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V8 tuner, but new to tuning bikes, quick help needed.
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.
V8 tuner, but new to tuning bikes, quick help needed.
New member here, don't have a bike but a good friend does. In short, my membership here would be honorary at best, but I want to help my firend.
He has a 2022 HD Street Glide. He just bought the OE HD tuner for it. Looking through some of the graphs and VE tables online, it resembles HP tuners for cars as far as ease of use. Since I'm used to cars/trucks with V8 engines, I now need to think in quarters(2 cylinders) to try and help him understand what's going on. He's a good mechanic and understands how engines work, fuel mixtures and whatnot on cars, and I have a better than average understanding because I've been tuning for a few years now.
To shorten it up and get straight to my point, on cars, before any adjustments are made on a VE table, it is a good rule of thumb to pull some timing out of the spark table, say 5-10 degrees to help prevent detonation. Is this the same for bikes running on 1/4 of the cylinders, too much or not enough? Just wanna help him get off on the right foot and not blow up his bike.
When using the smart tune in the program. It does pull some timing. I believe 2. When collecting wide band data. I don't pull any timing because I usually shoot for a bit richer mixture until things get close.
I would suggest looking through the program and understand that. You can only adjust target so for from what they already have set. Same with VE's. It is a pretty castrated tuner IMO.
New member here, don't have a bike but a good friend does. In short, my membership here would be honorary at best, but I want to help my firend.
He has a 2022 HD Street Glide. He just bought the OE HD tuner for it. Looking through some of the graphs and VE tables online, it resembles HP tuners for cars as far as ease of use. Since I'm used to cars/trucks with V8 engines, I now need to think in quarters(2 cylinders) to try and help him understand what's going on. He's a good mechanic and understands how engines work, fuel mixtures and whatnot on cars, and I have a better than average understanding because I've been tuning for a few years now.
To shorten it up and get straight to my point, on cars, before any adjustments are made on a VE table, it is a good rule of thumb to pull some timing out of the spark table, say 5-10 degrees to help prevent detonation. Is this the same for bikes running on 1/4 of the cylinders, too much or not enough? Just wanna help him get off on the right foot and not blow up his bike.
Thanks in advance!
Wouldnt hurt to do it as you know how. Its an internal combustion engine just like a V-8 or any other type. You opened a can of worms thats going to be interesting by asking. Expect off-shoots on viability of this particular tuner that does nothing to address question. You know what youre doing as well as he based on post. Filter the replies to see if anything helps. As always, repost what you ultimately end up with tune wise and ride wise. Share real knowledge not assumptive negativity. Ride On!
Expect off-shoots on viability of this particular tuner that does nothing to address question.
If I was coming from the car world. I would want to understand the limitations of the tuner I was using compared to what I was used to. The HP tuner does not restrict target or VE adjustment limitations away from original VE. SO, if one had a tuning strategy of setting the entire target table to a desired lambda in a range of the narrow bands and taking away enough timing to make this safe. The program isn't going to allow you to do this. If you want the wide band strategy of richening the target or to shoot for a locked target of say 13.5. It won't let you do that. If you want to change target fuel for any reason? It won't let you do that. Do you need to adjust VE's. Not more than 10%. In this industry uses a 127.5 higher limit on VE's for some reason. Need more headroom? Too bad. It won't let you do that.
I tune for a living and I do cars as well. I have much more experience with efi live over HP, but as one tuner talking with another. The program has it's limitations and I would suggest finding those before you spend a lot of time with that tuner. You probably won't care for it much.
Wouldnt hurt to do it as you know how. Its an internal combustion engine just like a V-8 or any other type. You opened a can of worms thats going to be interesting by asking. Expect off-shoots on viability of this particular tuner that does nothing to address question. You know what youre doing as well as he based on post. Filter the replies to see if anything helps. As always, repost what you ultimately end up with tune wise and ride wise. Share real knowledge not assumptive negativity. Ride On!
Boy if you're banging on Hardtail be careful. He knows his poop.
My problem here is that I haven't even touched the tuner program yet. My friend put in one of the "canned" tunes that came with the tuner based on his mods, and according to him it helped. He had a dead spot on acceleration that seemed like lag based on his description, and now that is pretty much gone. I need to get the software and play with it a bit offline just to see what I can do.
I do like the freedom to change pretty much anything I want with HP tuners, and based on what you are telling me, the HD software is not near as functional. Tables and graphs look somewhat similar as far as reading them, but again this is based on pics I've seen online. As I said, and some of you have said, it's best to play with the software some so I can see what I can and cannot do, and then I'll know how to help my friend not blow his stuff up.
Thanks to everyone for the advice and I'll check back in when I have something of an idea what I'm doing with it.
if by OE HD tuner you mean the 'street tuner' yes, AFR table will be locked in closed loop pretty much everywhere... VEs and spark can be somewhat adjusted, no idea by how much.
if it is the old 'super tuner' then it is a lot more flexible, just not as much as a PV or TTS.
if by OE HD tuner you mean the 'street tuner' yes, AFR table will be locked in closed loop pretty much everywhere... VEs and spark can be somewhat adjusted, no idea by how much.
if it is the old 'super tuner' then it is a lot more flexible, just not as much as a PV or TTS.
This is why so many have gone with the Power Vision.. One can disable closed loop and run open loop all the time and make any changes necessary to satisfy the engines needs.. But you will need a way to monitor AFR's to get it right... I have several saved tunes for different types of riding, Temps and elevations..
Last edited by 98hotrodfatboy; Feb 18, 2023 at 05:32 AM.
If you haven't downloaded it yet, software is here: https://streetperformancetuner.harley-davidson.com. You can type in any random 10 digit number as the serial number of the VCI (I use 1111111111).
Once downloaded, open the software, select the base map that's currently in the bike, and you'll be able to see which tables you may edit, and what the limitations are. (All SE Street tuner tables have to maintain EPA limits). No ability to change the AFR request. Any tab that's greyed out is EPA off limits. On the VE tables, the range is +/- 4 in the closed loop sections of the table, and +/- 10 open loop areas.
Ignition advance/retard is +/-3° closed loop areas, anywhere from +/-2° to +/-6° open loop areas.
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V8 tuner, but new to tuning bikes, quick help needed.
