Hodakaguy's Ural Gear Up...Mods, Pics & Adventures!

Yeah well....


There ya go.

Next up.....How To (And How NOT To) add vacuum ports to your throttle bodies

The first GEN EFI throttle bodies on Urals are balanced via the dealer computer through the OBD Port on the bike. Since balancing throttle bodies is something you need to do on a regular basis that means you either need to take the bike to a dealer often (No dealer close to me....plus I prefer to do my own maint) or you need to find a way to perform the balance at home. There are a couple ways to do this and either will work. First you can modify an OBD cable to fit the bike and then get some software to perform the balance on your computer at home, or you can add vacuum ports to the throttle bodies and balance the bodies with a Twinmax or Harmonizer. Vacuum ports are quick and reliable plus I already own the balancing tools so ports it is for me.

"How To" add vacuum ports to your throttle bodies.

First up remove the throttle bodies from the bike. The factory intake clamps are one time use Oetiker clamps, these will need to be cut off to be removed. I will replace them with reusable thin (9mm) hose clamps with rolled edges so they don't dig into the rubber boots.










Replacement clamps.





Throttle body off the bike. There is a flat portion on the throttle bodies (Top and Bottom) that can be used to add vacuum ports, I'll be adding mine to the top.








Marking out the location for the vacuum ports. A word of caution here: You need to drill/tap on the far outside area of the flat surface, as you move towards the ECU their is a void and if you drill into this void the atmospheric pressure sensor on the ECU board will now to common to engine vacuum....turning your throttle body into an expensive paper weight......see below on the "How NOT To" section to see the results of drilling in the wrong spot or with a drill bit that is to large.

I'll be using a 1/4-28 Vacuum port and drilling with a #3 drill bit. Mark the drill location .200" from the outer edge of the flat spot.









Prep for drilling. I used blue painters tape to cover up the internal ECU vacuum port just down stream of the butterfly (Don't want any aluminum shavings getting into this port). I also used painters tape to cover up the fuel injector, electrical connections etc. Then I took a wad of paper towel and stuffed it up against the butterfly prior to drilling.










Lightly clamped into the vise to drill/tap the body.






Hole drilled....now the tap.






Next up I drilled out a couple 1/4-28 grease zerk fittings to make some small vacuum ports.












I installed the vacuum ports into the throttle bodies using Loctite 243








With the throttle bodies back on the bike all that was left to do was to hook up the Harmonizer and balance the bodies at idle and operating speed (I like 3K rpm). The balance went easy and quick and the bike idles and runs soooooo smooth now! A quick and easy modification and well worth the time spent, now I can check balance during my routine maint sessions.






Balance completed and vacuum caps added to the ports to seal them off. These rubber caps have a way of dry rotting over time so I have a couple extras in the tool kit inside the trunk of the sidecar. I may swap out the rubber caps for Vinyl units.




And Now.......

"How NOT to" add vacuum ports to your throttle bodies.

I wanted to post this section to help others and hopefully prevent some headache for those who also want to add vacuum ports to their throttle bodies. Originally I purchased a couple vacuum fittings with built in O-rings for this project. Although these fittings are sweet they are also larger than the ones I used above and required a larger hole to be drilled accordingly.

These are the fittings....nice.




I marked the location and drilled out the hole.......DANG! Found that there is a hollow section that opens to the back side of the ECU board. I probably could have drilled the hole further outboard and maybe just cleared the void but it would have been close with this size of bit. If I had known the void existed I would have drilled accordingly.....lesson learned.




Here's a mark up showing the safe area to drill. Follow the measurements in the first section above and you will be fine.




I did make an attempt to seal the gap temporarily so I could ride that day (Was warm and sunny that day of coarse) but it didn't work out either. Some metal shavings had gotten down into the back side of the ECU through the void and shorted the ECU power to the throttle body housing. When I re-installed the bodies after the fix I found the ECU doing some bizarre things and acting erratic, also found that both throttle bodies were electrically hot even with the key off. Dang....no riding that day.

My improvised repair to seal the void. It would have worked as a temp fix if the shavings hadn't messed up the ECU.












Body showing electrically hot....not normal. I removed the body again and tried to blow out any shavings that had gotten into the ECU but there was no change, At this point I was done and knew a new throttle body would be needed.




Luckily I was able to find a like new pair of used throttle bodies with the latest off road maps already installed (The ones I tapped at the start of the thread). With the new bodies balanced the bike is running better than ever before! And just to show the above shot is not normal here's a shot of the new bodies showing no voltage like they should be.




Now off to rack up some more fun miles.


Hodakaguy

Or you could simply make a cable to fit the OBD2 port and sync it using a computer. No need to drill, no need for a dealer. Cheap and easy.

Glad you got the issue rectified. Now go ride and enjoy the new rig!

I'll eventually make a cable as well and compare the two methods, that said the ports are easy to install and work great as well .

Hodakaguy

Well, easy the second time around.

Yep lol. Live and learn on that one I guess

Hodakaguy

That's a very cool mod. Nice.

Suggestion -- use some E6000 (an adhesive that's kinda like RTV sealant) or something similar to smear a little on the zerks before you cap them. This will help prevent losing a cap inadvertently while riding. You'll still be able to twist and pull off the cap as needed. Another suggestion -- I'm not in love with those worm clamps. Have you seen t-bolt clamps? Super expensive (around $4 each), but you only need two and Amazon carries them in 25 sizes. Link ---> https://www.amazon.com/WYKA-T-Bolt-Stainless-2-52-2-64-64-67mm/dp/B07X43WQKT/


They'll last forever and no worries that the clamps will chew up the rubber pipe.

I looked at T-bolt clamps but couldn't find any thin enough, 9mm wide just works.

Hodakaguy

Went out yesterday with the kiddo and put on 65 fun miles. Here I stopped to snap a pic of the bike with the Hanford Nuclear Reactor humming along in the background....making that power!




We also found out that the low fuel light doesn't work . I always reset the trip odometer at each fill up but hadn't been paying attention to it. A quick call to the wife had rescue fuel on the way

When the bike died and coasted to a stop I told my son "I'm pretty sure we're out of fuel". He quickly replied "That's ok, we have an extra can on the back". I then said "Yeah but it's empty". And he replied..."What good is a spare can if its empty!". LOL....he has a point








Hodakaguy

Oh look, I have the same picture. We decided to wait for the light to go on before filing, so we would know how any miles we could get out of a tank. The day before we considered filling the jerry can, but didn't since we figured we would always be close enough to a gas station once the light went on. Here we are, out of gas. The light never came on, and the jerry can was empty. ON a side note. the light now works. It is always on now, with the exception of some flickering as the tank gets close to empty. Thankfully my wife was laughing, and so was I.

The old style optical fuel sensor is a guaranteed fail with any fuel that has ethanol in it. There's a retrofit float sensor to replace it.

https://www.uralne.com/float-style-low-fuel-level-sensor-upgrade-for-2014-2017-models/

I have that sensor in the 2014. The issue with it, is that it is designed to be mounted vertically, and the mount on the 2014 is at an angle. It worked for a while, then started to hang up.

The majority of them work fine, there's only been a few with issues according to the folks at IMWA.

It did work for a while according to the previous owner. I may take it out and clean it up one day, but for now I am not worrying about it.

3 liter or 5 liter gas can? Hate to drill the mounting holes in the tub on my new 2021 cT coming in December.


Maybe on the rear of the bike with a bolt on bracket.
Something like this.


Or on a top box on the rear or the bike like I have on my scooter.

If you put a 3 liter on your scooter you will want 2 x 5 on your Ural.

Mine has the updated 2018 fuel sensor, ill take a look soon and find out why its not working.

Hodakaguy

I like the factory fuel can/mount on the Gear Up models. I just need to fill it up lol.

Hodakaguy

Parts of Hanford is decommissioned, other parts are alive and well.

Hodakaguy

A quick cold start video. The off road mapping in combination with the EJK Tuner is a great combo! Idles super smooth hot or cold and there is a noticeable increase in pep across the throttle range. No hiccups, decel popping etc. A whole different beast compared to the ultra lean stock mapping.



Hodakaguy