My mechanic sells the t max tuner.. He is respected. He said just put it in and will self adjust , no dino is needed.
True or faults ??

 

Mine works like that.

 

False

 

Lemme be the first. (Well, if I hadn't doled out the entire "War & Peace" response I'da been first!)

Can you run Tmax with a canned map? Answer:yes

Will it be optimized to your bike so you enjoy the most efficiency, performance, and fuel mileage? Answer: No. Not even close.

I put Tmax on two of my bikes and by adjusting the fuel and timing, I tailored the running of the TC88 engines to my liking. I would consistently get 40-43 mpg after tweaking the tuning (originally saw about 35-38 on a canned tune). The biggest issue I saw with a Tmax tune was having the engine running from 5,000 to 1,500 RPM on decel with a closed throttle and a 13-ish AFR!!!! Why? I leaned out the A/F in those areas instead of activating the fuel cut-off.


Closed throttle is shown in degrees, so it never goes to "0". If I recall, mine is just left of the 14.8 line, which puts the A/F ratio like 12.8:1. That's like WOT rich!!!

It has been my experience that you'll find better torque and throttle response by tweaking the timing and better fuel mileage by adjusting the A/F ratios. Although, timing can help mileage too, if you don't go crazy. I never really tuned for WOT performance, since I rarely/never went there, but adjusting the Tmax maps where I regularly rode made the whole ride much more enjoyable. Even sitting at red lights. YMMV.

 

Well, true-ish, (certainly as compared to a stock ECU) as long as you load a proper base map in the TMax first! But it will always be better with a dyno tune.

All ECUs can adjust a little bit -- they have to, to be EPA-compliant. The ThunderMax can adjust a lot. It has wide-band sensors and can therefore sense a huge swing of AFRs (from roughly 10.0 to 18.0 or so) which is compared to the narrow-band sensors the stock bike has (which can only sense between about 14.2 and 14.9). It also has much more range over the potential fuel adjustments it can make; I don't know the TMax's range exactly but the Target Tune and Smart Tune Pro allow for up to about 30-40% fuel adjustment, whereas a stock ECU can only adjust about 10%. And the TMax can make adjustments over the entire RPM range and throttle position range, whereas a stock ECU can only make adjustments in the "closed loop" area, typically 0-3750 RPMs and up to about 40% throttle or so.

So the ThunderMax is a much more powerful adjustment system than a stock ECU. But those adjustments are NOT a tune. Making these adjustments don't tune your bike, it just adjusts the ECU to match what the existing tune is. The base map is the tune. The tune is what tells the bike what AFR it should be achieving, based on the throttle position, manifold air pressure, RPMs, and other info. Now, (overly simplifying) if your base tune is wrong for your equipment, then the ThunderMax could be searching after the wrong AFR's! If you put in a big bore kit and a hot cam and drag pipes and whatever else, and then put in a ThunderMax, and didn't change the base map from stock, then you could seriously damage your engine. The ThunderMax won't figure out what cam you have and what the proper AFR should be for that cam; instead it will take the actual AFRs the cam is delivering and adjust the fueling until the AFR matches what a stock cam should have been giving. So the cam may have been "right" in giving you a 12.8 AFR, but if the (incorrect) base map calls for a 14.6, then the ThunderMax will lean the fuel out until the cam is now giving you a 14.6 - even though the "right" AFR would have been 12.8 in that scenario. Again, gross oversimplification, but hopefully you get the general idea.

You need to "tune" the ThunderMax (and the Target Tune and the Smart Tune Pro) by giving them a reasonably correct base map to start from. That base map IS the "tune". If you have a wildly incorrect base map, the Thundermax may make wildly wrong fueling for your installed equipment. The closer/more-accurate your base map is, the better the ThunderMax (and Target Tune and Smart Tune Pro) can deliver the proper fueling under all circumstances. ThunderMax provides a library of base maps, and it's likely that one of them will either be right for, or at least be quite similar to, the combination of engine mods you have in your bike. You want to use the closest matching "base map" you can get, because that is the actual "tune" you're running.

What's the best possible "base map"? A dyno tune, by a competent and skilled professional, who tunes your bike for the exact equipment you have installed, and who tunes it for your preferred riding style (whether that's optimum MPG, optimum WOT acceleration, etc). Do you NEED a dyno tune with a ThunderMax? I wouldn't say you NEED it; if you have a good accurate "canned" base map installed, the ThunderMax's excellent adjustment capability will likely provide a good-enough running tune. Would it be BETTER if, instead of a "canned" base map, you got a professional dyno tune first? Of course. But what you absolutely NEED with a ThunderMax is a good base tune, whether it's from a dyno tuner or from ThunderMax's library of canned tunes. The better the base tune, the better everything else will work.

With all of these products (TMax, Target Tune, and Smart Tune Pro), if you provide a good base tune, they can adapt the fueling to optimize it for your particular installed equipment, and the prevailing altitude or temperature changes you may encounter on a long trip. And whenever you change or modify your powertrain components you can install a new base map to match the new configuration. But a TMax/PV/TTS will not create a base map out of thin air; you have to supply a reasonably accurate base map to the tuning device, whether by having a dyno tuner do a proper tune, or using one of their canned tunes from the manufacturer's library of canned tunes.

 

I have a Thundermax on my Stage 2 Street Bob 114 and Stage 4 Road King 128. Both run outstanding. The key is starting with a base map that is close to your set up (pipes, cam etc.) Thundermax has a map library but Zippers and Fuel Moto are also good options.

Once the closest map is loaded, the Thundermax adjusts fuel when you ride the bike via the wide band O2 sensors to optimize performance. Some folks will tell you something different but I am just reporting my experience with over 15,000 miles of riding these bikes.

I don't see any reason to dyno your bike if you start with the correct map. Just my opinion.

 

Hey Cobra. Just curious, what gas mileage are you getting? Did you run any "Automap" sessions after you've put a few miles on your bikes? That does hone in the "tune" a little closer to the particular bike it's installed into. I never had any real complaints about how the bike ran, except for the fuel mileage. I'm a tinker-er, so I set out to get better gas mileage. The final result was about five miles to the gallon improvement and a big smile when I twisted the throttle.

FatBob,
I agree that picking the closest "tune" to your bike is going to be the best bet, but I'm wondering about the section I've colored red. This has been my experience, but I WELCOME any information to the contrary.
You stated that Tmax could give you 14.6 AFR when the cam needs 12.8.

12.8 AFR is for WOT, which is just about what Tmax has in every base tune for WOT that I've looked at from Tmax (it's 13:1). In fact, It's been my experience that Tmax's AF maps for twin-cams are all pretty much the same. I've noted some changes in the later, drive-by-wire maps, but the cable-throttle maps I've seen are all the same. Even when you go up to 10:1 compression and for the 120 CI engines. All using the same AFR.

Where I think a major change might be is the timing tables. Depending on the cam and compression, the timing could change drastically. Even changing the valve events will change compression, and therefore, timing.

Since Tmax is wide-band, it adjusts to what A/F your "tune" tells it to be at every operating parameter (just as you said). So there never should be 14-something when it's calling for 12.8 I'm trying to understand how the cam could change that. Please explain.

 

Just using it as an example of how grossly mismatched parts could create a significantly different need in real AFR vs the map's commanded AFR. Not intended to be actual numbers. Didn't mean to cause confusion; I tried to edit that paragraph but the time limit had already expired.