screaming eagle: street tuner, race tuner and now the pro tuner

 

Thanks again iclick, after reading your posts I feel alot more knowledgable and comfortable with making an informed decision.

 

iclick - ure teachings are with great gratitude.. i see you have PV now.. .im looking into it or a TMAX tuner... if you use ure power tuner without the stock O2 sensors.. do u still have to terminate them from the stock ECM like i had with my PCV ? i plan to use the stock O2 sensors with the PV like in AT mode and since my new exhaust has 12mm bungs on the 2011 with their position , i dont think the 18mm bungs WB sensors will fit and interfere with the frame.
I will miss the PCV with the dual maps... to what i understand you cannot switch maps on the PV while riding...
cheers.

 

Well first you have to find a compentent tuner that actually knows what they're doing. Then go with their recommendation. I ended up in the same boat and spent over $400 trying to get it tuned locally. So trying to get it tuned locally was a no go. The bike just wouldn't work. After some research and phone calls, I found a tuner about 500 miles away that actually did some good work. Took it there and the money was very well spent. The bike ran better than ever.....

All I'm saying is do your research and find a good tuner. If I was closer to Jaime/Fuel Moto, then I probably would have went with a PCV since that's what they work with mainly. Now if I would have been close to Herko or Doc then maybe a TTS would have been installed. Just find a good tuner that actually knows what they're doing. I know they're hard to come by, but they do exist and it is money well spent.

 

You go with this http://www.revperf.com/Precision/index.html

and there won't be any need for a tuner. Same goes for the Powervision.
Dynos and tuners will be a thing in the past in the not so distant future.
Wait and see, the only people that will be using tuners and dynos will be the folks that haven't upgraded their equipment. The PC-V is close to that now, and it doesn't need a tune or a tune-er.

 

I appreciate your responses, and you clearly know a little more than most people here, and I agree this is a somewhat religious and fanatical topic. I'm going to try to respond without sounding like an ***. If I do, I apologize. That being said, here it goes:

Yes there is, it was the point I initially made about fuel composition. Stoich for E10 fuel is 14.1:1. The sensors switch around stoich for whatever fuel composition is being burned. So that 14.2 - 15.0 range you quoted for straight gas gets bumped down into the mid 13 range on the rich side if you fill up with commercial pump fuel. It's one of many reasons why the brand new stuff is lambda-based instead of AFR based for tuning.

BTW, the stock ECU can't adjust for humidity. There is no sensor available to detect humidity, and it can't be inferred from anything either. You have an input for map pressure, and 2 different temp inputs. Humidity is always unknown. It hurts combustion stability, but nothing can really be done about it.

For me, the TTS is the best solution. I am definitely NOT going to say that everybody needs to use it, or any of the other flash-based tools. Piggyback units have their place, but to say that removing the 02 sensors is not a disadvantage is an incorrect statement. There are reasons they are installed on the bike, and not all of them revolve around emissions compliance. Fueling can be dialed in much tighter than with a map given to you by any tuner. Change fuel, and even if God himself calibrated your bike on the world's most accurate dyno, your tailpipe AFR will shift and you're no longer where you were targeting for peak power. Without the sensors you've eliminated all method of fueling adaptation built into the stock ECU. Tuners set their tunes up rich enough to compensate (especially with piggyback units), so it isn't the end of the world, but performance is being left on the table.

PC's work because there is almost no effort involved, they're ridiculously easy to work with, and will be "close enough" for everybody. You just have to decide what "close enough" is for you personally.

Think about it this way- the stock ECU can adjust for a high flow AC on it's own. If you tried that without the O2 sensors plugged in, it wouldn't be possible. You'd need 2 different maps for a PCV if you didn't have the autotune module as well.

-Nick

 

Yes, on the '07 anyway. Some later models don't need them, though I'm not sure what year this begins.

There's nothing wrong with running in stock closed-loop mode, but don't expect much from it in any practical way. You can adjust AFRs down as low as about 14.2:1, but that's it, and although that would be good enough for me some riders might want to run a bit richer. I might use them if I didn't already have the WB Auto-Tune O2 sensors in place, and with these I can use DynoJet's unfinished Auto-Tune Pro features. It will be able to log info from AT and the ECU in real-time, then apply them to any tune at a later time. What it won't do is make changes on-the-fly, but I don't consider this a problem in any way. Also, when AT is connected to PV it can show info from AT, like AFRs in real-time.

I will also miss the switch feature, but to be honest I almost never used it. My bike doesn't run that hot and I will instead use the switch to power some fans for the oil cooler, and may even rig some engine fans on the same circuit. When it gets hot in summer traffic just switch all the fans on. I think that might do more to cool the bike than enrichening the mixture for short periods of time. It takes a long time for a richer mixture to manifest any cooling effect, and by that time in most cases you'll be out of the traffic. OTOH you can switch between "tunes," as they're called in the PV world, as it will hold six custom tunes. I will be importing my rich PCV map into another PV tune soon, and to switch I would only need to power-down, turn on the ignition, and flash the ECU with the richer tune. That's a 30-sec. proposition, maybe less, and could be accomplished when in an emergency. It's not as convenient as flipping a switch on-the-fly, but it's there if you need it.

As soon as I wrap my head around PV a bit better I'm going to do a basic write-up, sort of a "getting-to-know-the-PV" tutorial. Some of the tables and features are very alien to me as a long-time Power Commander user, like tables with RPM and KPA instead of RPM and TP. KPA is manifold vacuum and I still haven't gotten used to thinking in that way.
Some tables do use TP, like the VE table, and that helps.

I'm excited about it already and have already started messing with some values, guardedly at first since there are lots of ways to screw-up. For example my highway mileage has been very good, but in the city it has always been lousy--something I have't been able to correct with the PCV. I've already changed Warm-up Enrichment, IAC Step Values, Cranking Fuel, and Acceleration Enrichment to see if mileage improves. Jamie says Warm-up Enrichment and Cranking Fuel are too rich and can be leaned without any ill effects. Also, my speedometer is now CORRECT thanks to a speedo-calibration setting. Viola!

 

so ideally one is trying to aim for a AFR range of 13.2-13.8 for optimum cooling.. i agree with using small fans on the oil cooler may have a better affect... isnt the main purpose of having a outside ECM tunner for open loop at throttle > 50% so muxture isnt to lean ? so keeping the stock O2 sensors this will never happen..correct ? I do sometimes hit full throttle ( alot) ... and i dont want to damage engine.

im getting the 103 power pak and concerned of the heat issue since more cu inch and also my 2008 was unbearable in traffic with stock exhaust and just slip ons and a PCV.. gas mileage does drop a way bit at AFR 13's though...
will look forward to your PV details as u tinker along. I hope the AT PV has 12mm bung option... i already got my V&H power duals which have the 12mm bungs. ill think about adding small fans on oil cooler though !
ride safe.

 

I wonder why HD Engineers didn't go with a PCV when they designed these bikes? Sounds as if it would have been the best way to go and save lot's of money for everybody. I guess they are uninformed...huh?

 

Interesting thread.

I am not a tuner. I run the SERT (upgradable to the TTS Mastertune) on my 95" FXSTDI; I have also been looking at the DJ Power Vision system. When you say the Power Vision is a "flash based" tuner, it implies that it is a throttle position based system as compared to SERT and TTS which are speed density systems. From what I can tell, DJ has finally seen the light and is moving away from the piggy back systems which are throttle position based and upgrading their technology to the speed density systems. Please correct me if I am mistaken; my comments are based on my understanding of what I have read and are not based on experience or application.

OTOH, if my comments are correct, I would have to agree with blusmbl that the TTS system is probaly the better technology. That is the opinion I have formulated after weeks of reading and trying to make a decision on whether or not to upgrade my SERT to TTS or replace the SERT with another system. Glad that my 107" '02 FLHT is carbed; I would spend mor time tinkering that riding.

lionsm13 statement that tuners and dynos will soon be relics of the past is wishful thinking. I have been hearing that since the advent of the TMax w/auto tune; which BTW is the only true auto tune system available and a very good system. However, I have yet to see a self or auto tuned engine that doesn't produce more TQ/HP, no to mentions other benefits, from dyno testing. That is not to say that one cannot approximate optimum peformance with the new systems but total optimizaton across the power band will require the skills of a tuner and a dyno; IMHO, of course.