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Ride by Wire throttle

imortlfool

imortlfool

Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2009
Location
Northern California
Moto(s)
Duh
Name
Eric
The Dorsoduro 750 is the only bike I've owned with a ride by wire throttle. I love the throttle response on this bike. The transitions off/on the gas are butter smooth. The computer fixes my riding very well.

If any of the sensors are out of whack it throws a code and semi-panics. If I couldn't read the computer myself on this bike It would be infuriating. But, fine, computer driving, better be sensing.

My next-newest bike is 2013 and the throttle cables move the little flapper valves mechanically.

Who else has ride-by-wire throttle by now, and is it good? Do you like it?
 
My KTM 790 Adventure R is throttle by wire and it works very well. I'm pretty sure the 1090 R was also that way, but I had that one less than two years. My 2008 KTM 990 Adv which is where the KTM "adventure" started for me, was fuel injection, but not throttle by wire. The transition from closed throttle to cracked throttle was so bad at times that I got in the habit of just feathering the clutch in those conditions to smooth things out. After a fresh tune-up it was usually okay for about 1000 miles, then it started doing that again.

To have decent traction control, you need throttle by wire.

Stop here if you don't want to get into a possibly too long story. ;)

My 790 Adv R has different ride modes and I switch back and forth between street and off-road as needed. The off-road mode won't catch a too-much-throttle condition while leaned over, and the street mode won't let the tire slip much. The first time I had a problem off road while forgetting to switch out of street mode, I was trying to pass a semi hauling hay or something on an uphill dirt road. I start to pass the truck and the bike wouldnt' accelerate. I barely made it around as I realized that the rear tire needed to be spinning a bit against the loose dirt to accelerate and I was in the wrong mode.

A year or two later I forgot again and came to a "silt pit" that was maybe 30 feet long. This is where clay soil has been torn up so much that it's just loose silt with about the consitency of sifted flour. This one was deep, like six inches, and I managed to go through it in one of the tire tracks where it is deepest. I slowed down a bit and once I got in there the bike just stopped. I can't remember if the engine died or not, but it sure behaved that way. I made two or three attempts to rev up the engine to power out of there and the engine would just die. Eventually I figured out that I needed to switch it into off-road mode and got out with a huge rooster tail of dust shooting out the back. Traction control wouldn't let me get out of there in street mode.
 
My MC is by wire - steppers bolted to the TB. It works great. My Camry TBW sucks - you must hit the throttle about 3 seconds before you want acceleration in normal driving. It's OK off the line though.
 
My Hypermotard is RBW and it's.. fine, kinda snatchy, kinda notchy, they ditched magneti marelli and went to Bosch the following year and I'm told that's a huge improvement. Some of it is also the motor/ fueling. My KTM is carburated and manual everything and it's absolutely butter smooth, slow speed maneuvers are so much easier on that bike.
 
My 750GS is ride by wire.

It's fine for me, but one reason I tend to not ride in DYNAMIC mode, is that I find the throttle a bit sensitive. Hit a bump, twitch the throttle, and away we go. Not good eats for lane splitting, and I'm not motivated to be playing dancing modes, so I just leave it in ROAD mode. And there, it's fine.
 
I don’t see the point. Direct control of the throttle is best. Not adding more parts that can fail is not the way to go. I wouldn’t have a bike with a throttle like that.
 
ST Guy said:
I don’t see the point. Direct control of the throttle is best. Not adding more parts that can fail is not the way to go. I wouldn’t have a bike with a throttle like that.
Click to expand...
What about all of the parts that are missing, like the throttle cable and everything that it's attached to on both ends? If your bike has cruise control (none of mine have ever had it), throttle by wire is a great way to do it. And I've already mentioned how it helps with traction control.
 
What about all the parts that more than make up for the cable. I know that a throttle by wire system has more, and more complex parts, than a conventional system.

And how does it make traction control any easier? My ST1100 had traction control and it worked flawlessly. With conventional throttle control. And of note, traction control had zero impact on throttle control. The two systems didn’t interact.
 
ST Guy said:
I know that a throttle by wire system has more, and more complex parts, than a conventional system.
Click to expand...
I don't know, does it really?

I mean, isn't the engine management unit controlling fuel to the engine anyway? It's not a carburetor with a wire to valve. It's a simple, wire from the throttle to the computer, and the computer has a wire to the fuel injection system, which, and I don't know, but which I think is actually mechanically simpler than a carburetor -- it's just ("just") a solenoid to valve or sprayer or something from the fuel line to the cylinder. No mixing, no screws, no adjustments. They're not adjustable at all as I understand it. Fuel pump and open for XXX blinks of time.

Granted there's one for each cylinder, but most modern multi-cylinder bikes have their own, dedicated carburetors.

Seems like, modulo the engine computer, the actual mechanics of fuel injection are simpler, one reason they're more reliable. The actual complexity is software. Modern vehicle electronics are pretty stable.

Or, you know, I'm completely full of it.

Not surprising since my mechanical expertise pretty much stops and knowing which end of a wrench to use as a hammer.
 
Hmm 2012 Tacoma is throttle body by wire. Never even noticed.

Carburators do have nice throttle response. No thanks getting them in and out of bikes and cleaning them, don't forget an o-ring, don't strip that screw, don't tear any rubber boots prying on them with a screwdriver, haha.

Manufacturers should have to give up all the info after ten years. I want the code, the datasheets, a high-res wiring diagram in color, the revision history, the tools. I like computers if they're not connected to the internet.

At least you can see mechanical parts with your eyeballs?
 
You still need to operate the butterflies. They generally use a stepper motor. That’s more complexity. And then you need a sensor for the throttle tube. And all the wires and connectors. It is, by its nature, a more complex system.
 
ST Guy said:
I don’t see the point. Direct control of the throttle is best. Not adding more parts that can fail is not the way to go. I wouldn’t have a bike with a throttle like that.
Click to expand...
What kind of car do you drive?
The odds are excellent that you've been driving by wire without even knowing it.
It's naive to doubt throttle by wire. Old school wire cables just don't interact with finicky 5 volt refrence voltage very well.
Cables have gone the way of the Dodo Bird....extinct.
 
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