Okay, stopped in at the new Fargo harley shop and asked about getting my bike tuned.

What they told me is leaving me confused. In every other case where I've worked with a dyno, they plug the car in and run the car through it's paces, and tweak as need be, no issues.

According to the tech:
1. I need to replace the air cleaner with a screamin eagle one because there's no point to doing it with a stock one (I call BS there)
2. I have to purchase a tuner as well as the dyno time. They cannot tune it without buying one

So I'm looking at over a grand just to tune the bike including buying a tuner on top of it. but.... if I just buy a tuner, I can tune it myself. The whole point of a dyno is tuning it under controlled conditions. That's what you pay the fee for....needing to purchase a separate tuner -That just doesn't pass the smell test in my book.

IMO A dyno should be able to write to the stock computer and remap it???

thoughts?

 

He is right, in all that he told you You need some type of interface between the ecm and the laptop, in order to read what is happening, and to be able to communicate with ecm to make changes. thats what the tuner is mostly. It also has the program in it to see all the values that need changing. Can you do it yourself, once you have the tuner, sure! As long as you can make about 1 million "pulls" on the streets and make adjustments from there. Its much better to have an experienced tuner who can make all the adjustments needed for VE ratios, to ignition maps, and load differences. Even if you got it kinda close, it more than likely wont be as good as a good tuner at the controls.
the reason your cars came out easily, is via OBD2 connectors, there is more info available, and there are more "programs" to run the tune with, but even on my Mustang, I still needed a tuner with which to download a file. Its more complicated than you think.
And I agree with your service advisor, no point in tuning with stock A filter assy, and stock pipes. You won't notice much of anything



I was just thinking, You can go to fuelmoto, and buy the powervision from them they will send you a canned map for your bike, and it has the ability to somewhat fine tune the bike as you ride it. and they will send you more "tunes " for a nominal fee, so you can tune your bike now, and later on, if you make some bigger changes they will help you then, as well. They are wonderful people to work with, very knowledgeable , and only want your bike to run well, You might want to look them up. Plus the Powervision, is an awesome tool for pulling live data, fault codes and other valuable info that you will now own forever

 

This is the most thought out and correct answer I have ever seen on this forum.

 

Well, looks like I was off base then. I have slip ons but no other mods. Was going to have the bike tuned simply to get off the lean stock fuel map and get the bikes temps down to reasonable levels and perhaps pick up a few HP along the way.

I've custom tuned several cars I've owned, and even totally stock, tuning them has improved the way they ran. Never had to buy a tuner on top of having it dynoed. Guess the dyno shops already had the software on hand for them.

 

I second the Power Vision from Fuel Moto. It's a great piece of kit that you can mount to the handle bars and use it everyday in addition to just tuning. The map FM sent me has woke up my bike and they can send other maps as you make changes to your bike in the future.

 

Another thing they're right about is the Air Filter system.
Here's the gig,
HD has to follow epa crap, the 2 stock components,, Air Filter and Exhaust both restrict (or not allow maximum) air flow to the engine.
Changing just the Exhaust or just the Air filter system won't improve air flow enough to need a change,, in your case the Air Filter system is still restrictive.
I'm in St Cloud, here in MN we don't have seasonal high temps long enough for the factory lean mix to cause any damage, in fact many folks run with factory setting for decades without any harm.
Go on down here and/or do some research about a full Stage 1 upgrade to your bike;
https://www.hdforums.com/forum/ignit...-injection-55/

A very decent performance increase can be had with a simple stage 1 and a canned tune from Fuel Moto with one of their tuners. I'm running a Power Commander 5 with a canned tune on an 09 FXD and the bike will walk all over stock 103's. I could probably gain some more with a dyno tune but $400 ain't worth it.
When selecting a tuner you have to keep in mind how far you plan to up-grade your bike,, if you plan on doing cams and/or head work then having a high end tuner will pay off.
For me,, Stage 1 is enough with this bike, I'm not throwing any more $$$ at it engine wise.

 

no charge for your map, and free lifetime map support as well. make a change in cams, use their map request, list what you are running, and they'll send you a tune via email. just remember to keep your receipt, as you need the invoice number when requesting a map.

they also double the 1 year factory warranty. so you get 2 years on the hardware.

 

You can drop the temps, but you won't gain any power by adding fuel unless you bump the timing. The closer you are to stoichiometric, the better power numbers you'll see.

And that's probably the case. They had a tuner that would interface with your vehicle and in addition to paying for the dyno, you were also paying a license fee so they could upload to your car. That's pretty common around here, they'll either do it that way or use a tuner you supplied.

 

Am I correct that if your using a Power Vision you can continually use it to tune as you change or mod the bike? No need for them to send you their maps.

 

if you make a substantial change, then its best to get a new base map to work from.