I recently bought a vortex ecu from twisted development for my 2020 rmz250. I absolutely love the way the bike runs, but I can barley get the bike to start, mostly when cold it seems. I called twisted development and they were cool, they send me a label and had me send it back to check it out. They put the ecu on an rmz250 they had at there shop and they said they didn’t have any issues getting the bike to start, so they sent it back to me.
I can literally throw my OEM ecu in, start the bike in 2-3 kicks, then immediately swap it out for the vortex and it takes 15-20 kicks. I did that multiple times with the same result. I’ve tried adjusting fuel trims and using different fuel. Using the cold start knob seems to make it worse. The bike will start for a fraction of a second sometimes during the routine of kicking it 15-20 times. I’ve tried kicking it wide open a few times, kicking it at or just past TDC, the only way I can ever get it started is to open the throttle just right as I’m kicking it, after kicking it multiple times.
I’m hoping there’s someone here who can shed some light on this because I really want this ecu to work. Is there something different about the vortex that would cause a base engine issue to show up that would otherwise be masked by the stock ecu? The bike is relatively low hour (around 25) and has always started easy with the stock ecu. Engine is all stock, never been opened up, bike has a RS-4 system, twin air power flow set up, and I have used u4.4 (not on the recall list, and was tested by vp to verify its good), I am currently using renegade sx4. Looking for any help or insight on this. Thanks.
Does it have a way to calibrate TPS like Austrian bikes? Maybe a bad spark plug?
TPS procedure for the vortex been done? how many hrs? dirty injector?
Yes have done the tps procedure, bike has around 25 hours. Can’t picture it being a spark plug or injector issue as it always starts right up with the OEM ecu, but at this point I really don’t have a clue why this is happening.
That's very strange if they actually tested it on another bike. My 250 has a GET setup but at one time it would stall out if I lugged it too much entering a turn and resetting the TPS solved it. Starts in 1-3 kicks no matter what all the time.
I have a 450 with a Vortex setup by Twisted Development and it took a long time to start but that was after disassembling the entire bike and splitting cases. I'm going to reset TPS on that and see how it is cold/hot after riding it.
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Have you tried using another numbered map on vortex? Try turning low trim 2 numbers higher for more fuel
Different bike / engine size, but perhaps a thing to look out for...
My XPR Vortex starts about the same as the stock ECU on my GasGas 350F when both are in the faster map.
When I had the stock ECU in the GasGas (for about the first 10 engine hours) I noticed that the few times I used the OE Traction Control setting and left it in that mode, the bike was hard to start. Turning off the traction control allowed the bike to fire right up each time. I don't know if the Suzy ECU has a traction control setting, but perhaps try starting in each map a few times warm and a few times cold to see if that changes anything.
So I’ve found that if I kick it over 3-4 times with the throttle wide open, and the close the throttle and kick it, it will start within 2-3 kicks. Once the bike is hot it will start right up so no problems there. But that procedure seems to be working well so far to get it started cold. I’m happy about that because I really didn’t want to send that ecu back, love the way it runs now.
How’s the Vortex over the stock ecu? Did you run the aggressive map with the stock ecu?
It’s definitely worth the money. Bike revs quicker and just pulls. Suzuki has the rich, lean, and standard ecu couplers, I have tried them all. Nothing compares to a vortex that has been tuned.
Hate revive an old thread but
when you installed the vortex ecu, did you need to leave any of the couplers in? I swapped and didn't really notice a difference
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