Blrfl
Natural Rider Enhancement
...really crimps my riding style. Nothing over 70 mph, which rules out the freeway.
As long as the weather's not excessively hot, you're not using low-octane fuel and not asking the engine to make torque where it doesn't, riding at high speeds shouldn't be a problem. The FI light doesn't mean you have to stop riding. There are a few conditions where it does, and the ECM will let you know one of them has happened by stopping the engine.
1. The signal wire seemed to have a braided shield around it up to the last few inches. Is this crucial for sensor operation? Is it a ground path that has to be intact or can I cut the shielding short and just heat shrink the signal wire? Also, any tips about heat shielding the wire so this doesn't happen again?
It's heat shielding. The sensor itself is grounded to the engine block. There's no reason you couldn't add some additional shielding of your own. There's a certain way the wire on one side of the bike has to be routed to prevent heat damage, and I can't remember off the top of my head which side it is. There were a number of early bikes where the wire wasn't routed properly during assembly, although yours probably isn't one of them if it got to 112K before failing. After almost 14 years and that many miles, you could just have cruddy connections, too. I'd explore that before a failed ECM.
2. I took left side knock sensor signal line voltage readings just prior to the ECM. I measured ~10 mVAC when off, ~21 mVAC at idle, and 50+ mVAC when above 4000 rpm. All reading in respect to ground. Are these reasonable?
Honda doesn't spec anything for that, but that at least says the sensor and the wiring is good. Since you've got everything apart, I'd repeat that experiment with the right side for comparison and to make sure you're not barking up the wrong tree. Things were a little odd when we discovered the mistake in the manual, and to this day I'm not positive which editions of the manual are wrong.
--Mark