For years, I’ve been running a Vance and Hines Fuel Pak on my 02 Fatboy with stage 1, Big Sucker intake and V&H True Duals. I recently installed a set of Andrews TW 21 cams. The cams are advertised to have a torque and performance gain over stock cams in the 1,700 through 4,800 rpm range. Although I have a Dynojet Power Vision sitting on my workbench, I’m testing a theory that a Fuel Pak can be programed to properly tune an EFI engine with aftermarket cams. It’s always been thought that the Fuel Pak is only successful for Stage 1 intake and exhaust. Vance and Hines disagrees with this myth and sent me mode parameters for my system; stage 1 intake, exhaust and the Andrews cams.

After the cam installation I reset the Fuel Pak with the new values. With the bike on the lift, I hit the start switch and it fired up immediately. It idled at 1,200 rpm’s until the engine warmed up and then settled in at 1,000 rpm’s which is appropriate for twin cam engines. With the bike still on the lift, in neutral, and no load on the engine, I twisted the throttle bringing the rpm’s up to 3,000 and back to idle. The engine responded quickly, without hesitation, backfiring or any abnormal anomalies.

Road testing the bike today, I performed hard accelerations and decelerations. Hard accelerations up-hill and finally cruised the highway at 80 mph. The bike had a noticeable gain in performance between 2,000 and 4,500 rpm’s. During this test I monitored the oil temperature by the use of an oil temp dipstick. Temperatures never exceeded 210 degrees which leads me to believe that the AFR is not running lean. Upon hard deceleration there was very little, almost no decal-pop. When coming to a stop, throttle closed, and pulling in the clutch, the engine idled down to 1,000 rpm’s without stumbling.

There is however a dead, or flat spot, between off-idle and roughly 1,800 rpm’s. When letting out the clutch, taking off from stop, I have to keep the rpm’s high or the engine will stumble. When in 1st gear, low speed and roughly 1,400 rpm’s the engine hesitates and stumbles when opening the throttle until it reaches roughly 1,800 rpm’s at which time it smooths out and accelerates hard. Additionally when in 2nd gear, I must keep the rpm’s at roughly 2,400 rpm’s or the engine will lug.

These anomalies could be caused by the characteristics of the cam, improper tuning, or a combination of both. I’ve sent these details to Vance and Hines and hopefully will receive change recommendations that will smooth out this lower rpm acceleration problem. Much more experimentation and testing is required however my initial test indicates that the Fuel Pak can in-fact be utilized to tune an engine with aftermarket cams. Is it the best possible tune, probably not but at least the bike can be ridden without worrying that damage could occur due to a lean air fuel mixture.

I plan to keep making adjustments to the Fuel Pak and hopefully be successful and properly dial it in however, regardless of the end results, I will at some point remove the Fuel Pak and remap the ECM with the Power Vision. I can then make a performance comparison between the Fuel Pak and Power Vision.

It’s comparing apples with oranges but the performance characteristics of the Scream’in Eagle 203 cams I installed in my (carbureted) Night Train are much different than the Andrew’s 21’s in my Fatboy with the current tuning. The 203’s had a smooth steady power band from off idle, and when slowly cruising in 3rd gear under 2,000 rpm’s, I could twist the throttle and the bike would pull hard without lugging the engine. It’s possible that even with proper tuning and or re-mapping of the ECM the Andrew’s 21’s may not provide the performance I’m looking for.

I’ll post updates as the experiment progresses.

 

The Fuelpak has no ability to adjust timing, and only has a rudimentary ability to add and remove fuel so you're never going to get it to run right.

You're leaving a ton of power, smoothness, and efficiency on the table with it.

 

The Fuelpak has no ability to adjust timing, and only has a rudimentary ability to add and remove fuel so you're never going to get it to run right.

You're leaving a ton of power, smoothness, and efficiency on the table with it.

 

05Train,

Your probably right but I'm going to give it a real world test, then re-tune with the Power Vision and make a comparison between the two systems.

 

Yes it does... or at least the new FP3 does.
You can go into any map and manually adjust ANYthing...

Open the app and click on "View/Edit Map", then select your map.
You get this:





Then I selected "Front Cylinder Spark Adv" from the choices:



Click on any cell and it takes you here, where you can make changes...:

 

OP didn't say anything about the FP3, so my statement stands as-is.

 

You didn't mention it either.
I was just commenting on your blanket statement...

 

Didn't feel I needed to mention a tuner that wasn't mentioned by the OP.....You know, the one he's been running "for years". Hard to do with the FP3 that just got released.

 

Earlier versions contain the same functionality - they just weren't as user-friendly...
What you described sounded like XiED's...

 

Really? Not according to Vance & Hines.