Can anyone help me solve this riddle?

Hi everyone.

I recently bought an RSV 2006 model with 10k miles. Engine seems great and it generally appears in good nick for its age.

I bought a new starter relay on Amazon the other month for £6 using the recommended part number knocking about on forums. I hadn't fitted it until one night I just got a clicking sound from the original relay.

I swapped the old relay for the new one and immediately it had a much stronger kick on the button.

Today, however I got the clicking again over and over when trying to start. After a while it just decided to start and I went for a ride. When I stopped for fuel it wouldn't start again, just clicking from the relay. This time, however the clocks were dying and eventually nothing at all worked.

I happened to have my optima the with me so connected it to the battery and it showed the battery was near enough full. I fiddled around for ages with fuses and connectors and never found anything too sinister looking. After a while, I tried the key and somehow, everything lit up. The relay was still just clicking so I bridged it with a screwdriver and bike fired up strongly. I rode home 10 miles and not a hint of bother. I turned it off and on a couple of times at home too and so far working fine.

I am convinced I haven't seen the back of this though and want to take some preventative measures. Anyone have any suggestions? Is the new relay I bought a piece of crap?

Sorry for the boring post!

Your relay could well be a piece of crap. £6 is very cheep, the proper ones from Aprilia performance are about £45! However you could also have connector, starter motor or charging issues. [emoji12]

I thought the fact that the battery was still full after the break down plus the bike starting well when bypassing the relay would rule out starter or charging issues. I'm led strongly to believe it's the relay BUT would a faulty relay cause all the electrics to go dead after attempting to start the bike with it? That's my biggest mystery.

Charging issues are not uncommon on these bikes so the first step is be sure the battery is fine. Specifically it should be at it over 12.5 volts in the off state and around 14v when running .
Loads of cranking power is required to start these big V twins, and therefore loads of current flows from the battery to the starter. A big weakness is any connectors in series; any small resistance in the current path will cause volt drop and power loss, possibly noticeable by damaged or melted connections. A good way of improving charging is to connect a large 16mm2 cable direct from the Regular/Rectifier to the battery. On the earth/ -ve side.

So to answer your question I would guess your starting efforts have “strained” one of your connectors somewhere which has then caused apparent power loss elsewhere. Which subsequently improved either by the battery voltage recovering or the connection being remade once it cooled down ?

PS a crap starter solenoid will not help you, Put a proper 150A rated one in!

call griff at aprilia performance now!!!!!