MAINT and Red Light at WOT

[beavisaur]

Posting this for a buddy of mine who has a 2000 GTX RFI 787.

First off a little quick history lesson:
1) ski bought from Team Vincent.....enough said
2) he has had to replace the magneto/stator recently as the bolts holding it together let go and the magneto pretty much melted since loctite wasn't used during a rebuild by TV
3) Has been fighting with "12V low" for a while, but put in a brand new battery and seems to be good for the past 4 hours of riding time.
4) Seems to be burning a lot of oil. A full tank of oil lasted almost 2 maybe 2.5 tanks of gas. We are guessing it's the piston rings, but could be something else of course.

Now for the main issue, as soon as you go WOT the red light and "MAINT" comes on. The ski will rev up great, gets to 51-52MPH (according to the speedo) and pretty much runs smooth. If you let off the throttle even 1/8" the MAINT and red light goes away.

 

[- BiRkS_]

The 12V low can be 1 of 3 things, or multiple. Bad battery, bad/corroded connections. Shorted stator, or faulty voltage regulator. Get a multimeter and check the battery with ski off (should be around 12.6 volts) then with the ski running at about 3000 rpm. Should be charging at about 14-14.5V. Then switch meter to read AC volts and check for AC voltage across battery. Should be no more than 0.5-1 VAC.

As for the burning of oil, it sounds pretty normal to me, if you spend most of the time at/near WOT, it will burn alot more oil than if you were cruising. You can check the oil pump sync with the carbs by aligning the two marks (1 on the arm, and the other on the pump body)

For the Maint light, what does it say on the info gauge? is it overheating? Check the fuel pressure, see if its up to spec (107-108 psi) and replace the fuel filter if you haven't in a while.

What are the compression readings?

 

[griz400]

battery was probably the problem, you said it was alright last 4 hrs of use, always after you clean it up after riding it, keep a battery maintainer on it, and check it the way birks said, although anything around 14.0 is good, over 15 is a bad rectifier, and fuel pressure on an rfi is 56-60 psi when running .....

btw, who is team vincent ????

 

[beavisaur]

Did a compression test today and it reads 145 on one, and 130 on the other using wot during the test

The 12v low is not an issue anymore. Fixed after replacing the stator/magneto and the battery.

The oil is definitely an issue. At idle it constantly creates a very thick cloud of white smoke that only goes away once you are over 1/2 throttle.

The question is why does the red light and MAINT flash on the screen only when at wot and at no other point of throttle. If you go back and forth between half throttle and full throttle, the light will come on every single time you hit full throttle.

Re: team Vincent - this ski has team Vincent stickers all over it and even the oem cover has team Vincent silkscreened onto it in multiple places.

http://www.seadooforum.com/showthread.php?43388-Dave-vincent-team-in-ayr-do-not-buy-from-there!

 

[griz400]

Did a compression test today and it reads 145 on one, and 130 on the other using wot during the test

The 12v low is not an issue anymore. Fixed after replacing the stator/magneto and the battery.

The oil is definitely an issue. At idle it constantly creates a very thick cloud of white smoke that only goes away once you are over 1/2 throttle.

The question is why does the red light and MAINT flash on the screen only when at wot and at no other point of throttle. If you go back and forth between half throttle and full throttle, the light will come on every single time you hit full throttle.

Re: team Vincent - this ski has team Vincent stickers all over it and even the oem cover has team Vincent silkscreened onto it in multiple places.

http://www.seadooforum.com/showthread.php?43388-Dave-vincent-team-in-ayr-do-not-buy-from-there!

set your oil pump adjustment like this and set your rave valves so when you lay a nickle on top the red part, the top of the nickle is flush with the black part, and make sure you have full synthetic oil, and dont put any oil in your fuel tank

 

[LouDoo]

Your compression is troublesome. 130psi is approaching critical, and you're almost at 15% difference. I would suspect you have worn rings in the 130psi side at least contributing to the excessive smoking.

Lou

 

[beavisaur]

Awesome. Great advice guys. I was just talking with my friend earlier today about checking his oil pump setting.

We are thinking the following:
a) check and properly set oil pump.
b) probably replace rotary valve seal since it could be the culprit and would be a cheap fix.
c) inspect pistons and rings. Replace at least the rings.

What do you think?