Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi High Speed Disappoinments.

I just did a Bangalore-Mysore-Bangalore ride yesterday. It was purely for the joy of riding the Bajaj Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi.

Some stats first..
-A total of 333Km.
-My odo now shows 3050Km as done.
-Did my last servicing 3 weeks ago from Bajaj Pro, Auto-Service, Bangalore. After which, the performance and mileage both went up.

Issues...[ 1 to 5 ]

1] But, yesterdays long drive has set me thinking... The Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi just would not go beyond 117Kmph !!! Let me explain in details with some stats..

-My yesterdays ride was a solo one, I weigh 75Kg, the bike had 8liters of fuel, and not more than 3Kg of hand baggage.
-The day was cloudy, max ambient temperature during the ride would not exceed 28'C
-I normally get a speed of 85 @ 6000rpm in 5th gear
-If I continue to throttle more and build up rpm, I get 105 @ 8000rpm in 5th
-After this point, the 8200rpm mark is never breached, and this translates to a max speed of 115 and rarely 117.
I have tried various techniques to build rpm, but it never exceeded 8200rpm mark in 5th gear.

But,
-If I go down to 4th gear, I can touch red line @ 9000 rpm (and the rpm warning indicator starts to glow red), also I get speeds of 90-92Kmph at this point.
-If I now shift to 5th gear soon after this red line, the rpm drops to approx 7200.
-After this I throttle more and the rpm will reach 8200 max, with again a speed of 115Kmph.

Now my question is.. why does the rpm get maxed out at 8200 in 5th while in 4th it easily can go to 9000 (and I'm sure if I push it, it will go much beyond).

2] Another thing I noticed is.. when I'm at 8200rpm, speeds of 115Kmph, there is a lot more throttle left. I would estimate almost more than an inch of a throttle turn left. If I throttle more than this, or even max out the throttle, twisting it to its max position... the engine responds by changing its sound. It sounds louder and a bit faster. Some change in vibrations is also noticeable. So it means that the motor is responding to the throttle changes, but it does not translate to an upward change in rpm, meaning no change in speed.

3] One comparison that I can do here is... all my old bikes had their own max rpm, which could be reached in top and top-1 gears. My Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi wont do that. Also when I come down from max speed and max rpm to even half of it.. all my older bikes used to shudder (harmonic oscillations setting off vibrations).. the Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi does not.. so that's a plus point noticed in this issue.

4] Another issue is that on this ride I noticed that over all vibrations after 6000rpm have increased over my last ride. I can just feel them. It feels very un-P220. The first time I did 85Kmph I had noticed that the vibrations were marginally increased. But not this last ride..

5] After riding at 115Kmph for 1-2 minutes (there is no straight part to ride any longer at that speed safely), the fuel pump malfunction lamp lit up. It stayed even if one reduces speed under 40Kmph. There is no other way than to stop, kill power (hard boot) and start again. And it happened on ALL of my 115kmph runs. After one such run, I decided to ride under 40Kmph and see what happens. But the lamp was lit all the while even after a few Km, and the motor never ran dry of fuel (if the fuel pump had malfunctioned the motor should die of thirst right?). finally I did a hard-boot.

So here is what I'm thinking...

-Is an ECU map doing this??
-Is the fuel pump to blame, that it cant supply fuel faster at high rpm's??
[A similar problem was noticed on my brothers Kawasaki Ninja previously; the injection pipes accumulated some wax kind of layers (just like cholesterol blocking heart valves); the Ninja would splutter to death at high rpm's]
-Is something wrong with the 5th gear itself?

Any other Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi owners reported similar issues?

I will be asking Venkat Shyam of Auto-service for advice and thoughts on this issue, and if needed inform Bajaj Auto too. Some how I need my faith to be restored in the Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi !!

Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi ECU Kit

I went to Auto-Service to get the fuel pump checked. I was suspecting it due to continuous running noise from it. The pump makes a noise at boot time; thats the priming noise to build up pressure. At run time, the pump is supposed to run as and when needed. But, I noticed that it runs continuously now. Or if the pump is always supposed to run continuously the noise is at its max now.

Venkat Shyam, the big-boss from Auto-Service checked and explained to me that the pump is supposed to always run. So now I'm ignoring the pump noise as being normal.

I also had a chance to check out the ECU kit which Auto-Service had just recieved. I was told that it costs quite a lot. Its an hand-held battrey operated compact unit. Its simply plug and play. Plug it to the ECU connector under the rear seat (yes rear seat comes off separately) and you are ready. The hand-held can also be connected to a PC for flashing (updating EPROM's).

After the hand-held boots up, it syncs with the P220 ECU, and downloads the data in real time. Some of the parameters that can be monitored are battrey voltage, running RPM, idle RPM, air intake temperature, throttle %, firing angle and more. Using this tool the idle rpm was accurately set to 1400.

Second free servicing

This is an update on the Bajaj Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi second free servicing. I came to know that there is another PRO outlet Auto Service, besides Khivraj in Bangalore, which is also authorized for the P220 servicing.

The Auto Service is not just a great environmentally friendly facility, but the technicians and engineers are very knowledgeable about what they do. 2 of the staff have been trained on the Pulsar 220 platform. The proprietor Venkat Shyam is a very passionate person about bikes and the Indian automobile industry as a whole. The best part is he is a vetran biker and owns the Bajaj Avenger and now the P220.

The bike was serviced with a lot of precision and cared for like a baby. Will post a few pics later.