I'm curious about this.. So you are saying that the power commander actually reprograms the ECU in the fly? I thought the VEs can only be set by programming them into the flash? So you are saying that you can remove the power commander and the AFRs remain correct? Interesting.. Or does it reprogram when the ECU is powered on? I thought the commanders adjusted the Injector PWs on the fly by intercepting the injector driver wires and re-driving them out it's self..

Not sure what your issue is with being able to tune the Tmax and what better really is.. Power, mileage, readability? Zippers and Frank Dragos seem to like these units.. I do know that timing is critical when setting up closed loop afr.. I've seen some try to tune by setting injector PWs then have the closed loop part readjust them.. That's the wrong way to do it FWIW.

 

No, the PC is still an add on (piggyback unit), the autotune changes the VE tables in the PC. It doesn't change anything in the ECM.

Of coarse Zippers like the Thundermax lol. It's their product. I've spoken to Frank more than once about it as well, yes he likes it that's fine. It's just not my preferred device. I've been tuning on the dyno for over 10 years, i've tuned pretty much all of them. Thundermax sells itself on being an autotune system, what I am saying is I can get better performance, economy and ride-ability out of a bike that is tuned over what the TM gets with autotune. It's obvious you have a TM, and are happy with it, that's great. And it's obvious that you haev an understanding of EFI, do you have experience with any other tuner besides the TM?

 

what is this Thundermax you speak of?

 

http://www.thunder-max.com/

 

PCV doesn't use VE tables for auto tune.
They are called trim tables and they are applied to the existing fuel tables to achieve the requested a/f ratio.

It "trims" up or down to get that fuel ratio.
(Just trying to keep terminology less confusing)

 

Ok so the PCV is as I said.. It is some sort of corrective learning and not this..

It's just happens to represent them as VEs on the PC.. Possibly as a % change in VE? I guess it could be a number tho.. Plus or Minus as it probably don't know what the real number is.. Or does it??

I don't own a dyno but rent from time to time when I wan to see what is going on.. Been doing that for about 7 years.. Only other experience is about 40 years ago.. Back then it was carbs and points..

I've looked at a few of the flash tuners.. Played with the software. Not really used them.. They seem overly complicated and more geared towards dyno shops where the conditions are better controlled. I suspect that is why most dyno shops prefer using them. Especially when you can buy the license for the bike flash on line with a credit card, download it immediately and not have to stock anything.. For those not want to deal with tuning the bike themselves, it is a good way to go.. I expect that buy a Tmax is more expensive than buying a flash and having a tune done. The cost becomes more equal when the next change on the motor / intake / exhaust happens.

Have you been able to measure the difference in performance on a dyno? You should have some runs that you can post..

I don't think Tmax really sells itself as an autotuner.. They sort of implied it at one time.. They now call it "Automap" though you still see some references to "Autotune" in their documentation.. Tmax seems to be more popular with smaller shops that don't see that many performance bikes to afford a dyno.. They can be tuned reasonably well with minimal time without one.

 

Just differn't terminology for the same thing. Autotune makes changes to the "trim" tables, then adjusts to the "fuel" tables which in other software would be the equivalent of VE tables. Regardless, you set your target air fuel in the AFR table, then autotune makes the changes via the trim to fuel tables to achieve it.

You are right though, better to keep the terminology straight. My disclaimer is that since I own a dyno I don't get to involved with the autotune, smarttune, vtune and all that other stuff. I am aware of it and what they all claim to do, but I have no reason to actually use them.