How many vipers with starters going bad?

[cannondale27]

My sled has never had a kickback but I have seen it on bikes quads and vehicles. It is usually accompanied by a whirring sound(oneway bearing),backfire and even some raw fuel out exhaust. An abrupt stop of motor While cranking I have seen unfortunately! Such as when a valve breaks off or when a tooth in transmission or STARTER GEAR breaks off. I am sorry but more failed parts I see more I believe it's bad parts and not the flash. That would also explain the in action by Yamaha. Recall for internal engine parts would be huge $ for them. Don't be bitter at me for bringing up a alternative. I am no expert and hope I am wrong. But nobody here knows the answer for sure.

 

[cannondale27]

Not sure how a clutch would fix a forward, backward lash of the gears caused by a crap ECU/injector ect setup. There are a pile of gears and gears have lash all the gears going the same way takes out all the lash. The minute the motor kicks back and forward it rocks the lash back and forth from the crank all the way to the starter. The starter has a one way clutch and when the motor starts it releases its grip. To have a clutch that would release when the motor kicks back would mean that the starter would never engage because it would be a two way clutch or ie non engage able.

Motor tries to start opening up the lash then kicks back and slams the gears back together, hard! Gears are not soft (although maybe rubber gears would work LOL) so they fracture and crack off they never smear because they are too hard and have to be to work as gears. As far as parts vendor as in supplied gears it would be funny how it just effects the Catamahas while the rest of the Yamaha three holes are not having the problem. The problem is a Catamaha one caused by a marriage of two technology's and for some reason they can't make it work 100% of the time. If it was a Yamaha full electrics and fuel in a Cat chassis there would be no problem. Or no more problem then Yami ever had. Yamaha is getting a bad rep from this as they are starting to be know for failed starter gears and the occasional wiped motor.

Then the bad gears rumor starts and the loss of reliability ect. The fav I heard was the Viper has a new motor and its too fragile! Thing is its just bad computer programming in a hybrid marriage.

I have posted pics of a starter clutch here before. It is intended to slip BEFORE gears or starter breaks. They are used in MANY engines.

I would think that a gear should only be hardened on the outside like many parts in engine. It should be soft inside. That gives it strength and good wear. To me that gear looks hardened all the way through. Heat treat can be tricky.

Good point about the other Three holers. As long as they are all made with same parts from same supplier and same batch that should be true.

I don't know what issue with these is but neither do you. Don't get all mad at me for thinking about it.

 

[cannondale27]

Okay did an experiment. Phazer starter gear a sledge and chisel. I hit this gear on the one tooth numerous times to get it to this point. Trashed 2 sharp chisels in process. It did not chip the gear tooth off like the Viper pic. This gear is hard as heck on outside but soft on inside which is why it mushed over. No pieces. You tell me what issue is.
Phazer Gear

Viper Gear

 

[RTX]

My sled has never had a kickback but I have seen it on bikes quads and vehicles. It is usually accompanied by a whirring sound(oneway bearing),backfire and even some raw fuel out exhaust. An abrupt stop of motor While cranking I have seen unfortunately! Such as when a valve breaks off or when a tooth in transmission or STARTER GEAR breaks off. I am sorry but more failed parts I see more I believe it's bad parts and not the flash. That would also explain the in action by Yamaha. Recall for internal engine parts would be huge $ for them. Don't be bitter at me for bringing up a alternative. I am no expert and hope I am wrong. But nobody here knows the answer for sure.

I know Im not bitter at you. I value your opinion immensly, just disagree completely with you on whats happening with these starters

 

[RTX]

Okay did an experiment. Phazer starter gear a sledge and chisel. I hit this gear on the one tooth numerous times to get it to this point. Trashed 2 sharp chisels in process. It did not chip the gear tooth off like the Viper pic. This gear is hard as heck on outside but soft on inside which is why it mushed over. No pieces. You tell me what issue is.
Phazer Gear
View attachment 110465
Viper Gear
View attachment 110466

So lets just say for the sake of conversation there is an issue with improper hardeming of the gears.
Im thinking that because the 14 ecu did not kick back, there might have been less issues with gears breaking.
But they change the ecu mapping in 15. Suddenly theres some kick back issues happening against some improperly hardened gears and whammo!! You got yourself a whole bunch of broken sleds.
Cannondale, i know i just completelely disagreed with you in my last post, but now you got me thinking.

 

[cannondale27]

Bingo! You got it RTX. Fixing the flash would help. For sure. But it's like putting a bandaid on a broken leg.

 

[stingray719]

Okay did an experiment. Phazer starter gear a sledge and chisel. I hit this gear on the one tooth numerous times to get it to this point. Trashed 2 sharp chisels in process. It did not chip the gear tooth off like the Viper pic. This gear is hard as heck on outside but soft on inside which is why it mushed over. No pieces. You tell me what issue is.
Phazer Gear
View attachment 110465
Viper Gear
View attachment 110466

Picture of break is not clear enough, is the metal at the break "grainy" or very smooth?

 

[yamadoo]

Thanks for all the responses glad I have not experienced that.

 

[yamaha06]

I have had my starter kick back twice, but have been good and had no issues in the last 1500 miles. Should I be worried about the gear having busted off teeth like everyone's experience or should I not worry about ripping everything apart. Not even sure where to begin but it doesn't look like fun!

 

[cannondale27]

Picture of break is not clear enough, is the metal at the break "grainy" or very smooth?

Which one? Phazer tooth never even came off its just smooshed. Chisels are fubared. Other pic it's grainy where they broke off.

 

[cannondale27]

I have had my starter kick back twice, but have been good and had no issues in the last 1500 miles. Should I be worried about the gear having busted off teeth like everyone's experience or should I not worry about ripping everything apart. Not even sure where to begin but it doesn't look like fun!

I would say if a tooth is missing the starter would skip sometimes so you would know if teeth were missing. At most pulling the starter and looking for damage to it is as far as I would go. With starter out you could look at the starter gear and that intermediate gear.

 

[Sasquatch]

I have posted pics of a starter clutch here before. It is intended to slip BEFORE gears or starter breaks. They are used in MANY engines.

I would think that a gear should only be hardened on the outside like many parts in engine. It should be soft inside. That gives it strength and good wear. To me that gear looks hardened all the way through. Heat treat can be tricky.

Good point about the other Three holers. As long as they are all made with same parts from same supplier and same batch that should be true.

I don't know what issue with these is but neither do you. Don't get all mad at me for thinking about it.

Not mad at all! Unaware of a slip clutch but maybe Cat needs to use it because they can't seem to solve the issue. Issue showed up when bad starting did. So I don't blame the gears because of all the three holes made only the vipers are breaking starter gears. So do they build engines specifically for Catamahas or do they build them all on the same line and ship to cat from the line. I'll go with the later!

I don't agree with pointing to a gear issue when the real issue is a bad marriage. If it was a gear issue is would apply to all three holes and fours for that matter as I would think all the gears are built by the same supplier.

Everyone has an opinion and that is mine.

 

[stingray719]

Which one? Phazer tooth never even came off its just smooshed. Chisels are fubared. Other pic it's grainy where they broke off.

Grainy where it breaks is bad metal, no question.

Now as said before backfiring may break one that might have lived but grainy where it breaks is metal issue.

 

[smoothride]

Has anyone tried to set up the throttle body's on this engine because Yamaha is none to have them not equal on there bikes and they end up being lean?

 

[Sasquatch]

Has anyone tried to set up the throttle body's on this engine because Yamaha is none to have them not equal on there bikes and they end up being lean?

Cat throttle bodies but they should

My sled has never had a kickback but I have seen it on bikes quads and vehicles. It is usually accompanied by a whirring sound(oneway bearing),backfire and even some raw fuel out exhaust. An abrupt stop of motor While cranking I have seen unfortunately! Such as when a valve breaks off or when a tooth in transmission or STARTER GEAR breaks off. I am sorry but more failed parts I see more I believe it's bad parts and not the flash. That would also explain the in action by Yamaha. Recall for internal engine parts would be huge $ for them. Don't be bitter at me for bringing up a alternative. I am no expert and hope I am wrong. But nobody here knows the answer for sure.

No kick back no broken gears! If its a gear problem then the kick back becomes normal and not a problem?????? Its not a sudden stop of the motor its a speed up to take out the lash then and reversal multiplying the impact. A sudden stop with all the gears tight against each other would not cause a problem.