Still chasing a spark knock on my front cyl. Shows up in the same spot every time and I'm getting tired of pulling a little at a time. So just for curiosity I pulled my plugs with 2,000 miles on them. Color was uniform and no signs of running lean. Checked the gap and they were 0.030. I put them in and gapped them to 0.040. Hmmmm, I wonder if the tech that did my cam upgrade grabbed the wrong feeler gauge? I reset the gap and put the rear plug up front and the front plug in the back. Went for a nice logging run without changing the tune. Spark on the front cyl went away, but now I have a spark knock event on the rear cyl, only one event. I'm thinking the plug might be bad. I've got a new set of plugs to install and can't wait to see the results.

A couple of questions:

1.What does the brain trust recommend for the gap given the range of 0.038 - 0.042mm?

2. Can a poorly gapped plug on the very low side be enough to cause knock and eventual plug failure?

 

I've got a newbie question here, please forgive me. When I bought my pv (about 2 months ago) I was all caught up on this thread, glad to see it's still going strong!

A little background, I bought my pv from Jaime at FM, so his tune has been my base tune. My mods are S&S 106, S&S 510 gear drive cam, bassani 2:1, SE air cleaner, adjustable pushrods and larger injectors (4.9 g/s). I've used the guide from justdennis (thanks jd, very helpful!!) as well as the "autotune" function on the pv. So I've manually set up the log and I've had the pv set up the log. I don't have the wideband sensors so I'm just doing the basic tuning.

My question is that I'm still in the process of getting my ve's squared away (haven't had a lot of time to ride lately) but with all my data long collection I've never seen any timing changes, yet I can hear some knocking/pinging. In my gauge set up I monitor front cyl spark knock and have never noticed the value change even when my knock/ping is present.......is there a setting I'm missing to have the pv record the knock events? I know I need to square away my ve's before I do any timing adjustments but I figured it would still log the knock events.

Thanks all!!

 

When you are viewing your gauges, hit Log Start to begin a recording of your ride. When you are done stop the log. Observe what the log name is. Remove the PV from your bike. Start WinPV and then get the log from your PV (the same way you get your tune from the PV). You can read the log in Excel or OpenOffice spreadsheet. You will be able to see which cylinder has the knock.

I'm lazy and use MegaLogViewerHD so I can see a better graphical representation of multiple data I'm interested in.

 

StailJim61

From talking to Jamie this is what was figured out.

The tune he sent me was made with an older Firmware. When I uploaded the tune it converted it to the newer FW. As you stated fuel Moto sends tunes with the EITMS disabled. Jamie thought what was happening was with the EITMS disabled when the new FW uploaded the file it set the EITMS to 590. Also the version FW the original tune was created with had a EITMS setting under Limits and Switches the New FW has moved this to the PV under the Quick Tune


So it seems that my issues were more from the FW conversion between the original tune and the new FW modified tune that was copied off.

Jamie was able to explain the changes and assured be there were no issues.It wasn't like the bike was running bad I just did not like seeing things change that I did not change.

 

Success at last, no sign of any spark knock. The new plugs did the trick. Guess now I'll put the spark tables back to where they were and redo them. At least the weather is fantastic.

 

that was very educational and good thinking on your part... i was really hoping you would chime in with the results of that

 

Well, I guess we've go to consider the spark plugs as the "sensors" in the knock control system, and sensors sometimes screw up.

 

They usually come pretty close right out of the box but they need to be checked. Tech could have dropped it and just stuck it in without regapping. Glad you caught it and got rid of the ping.

 

What are everyone thoughts on the stock vrs aftermarket plugs for tuning?

if i remember right i thought there was some back and forthe about using the stock plugs will get you a better tune vrs say NGK.

Anyone ever run into problems with NGK or any other plugs being too hot or for some other reason not to use them?

 

If you have it set up to log fr and rr knock retard you should see it in the excel log. If you're making new tunes with the log tuner software it should be showing retarded areas and how much it took out of the cal.

If you need reassurance go out and datalog knock hits, not in tune mode though. PV takes out 4* when it sets the tune up for a run. So, take your starter cal, remove 4* from it, then datalog it. If no knock events you're good to go. Put the 4* back and reload into PV and AT that cal.

If after you yanked 4* you still see knock events, reduce just those cells that pinged 2* more. When it has no knock events add 4* back into the table and use that cal to do your AT runs.

It's a little extra effort but I prefer no pinging when I'm making tuning runs. Still need to work timing when VE's are finished but this way it doesn't ping during tuning runs.