I just had my controller tweaked a bit to get some additional speed out of my 2012 4 seater. Now When driving around on flats it works fine. Whenever I hit a hill and use more than 1/2 throttle I hear what i can best describe as a crackling noise from under the dash. Kinda like rice crispy’s if you know what that sounds like. I originally thought it was sand or dirt coming off tires but i was able to duplicate the sound when on clean streets. When i let off throttle it goes away. Nothing seems hot after driving so I cant pinpoint what it is.
Its a 2012 4 seater with one of marlons 7.5 HP motor
JAT but you might try pulling the lower skirt off the GEM so you can see under the dash and have a passenger watch/listen when doing the uphill bit to see if you can localize the sound a bit more.
If it didn’t do this before the tweak/motor upgrade, I’d suspect you’re pulling too many amps through the controller and that can’t be a good thing. I believe there are “upgraded” controllers (NOT just reprogrammed standard controllers) available (try Ride-for-fun or Marlon) that will handle the increased amperage required to achieve maximum performance especially with the larger HP motors which will of course pull higher amps than factory stock.
Depending on who did your controller “tweaking” they should be aware of this as well and know the limits of controller/amperage/HP. When I had my controller reprogrammed by R4F, some of their questions regarded type of hills being encountered, number of passengers, weight and top speed I wanted. They already knew I had their 5HP motor and programmed my stock 2001 GE controller to stay within the max parameters of the controller to avoid problems.