The dealer referred to it as "Spark Knock". They told me to put a race tuner on it so I brought it to what I thought was a better dealer to install the race tuner. It has been hotter outside last few days (80's and 90's) and that is when it really pings.

I notice it going up hill or it happens when I hit the throttle pretty heavy. It sounds pretty bad, so thought I would see if this is common on this forum. The dealer says it is normal for all Harley's to spark knock or ping or whatever you want to refer to it as. From the sounds of these responses it is not common. My wife's 09 Heritage Softtail doesn't do it.

The dealer makes it sound like they can't do anything about it. I did try octane booster a couple times and it did not help.

Thanks for your responses.

 

I don't buy for a minute his claim that "it's normal for all Harleys to spark knock." I was forced to fill up with regular a couple times on our roadtrip last Sept. It was pretty hot at times and I was loaded down pretty heavy...no ping/knock. I'd guaran-damn-tee ya that if you roll it into their shop with a melted piston top or broken ring grooves from persistent detonation, they'll find some way to blame you and deny warranty coverage. OK, maybe I'm being a wee bit cynical (but maybe not).

 

Mine doesnt knock, try retarding your timing with your race tuner in the area you experience the pinging. Your ECM should attempt to retard the timing on its own but sometimes its so far advanced it can't compensate. If your pinging is rampant is it possible your sensor(s) have gone bad? If your ECM can't detect the knock, it won't beable to retard the timeing.

Disclamer - No Expert

 

Something that everyone seems to be missing took care of my problem and should help 90% of the riders that complain abaout "spark Knock" "pinging" or whatever name you want to call it. If your going by your owners manual to determine your shift points you will ALWAYS ping. Try raising your shift point for all gears approx 10 MPH and I bet most if not all of your problems will go away. At least mine and several others I know of did.

 

Last summer I had detonation at a steady 65mph in 6th gear on the NJ Turnpike. Detonation has nothing to do with what your shift points are. Detonation is the spontaneous combustion of the mixture in the cylinder(s) outside of the normal engine timing. The detonation screws up the timing which is what makes the "pinging" sound. Look at your plugs to see if they are burning a light brown/tan (good) or whitish (too hot). Make sure you're using the highest octane gas you can get. Higher octane has nothing to do with power - higher octane gas resists detonation better than lower octane gas. Having said this, your bike is new and under warranty. If you can consistently get the bike to detonate, take it to your dealer and have a technician road test it. If they cannot fix the thing, you may be able to get it replaced via your state's Lemon Law. A new Harley-Davidson is not supposed to have consistent engine detonation.

If the detonation is every once in a while, or only when you do a certain something or another - then that's not really a problem.

 

I'm pretty new to twin cyl but an old timer in automotive engines and tuning EEC's. A couple things that I have noticed about riding my FXDC (I have roughly 2000 miles on her:
1) Fuels around here have up to 10% ethanol in it. That in its self can mean the target air fuels can be leaner by 1/2 a point. The stoich of gas is 14.7to1 and ethanol about 8to1. This means you need to burn almost twice the ethanol by volume to get the fuel to burn correctly. The o2 sensor in closed loop is sending narrow band O2 lambda info to the computer. The computer in turn does not know what fuel is in the tank and is targeting 14.7 A/F, but really it is up in the range of 15.2-15.4 with fuels containing 10% ethanol. The only upside is ethanols have higher octane but negligable in these amounts. I assume the computer controls on Harleys are speed density because they have a MAP sensor and not a MAF, so until such time the computer triggers open loop at which time the fuel enrichment is through pre-determined fuel tables, the engine is prone to knock in certain situations. Some times you can get through the knock by twisting the throttle which will trigger open loop through the throttle position switch. I'm also surmising that cylinder temperature is huge too, being air cooled and all. Cooler cylinder temps will be much more forgiving.

I'm learning something new on this machinary every time I go out and put some miles on her. I knocked down about 300+ miles this past weekend of all kinds of riding conditions and speeds. The shift schedule appears to be a joke to me. Seems like the engine just doesnt like the low shift points unless you can do it with next to no load on the engine. I found myself keeping it in 3rd to at least 40mph and 4th gear until at least 50+mph, fifth to 65 and 6th after that. The engine seemed to be much more happier at these shift points.

I plan on trying some different fuels, there are still some that are not ethanol added fuels in the 49 states.

 

Mine pinged and knocked bad I have Big Guns III Big Sucker I added a Power Card Gen III By Tech Lusions It has six settings with even decell for back firing (every harley tech has told me that dosent exist) easy in stall an is all push button. My brothers and all run the same thing and all three bikes run strong all altatudes no ping no dyno needed and run chev or tex 92 O

 

883 Iron's paragraph is well put. It is also the exact reason I chose the TTS Mastertune as my tuner. I spent some time and did my homework on tuners and their capabilities.

The TTS uses your stock ECM, and does not use any type of "fooling" module. It allows me to input an offset for the O2 sensors (amongst various other items) as to what the ECM should control to for AFR. So I can vary that offset and lean out, or enrichen the AFR that the ECM is controlling to, in closed loop mode. I can also set acceleration enrichment, decel mixtures, anti-knock settings.... just a multitude of things. .... Or I can let the system generate those settings for me, based on datalogging runs.

I have never heard my bike ping... ever.

 

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GEN3 - Product Overview


HISTORY:

The GEN3 evolved out of the need to address the ever-increasing complexity of factory fuel injection. For the newcomer to the market or professionals wanting to make the transition from carburetors to fuel injection, the GEN3 is a customizable solution for the shop that wants to take control of their tuning needs.

GEN3 is the short term used to describe the Generation 3 Electronic Fuel Injection (EFI) controller manufactured by Dobeck Performance. The GEN3 was released in 2005 under a private label program. The GEN3 is a piggy-back EFI controller because it does not replace the stock ECU, but rather monitors the signals to the injectors and makes fuel adjustments based on the mode settings. The GEN3 has a push button interface allowing access up to 6 different modes to allow for quick fine tuning by the end user without needing a computer.


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KEY FEATURES:
USES LOAD BASED TECHNOLOGY WHICH ALLOWS FOR TUNING IN EVERY GEAR
ABILITY TO ADD FUEL WITHOUT ALTERING THE STOCK FUEL MAP
EASY TO SEE LED LIGHTS TO INDICATE OPERATING ZONE
PUSH BUTTON INTERFACE TO ALLOW QUICK FINE TUNING
EASY INSTALLATION
NITROUS FUEL AND SOLENOID CONTROL
BOOST SENSING FUEL CONTROL
TWO SENSOR MANIPULATION CONTROLS
CAPABLE OF FIRING TWO ADDITIONAL INJECTORS



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HOW IT WORKS:

The real technology behind the GEN3 is that it functions like a carburetor. It takes the knowledge and experience that many of us have, and converts it to a fuel injection interface. The GEN3 breaks the stock fuel curve down into 3 different sections with each section correlating to a carb tuning adjustment. The GREEN zone correlates to adjusting the fuel mixture screw on a carburetor. The YELLOW zone correlates to adjusting the needle in a carburetor. The RED zone correlates to changing the main jet in a carburetor. Each zone is set to have a range of fuel adjustability by the developer which correlates to an on-board adjustable mode. The GEN3 is called a "piggy-back" type of EFI controller meaning that it reads the stock injector signal from the ECU, modifies the signal, and then sends it to the injector. With our EFI controller, tuning your vehicle is as simple as pressing buttons. No tools. No down time. Simply jump on, go for a ride and make tuning adjustments on the fly.

What sets the GEN3 apart from other types of EFI controllers is that it uses load based technology instead of just RPM vs TPS. Load based tuning allows a user to tune their vehicle for every gear and for all riding conditions. Load can easily be explained by stating that riding up a hill puts more load on the vehicle than driving on a flat road. Each zone for the GEN3 can be adjusted by the developer to determine how load sensitive the zone is and from this definition the developer then sets switch points to change between each zone. The illustration below is a good reference to show how driving through a gear changes between the zones.



The blue line represents a gradual acceleration in 4th gear for 2005 Harley Davidson's.


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UNDERSTANDING AND ADJUSTING THE MODES:

The GEN3 unit comes with three interactive buttons that are used to enter the adjusting mode and change the on-board tuning features' light settings. When power is applied to the unit, the adjusting mode may be accessed at any time by pressing the Mode button. The adjusting mode is distinguishable by at least one or more LEDs flashing. The current adjust mode is determined by the color of the flashing LED(s) and whether or not the 8th LED is blinking blue. The adjusting mode is exited by waiting several seconds without pressing any buttons. Upon exiting, the light setting is automatically saved for each individual mode.

The light settings in each mode are adjusted by pressing the (+) and (-) buttons located on the right and left side of the mode button, respectively. For easy reference, the LEDs are numbered 1 through 8. However, the LEDs can be adjusted to the following positions: 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6, 6.5, 7, 7.5, 8. Try the interactive Flash Demo below to get used to adjusting the modes and understanding the light setting positions.


The most important thing to understand about a GEN3 unit is that every unit is different. The GEN3 technology was developed to allow companies to create customized fuel solutions and therefore documentation cannot be written to cover all the applications.

Green Mode - Mode 1 - Cruise Mode
Mode adjusts how much fuel is added when the Green zone is engaged. Most applications correspond this mode to adjusting the cruise fuel. Setting this mode to a light setting of 0.5 typically sets the vehicle back to its stock fuel curve.

Yellow Mode - Mode 2 - Acceleration Mode
Mode adjusts how much fuel is added when the Yellow zone is engaged. Most applications correspond this mode to adjusting the acceleration fuel. Setting this mode to a light setting of 0.5 typically sets the vehicle back to its stock fuel curve.

Red Mode - Mode 3 - Full Throttle Mode
Mode adjusts how much fuel is added when the Red zone is engaged. Most applications correspond this mode to adjusting the full throttle fuel. Setting this mode to a light setting of 0.5 is normally developed to set the vehicle back to its stock fuel curve.

Green-Blue Mode - Mode 4
Mode is not always present in application and can be assigned to a number of different features. Instructions will have to be consulted to determine how this mode functions. For dyna backfire mode decel

Yellow-Blue Mode - Mode 5
Mode is not always present in application and can be assigned to a number of different features. Instructions will have to be consulted to determine how this mode functions. This mode for dyna determines when mode 2 acceleration turns on

Red-Blue Mode - Mode 6
Mode is not always present in application and can be assigned to a number of different features. Instructions will have to be consulted to determine how this mode functions. This mode for dyna determines when mode 3 full throttle kicks in



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INSTALLATION:

Installation varies from vehicle to vehicle so instructions will have to be referenced for the different models. However, the installation is essentially the same for all vehicles. The first thing to do is locate the stock connections to the injectors. Once found then you will disconnect the connectors and then plug directly into the GEN3 harness. After connecting to the injectors you'll need to determine a proper ground location to hook up the ground wire. Final step for installing is determining where to mount the GEN3 and zip tying the harness to the frame. this dosent say anything about 02 sensors but this also hooks up to the 02s on the dyna

 

What I was trying to get across is that LUGGING will cause detonation, and shift points do make a difference on whether your lugging or not. And if someone is reading the owners manual and shifting into 6th gear at 55 as per the manual they are lugging and that will cause detonation.