. I've heard of '03's not surging, and then again, some that do (like mine). Even the degree of surging can be debatable to some degree.

I rode an '04 that surged, but not as bad as my '03. I've talked to guys that own '04's, and they swear that theirs don't surge.

Bottom line.........RIDE the bike before you buy.

If there was an easy fix for surging (whoops, I mean "hunting") BMW would have done it years ago. It's not a simple problem, because the fuel management system is much less sophisticated than needed. (similar to early auto fuel injection systems when they weren't very good, I'm told) One major problem is positioning the O2 sensor to read just one cylinder. So, one sensor tries to signal both sides to adjust mixture--without sensing the output from the other side.

The Techclusion box simply fools the system into a slightly richer mixture--which seems to help. That's about the only fix that seems to work.

IMO, the single plug RTs seem to be the biggest culprits. The later dual plug RTs seem to be much smoother. And, for reasons unknown, some RTs surge badly, some don't. Some GSs surge, some don't. My 2003 GS surges a bit, but not so badly it causes me grief.

YES, do ride the bike before you plunk down your money. Trouble is, many of us take a test ride on a similar model--then buy one out of stock that we didn't actually ride. If at all possible, once you're prepared to buy, make the sale contingent upon actually riding the bike. If it surges when new, it's likely to keep on surging, and even get a little worse as things wear. There are some really good BMW techs who can make most of the surging go away, but I suspect that most shops just can't afford to take the time to do it--even if they knew exactly how.

In other words, it's a huge embarrassment for a factory that wants to be seen as the technical wizards of motorcycling. They attempt to blame it all on the EPA (those horribly tight air pollution restrictions, you know) but the fact is, the Germans just don't know how to solve the problem. I've got four BMWs in the garage, but my '03 could be the last new one, if BMW follows the trend of more complex, more "stylish" bikes that aren't functional or reliable. And you know what? BMW apparently doesn't care.

pmdave