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Ignition/Tuner/ECM/Fuel InjectionNeed advice on ignition issues? Questions about a tuner? Have questions about a EFI calibration or Fuel Injection? Tips on Engine Diagnostics, how to get codes, and what they mean. Find your answers here.
Hi All
Power Vision reveals two spark settings that try to help stabilise the idle by controlling the amount of spark advance,
Idle spark control gain (-9.96), and
Idle spark control max (12)
The bracketed numbers are the defaults for my 2018 Softail 824 map
The silly question is - do these make a blind bit of difference? ...because I've changed them up/down, positive/negative, and zeroed both ...not a blind bit of difference to getting a really nice idle.
Just as a by the way - what I do get (which wasn't noticeable before I put the Andrews 462 cam in) is a pronounced purposeful hunting in the idle that in a log looks like a definite sawtooth waveform ...almost kidding on it is a lope possibly.
cheers
Just to add a couple of MLV traces if you're interested First is with no idle spark control, the second is with the 824 defaults (-9.96). As I mentioned, this only became noticeable after putting an Andrews M462 in, with stock exhaust
0/0 Idle spark control (positive numbers pretty much look the same)
I believe those setting are to control idle to hit it's target.in the closed loop system. With it on you are trying to control idle with spark and air. With off, just air. Look at your throttle blade movement comparing the two. Surging at idle is usually lean idle surge. You could try a richer mixture at idle to see if this is the case.
Thanks for that, took a wee while but went out again and tried 14.0 instead of the stock 14.6 in the lower 9 blocks of the AFR table, but that didn't change the results any. It definitely looks as if it is that negative number in the Idle Spark Control Gain
It's quite a nice prup prup prup prup sound, but not sure if it is a good idea or not. I'd be more keen on a smoother idle although the idle variation ultimately looks pretty similar.
Hi All
Power Vision reveals two spark settings that try to help stabilise the idle by controlling the amount of spark advance,
Idle spark control gain (-9.96), and
Idle spark control max (12)
The bracketed numbers are the defaults for my 2018 Softail 824 map
The silly question is - do these make a blind bit of difference? ...because I've changed them up/down, positive/negative, and zeroed both ...not a blind bit of difference to getting a really nice idle.
Just as a by the way - what I do get (which wasn't noticeable before I put the Andrews 462 cam in) is a pronounced purposeful hunting in the idle that in a log looks like a definite sawtooth waveform ...almost kidding on it is a lope possibly.
cheers
To control the surging i usually set the gain at 2 and max at 4. I also typically set idle areas at 13.8. As a side note I've seen a lot of issues out of the 824 cals for knock retard. I usually switch them to a 921 cal and timing seems to dial in a lot easier. Others may disagree but that's been my experience
To control the surging i usually set the gain at 2 and max at 4. I also typically set idle areas at 13.8. As a side note I've seen a lot of issues out of the 824 cals for knock retard. I usually switch them to a 921 cal and timing seems to dial in a lot easier. Others may disagree but that's been my experience
Mine has been pulling timing at anything above 50kpa ever since it was new, it has never learnt anything and still pulls up to 5 degrees at just about any opportunity, but strangely nothing consistent I can put my finger on. And I've seen plenty of other threads so there is something funny somewhere.
I've never seen mention of changing to a 921 cal, what ships with that and would it work in a softail 114 as well?
cheers
Mine has been pulling timing at anything above 50kpa ever since it was new, it has never learnt anything and still pulls up to 5 degrees at just about any opportunity, but strangely nothing consistent I can put my finger on. And I've seen plenty of other threads so there is something funny somewhere.
I've never seen mention of changing to a 921 cal, what ships with that and would it work in a softail 114 as well?
cheers
I've watched on the dyno and those 824's are horrible for spark knock. Just to see I kept pulling timing where it told me to and just kept losing power. You can copy and paste most of your tables into a 921 cal and work from there. I switch from 824 to 921 on the touring bikes but haven't tried on a softail, though I can't see why it wouldn't work. With the 921 cal it'll still pull timing in the beginning but will learn as you go. Once you have it flashed, it'll pull a little timing here and there as it learns. For a test I put one on the road and kept hitting the areas over 50 kpa and it took about 5-6 miles to get it where it wasn't pulling any timing at all. I would look for a 921 map for a softail and use that as a starting point. Honestly I'd go to any software level but the 824.
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Idle spark control settings
