XT1200Z Super Tenere Rostra Cruise Control Project

[sraber]

Very interesting! Thanks for this thread.

[protondecay123]

Originally Posted by SuperCruise

No worries. As you suggest, once the air box goes back on there is no room to accommodate a lever arm on the throttle; it barely clears the throttle neck clamp and vacuum hose with enough safety margin as it is.

I will do a proper writeup, with pics and diagrams, when I'm finished and put a link to it here in this thread and also in my sig.

Thank you!

[SuperCruise]

Did a 500 km ride and was able to test out the cruise control on the freeway and on highways for most of it. The cruise control worked beautifully at speeds of 80 kph and over. T mode is much smoother than S mode in cruise control operation, as you would expect given the greater throttle movement required for the same engine response than for S mode. Speed accuracy was about +/-3 km max upon encountering a steep climb or descent, with +/-1 kph being the usual range on gradually changing elevations.

The only thing I was not entirely happy with was the over sensitivity of cruise control engagement. In T mode, the bike would surge about 2 - 4 kph (greater surge at lower set speeds) over the set speed then settle back down to the set speed and working fine from there on in. In S mode, the surge would be as high as 10 kph, which made me wonder if I had a stuck throttle at times but it would always settle back down.

Interestingly, it did not exhibit this surging behaviour when I first test rode it last weekend and the only difference in configuration between then and now is that I took some slack out of the throttle cable once it had bedded. I have read with other bike installations that it is important to have enough slack otherwise surging on engage can occur, so it seems I have taken too much slack out. I will rectify this in the next couple of days.

As I said, other than that the cruise control worked wonderfully, even in drizzling rain for about an hour. The switch housing must be weatherproofed and there will be more about this in the installation writeup I am currently drafting.

As a testimony to how good it is, before I could only ride for about 1 hour at a time and have to stop because of buzzing hands and an increasingly sore right wrist. On the last leg home, I did 200 kms and over 2 hours and got off with no buzzing hands and no sore wrist. Very happy with this and I am looking forward to it serving me well on upcoming lap of Australia.

[SuperCruise]

I added some slack to the throttle control cable last night and noticed a significant reduction in surging on engagement, so I'm going to leave it at that. I am now very happy with the performance of the cruise control setup.

One different thing I have noticed is how warm the cruise control box gets after you turn the bike off and the engine upon which it sits gets a chance to warm up without the bike's cooling system doing its job. I have the cruise control box sitting on some muffler packing I had sitting around, which does offer some insulation and a reasonable temperature differential between it and the part of the engine upon which it sits, but it is still probably warmer than the cruise control unit can tolerate very long term.

Options for resolution are:

1. do nothing and take the chance that the unit may eventually cook itself, possibly long after I own the bike and therefore care
2. make up a bracket (comes with the kit) that lifts the unit slightly off the engine so that direct heat conduction from the engine will be removed from the equation
3. relocate the unit somewhere else, although previous efforts to find an alternative internal location did not bear fruit.

I'll keep an eye on it for now, but I might have a look at option 2 in the immediate term. Option 3 is something someone else may want to consider with their installation.

[SuperCruise]

After another week of using the CC, I am now happy that the CC unit is not getting too hot because of the insulating qualities of exhaust packing upon which I have it sitting. As such, I am going to leave the CC unit mounted freely as is.

Last night I finalised the CC control panel installation, as pictured below, and I now consider the CC installation to be complete. I aim to finish the how-to writeup this weekend.

[fredz43]

That is great news. Looking forward to your official installation writeup. Please provide us a link from this thread so we don't miss it.

[SuperCruise]

As promised, here is a link to my draft installation instructions. Please let me know if you find any errors or omissions in the document.

Rostra Cruise Control Installation on a Yamaha Super Tenere XT1200Z

[mobyfubar]

Cool! I hope to eventually install something like this. Thanks for all the info.

[Glenn C]

Originally Posted by SuperCruise

As promised, here is a link to my draft installation instructions. Please let me know if you find any errors or omissions in the document.

Rostra Cruise Control Installation on a Yamaha Super Tenere XT1200Z

Hey SuperCruise,

Great write up. I would recommend one addition though... the slicone sealant you mention should be neutral cure type (typically used for metal roofing/guttering etc). The standard acetic cure is corrosive and will damage/corrode copper wires etc.

Glenn

[SuperCruise]

Originally Posted by Glenn C

Hey SuperCruise,

Great write up. I would recommend one addition though... the slicone sealant you mention should be neutral cure type (typically used for metal roofing/guttering etc). The standard acetic cure is corrosive and will damage/corrode copper wires etc.

Glenn

Good point. Even though your gooping effort should not touch actual wires, they are certainly in the vicinity. I used Selleys All Clear, which is neutral cure (non-corrosive). I have updated the writeup. Thanks.

[Glenn C]

Inspired by SuperCruise, I also installed a Rostra Cruise Control. If anyone's interested, here's the thread:

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=669228

Cheers

[EJV]

Thank you!

I just finished the test ride. Your instructions were perfect!

My Tenere is even more "awesomer" now.

EJ

[SuperCruise]

Reporting back some 18 months and 30000 kms, including a lap of Australia, after installing the cruise control. I have been very pleased with its operation, finding that T mode definitely gives a smoother ride. Despite some longevity concerns I had about some aspects of my installation (throttle cable loop connection and control unit nestled under the tank and over the gearbox), it has managed to survive the test of time. All in all, I'm very happy with the outcome of this project.

Today I tried out the clutch switch short circuit mod to see if it would wake the bike up at low revs and smooth out that flat spot from 3.5-4.5K, and boy did it achieve that. I can't believe how much more responsive the bike feels, especially since I now don't have to switch TCS off to get that front wheel lifting with ease on take off. Thank you Yamaha for planting this Easter Egg!

Unfortunately, one side effect of the clutch switch short circuit mod is that it won't allow the cruise control to engage because of the way that I wired it up to disengage cruise when the clutch is pulled in. After thinking about it for a bit I realised that I don't really expect to use the cruise control while the bike is so responsive as the cruise control will hunt too much and I don't want to lose the safety feature of the cruise control disengaging with clutch use.

As such, I've decided to install a switch across the clutch switch assembly, so that I can choose between "super" S mode (short circuit) for sprightly riding action in the twisties and T mode (open circuit and T mode set) for cruising the open roads. I may as well just leave the mode in T because it seems that with the clutch switch short circuited that T mode behaves the same as S mode anyway. I plan on putting the switch in next weekend.

[llamapacker]

I was curious about that aspect also, thanks for the update.

[SuperCruise]

Reporting back that I have now installed a cut-off style switch (just to the right of the cruise control control panel) which now allows me to choose between tame T mode with cruise control working and "super" S mode which cuts all those emissions dips out of the power curve, unleashing the S10's full engine potential. The switch just connects across the clutch switch wires. Very happy with my S10 now!