Just looking for some help/advise on what I think are week numbers for the Stage II kit I put on my 2017 Ultra Limited with the 107 M8. I'm a weekend wrench'r at best and don't know a lot about the EFI and tuning side of things.

First, BIG thanks to the guys at TTS for getting a base map loaded that I desperately needed before a 4000 mile ride, they got the maps uploaded right in the middle of their move.

I apologize if this seems long but it's been quite the journey.

I bought a 2017 Ultra Limited in July 2017 with the brand new 107 M8 motor, I told the dealer at the time I wanted a stage 1 right away so I ordered the SE high flow AC and the Vance & Hines Power duels; their recommendation (currently they are for sale) and the TTS Mastertune tuner. I brought the stock bike back after roughly 1300 miles and had them do the stage 1 and tune. This is when the doubt and disappointment started. The dyno came back at almost 80HP and roughly 97 torque, the stock numbers came back at 76 and low 94's torque. I was not impressed and expected more especially doing a full header and high flow slip on pipes. I Thought the bike had close to 100 ft/lbs in stock forum. Dealer didn't have a lot to say other then this is about right. I just said I was a bit disappointed as I was hoping for high 80's hp and 100 plus on the torque. Bike sounded great and I knew I was going to do a cam soon so I wasn't going to stress about it. I waited unit Feb 2018 and looked at a bunch of cams, I decided to go with what Zippers was offering, the RS-468, numbers seemed real good and dealer said Zippers has been around a long time and make good gear. Cam went in March of 2018, numbers came back right on the mark, 105HP and 118 torque, I was thrilled! Now since I live north of Toronto Canada in early March there is still 3' of snow on the ground so I couldn't do anything for a few weeks. A real nice day came, the roads were dry so I took the bike out and ran it about 2 miles down and back just to get a feel for the upgrade. It was great just what I was looking for, I even sent the dealer a nice thank you email. thinking back I did at that time smell a lot of gas.

Keep in mind, TTS had not come out with an RS-468 cam base map yet for the Mastertuner so the dealer did it all from scratch on the dyno, no test ride.

Riding season finally came, I jumped on the bike to do a nice long run and everything was working fine other than I could smell un-burnt fuel and when stopped I could almost taste it in the air. I thought something was running real rich, it wasn't long after this and about 30 miles on the ride the yellow check engine light came on.....oh man what the heck. I determined PO152 was the ECM code it threw.... Dealer came picked up the bike, did what it did, sent the bike back, confirmed it was running rich as something at 2700 rpm wasn't shutting the fuel down...They addressed it and I got a new dyno sheet, 101hp and 113 torque now, ok not what I wanted to see but I'm still happy with those numbers. Until I took the bike out and it started popping and banging on down shifts.... Called the dealer and the tech said he wanted the cam and tune to break in.... I knew what he was saying; please don't bother us with this. Ok I can take a hint and I wasn't going to get pissy with them I just called around and found another dealer with a Dyno who seemed pretty current and very interested in helping, so I booked an appointment with them, mostly for a second set of eyes. At the same time I started reaching out to the guys at TTS, pretty sure I spoke to Steve on the phone and he mentioned they had just finished a map for the RS-468 cam and he said torque was great, something around 120, I was impressed. Steve said the bike they did the testing on had an Arlen Ness AC which flows better then the SE one I had so I bought one and put it on the bike before going to the dealer for the tune, I wanted the best shot possible to get the numbers TTS came up with. He did say the map was still in edit at TTS so I rescheduled my appointment at the new dealer until after the map was ready for public consumption and they could load it as a starting point.

bunny trail... If TTS puts so much energy into base maps why would I then have a local tuner tune the bike, if the TTS map has high flow AC, high flow exhaust, and uses the same cam should I not be able to just load TTS's map and be set? I guess In my head I'm thinking TTS gets us 80% there and the local tuner puts the finishing touches on.

I took the bike into the second dealer who's about 3hr away from my house, they spent 4 hours tuning it at night and I picked it up the next day, I stayed in a motel over night, yes I'm committed. They wouldn't show me the numbers until I drove it, so I did, felt ok, then at 10 miles the check engine light came on.... came back, dealer took it back to the bench, tech said the map was not rich at all and figured the O2 sensor was toast for the rear cylinder, he replaced it and had no more issues. The numbers came back at 101 HP and 110 torque, meh, it is what it is but I wasn't really that happy as we were pretty far off what Zippers and TTS got, especially after all the effort I put into trying to get the peak performance by using the best equipment on the market. SO, IS IT THE TUNE OR THE EQUIPMENT??? I did the 4000 mile trip through Northern Ontario and into Michigan with no issues, except one.

As fantastic as the pipes sound my wife and I were getting tired of the constant exhaust noise after hours on the road, we even use 3/4 helmets for these longer runs. So I just pulled the Vance & Hines off, hence why they are for sale, And put on a full SE exhaust at the original dealer. The sound for us touring is now PERFECT but what isn't perfect are the numbers..... 104HP which is ok but the torque is only 103 now.... I'm perfectly prepared to give up some power and torque for a quitter ride but this is getting a bit ridiculous. Heck a stock SE Stage II kit makes better numbers than this and that is with no header upgrade and using a very restrictive SE tuner. The numbers are miles from what the RS-468 is supposed to be putting out.

So as you can see after all this time and effort the numbers come back all over the place I'm turning to the HD Forum for either confirmation that my tuners aren't that great, or, I have a week 107, or I've put on garbage parts that won't get my numbers.

I really think my target numbers are very reasonable at around 104hp and torque at 110 plus. I was going to do a Stage III until I saw what people were getting with the RS-468 cam in a stage II for half the price. Now a regret doing a stage II.

if you made it to the end, sorry for such a long post but that's the details and the crap I've gone through. I'm interested in your thoughts and any ideas why my torque numbers are so low.

 

You need to pick the right exhaust. Talk to fuelmoto or steve cole.

 

Thanks Max, so all that messing around and O2 sensor issues is due to a bad pick in exhaust. Dealer highly recommended the V&H Power Duels, he also said they weren't that loud. I ultimately decided I'd rather be a bit more quite on long rides so I put the SE exhaust on and now the bikes is getting pathetic numbers with STD Smoothing not even SAE.... 102hp and 104 torque. Must be more to it. I tried attaching my Dyno sheet but I'm not real sure if it worked....

 

 

Your sheet came across. One thing to note is the ambient temps. 100F I'm sure that has something to do with the output. There really isn't any color in the sheet but one thing you can look at is the power for each run. It does show up in the max hp/tq They guy did 3 pulls in about 1 minute. The HP / TQ are falling off on each pull. It's an old timers was of seeing the motor has too much ignition timing. It wouldn't surprise me that the timing was not optimized for your build. Still 100F is not optimal conditions.

The power duals may be OK as head pipes but IIRC Jamie at fuelmoto mentions these cams like a little bit of back pressure / smaller baffles. He mentions this in his cam testing. He's finding certain cams are very exhaust finicky on M8s when run on smaller motors. I've had similar experiences on other bikes, some not HD.

You best bet is to find a reputable performance guy that has examples of good tunes and use the same components. Exhaust is the primary component of the build.

 

Ya sorry Jbarr1, I posted this one around 5pm but at 10pm it hadn't shown up yet so decided to do the second one as I figured I did something wrong.

Max thank you for your feedback, the original dealer did mention the back pressure thing and said the V&H did that and that's why they recommended them. Ultimately going with SE I figured they would certainly have some back pressure, maybe too much, I just didn't want the loud drone cruising the highway.

I know from the guys who made the RS-468 cam that the timing must be changed for the cam to do it's thing, did my dealer do it.... Options for good tuners in Ontario are pretty slim, the second dealer I rode 3hr to seemed to know what they were doing and basically fixed the tune from the first dealer. TTS just released their map with the RS468 and I think these guys started with that and did some minor tweaking, I attached the STD Smoothing Dyno from them with the V&H pipes, I was perfectly happy with those numbers and curve. But then I decided to change pipes and had the original dealer, 45min from my house do it, I was thinking now that TTS has the map how bad could they mess this up...do you think they even used TTS's map? It's the bloody check engine light that comes on that's messing with my head.

At this point, could I not simply load the TTS map back into my ECM and just use the map they created? Do I need to spend the $500 and get the bike back on the Dyno...I'm going Dyno poor.

 

 

Thanks SAFrog I was really close in trying the TMax, I was talking to Steve Evans at Zipper about it. Take it with a grain of salt but I'd heard on various forums the TMax is based on old tech so why would you pull out the new tech Delphi ECM.... Plus I've got the TTS tuner which is a great tool, I have no idea how to use it other then to load maps that Steve Cole has done or reload a saved tune that I liked. TTS has done a map that is pretty much identical to my build.

Brother this has been a major PITA, I don't even care about the numbers as much as keeping the yellow idiot light on the dash from coming on.

Here's the latest, got the bike back from getting the SE exhaust put on and the dealer said it needed to be tuned so I said ok but don't screw up the tune I drove 8 hours to get done at another dealership two or three weeks ago. Got the bike back on Friday July 27th, took it out for a run on Sunday... sure about 50km out the check engine light triggered, oh ya I was happy... So I was hoping due to the beat down the tuner would have put the bike through that maybe there was some residual something that caused it to trigger so I reset the ECM codes and took the bike out last night for a run to see what would happen, yup at 48KM the light came back on, pic attached.

Got back pissed and deleted that tune and loaded the TTS tune, Steve has said that the TTS map should be close but each bike is a bit different so a good tuner should be able to dial it in. After loading the TTS tune in I went out for another run, did a 79KM loop with no issues, pic attached

Code P0152
Code P0132
TTS Map, no codes









.

 

 

While Tmax could be considered old tech, it has features that make it easier to use.. Where the flash tuners do better is when trying to meet emissions or squeeze out every bit of mileage. Performance wise, not much difference. Since flash tuners are more complex, they are best done on a dyno.. Now look at the guys telling you that the Tmax is junk, and what they are trying to sell. You want an honest opinion, talk to Frank Dragos or Jamie at Fuel moto. I've done quite a few builds with Tmax and you really can get pretty good results if you like tuning on the street. Still it's definitely pretty good if the map is close to something in their library.