Hey Gang,

I recently installed a ThunderMax with Autotune on my 2008 Crossbones. I had a back and forth with their tech support to make sure I had the correct map and procedures. After the install was complete I rode the bike around all afternoon around town with no issues. After some weather came and went I rode the bike 83 miles to a friend's house. Before I arrived at his place I stopped at a service station and picked up a six pack. The bike restarted just fine as it had done all day since the install. However when I got to his house just a mile down the street I stopped then went to restart the bike to pull into his garage. I hit the start button and it made a nasty sound and blew a puff of smoke from what I assume was the exhaust. It was dark and sitting on the bike meant I didn't see where the smoke came from. The bike cranked for a few turns but didn't start. It's never done that before and I was pretty freaked out. I decided to try again and although it seemed to start a little hard it fired right up. No more smoke. I pulled into the garage where I proceeded to start and stop the bike a few time. Except for a couple of slightly rougher starts, it did happen again. This morning I jumped on the bike and rode it to work and so far no more problems.

I already emailed Zippers but if any of you have dealt with them know, their method of using email only to give tech support is anything but fast. Plus they never answer all your questions the first time around so you have to go back and forth just to get to the bottom of one thing!

Any of you had this sort of experience with one of these units?

Also, I didn't notice until I was on my longer ride that my fuel range feature is no longer present on my speedometer. I now only have the clock, odometer and trip A and B features. Anyone else get this and if so, how did you get that feature back?

Thanks,

Skeez

 

I am hearing of, and experiencing myself, starting issues with the new TMax Gen III's. I'm not ready to say so yet, but it appears that there may be a defect in the design. The jury's still out on this one...

 

I was getting to where I was pulling my ECM fuse all the time and doing the 3X on/off thing way too much. I'm glad I got rid of it. Hope you figure out the problems!

 

Mine is an older model than the Gen 3 I believe so not sure if I'll experience the same things as users of newer models.

I'm trying to not jump to the conclusion of ditching it so soon after I got it although I have to admit that I was reconsidering it before I ever even got the bike on the road. I just wasn't real thrilled with having to have the seat off and a computer in the garage just to make a change or check something. The biggest issue till now is the fact that Zippers only responds to emails which is 1. Slow and 2. they usual response to just about any question is "do the data collection process and send it to us so we can try to see what's may be wrong"!

Great! So just to get a response I have to hook the damn thing up and run whatever processes, email them and then do more waiting.

That one backfire issue hasn't happened again but it was intense and enough to worry me about screwing up my bike permanently. Since that incident, I hold my breath every time I reach for the starter button!

The missing fuel range function is also quite a deal breaker if it is in fact a cause of the Thundermax which I am almost certain it is cus it was working fine before hand. As most of us know, the stock fuel gauges on this bikes are about useless. Even though the digital range indicator is not accurate to the level of fuel and actual range, it is consistent and I still use it to gauge my remaining fuel.

Gonna give the unit a couple of more runs to see how I feel about it as well as giving Zipper another shot at actually answering my questions. However as it stands, I am not real thrilled with my experience thus far and am already researching other options.

I had been running a V&H FuelPak but it hasn't been doing a good job of keeping my bike from running hot!

 

Have 2005 Deluxe with an 88 twin cam. Did stage one and Thundermax autotune. I've had a couple start issues. Couple of back fires and a couple of would not fires. Pretty consistently these occur when I jump the gun and don't let the engine light go off before hit the start button. When I follow the start up routine haven't really had any issues.


And, those issues were present with the stock ecm. So, overall I've been happy with the Thundermax. I'd gone with the Thundermax based on how happy members here were with it.


Bones

 

I was VERY happy with my TMax GenII except for the stupid 9 pin dongle converter. To get happy, though, I had to do AutoIAC to fix starting issues (which were more than likely due to the pipes that I have).

What I wasn't happy about with my GenII about had nothing to do with Thunderheart... and was strictly due to damage incurred by poor support from Zippers and the lack of a proper installation manual and the subsequent fix required due to problems resulting from the incorrect installation instructions. Translation? My GenII should have been replaced for free and it wasn't... and instead an unreliable fix was 'engineered' by Zippers.

C#

 

I hope you figure it out. I have had my TMax for three years without any real issues. I screwed up a few maps and caused some performance and starting issues but if I go back to a preconfigured map as a base and let it learn it works fine for me.

 

One of the things I have a hard time with is accepting changes in the otherwise normal operation of my motorcycle. I tend to start worrying if I am causing irreversible damage or what not. After 6 years of owning my Crossbones, I've never had any issues with it in the engine and transmission area and few issues with other aspects of the bike. I've been pretty happy with the reliability.

My main reason for wanting a tuner has nothing to do with performance or getting more out of the bike than it puts out now. I am a slow and go kind of guy and don't suffer from the "I gotta be bigger,faster and shinier than the other guy" syndrome. I need a tuner because of changes to my exhaust that I swapped out simply because I hate the look of the stock stuff and wanted those components to fit the character of my bike. Again, it has nothing to do with wanting to change the output of my bike, etc.

All that said, I simply need to have a tuner that will keep my bike from running hot due to the changes. The Thundermax seemed like a good option because after trying a piggy back tuner like Vance and Hines, I did not like how much stuff I have to cram under the seat. With the Thundermax replacing my ECM I figured I'd end up with no more clutter than stock. The fact is, with the addition of the rear O2 plug and the use of the diagnostic plug as well, I ended up crowding up my battery area almost as much as I did with the Fuel Pak. Add to that all these strange issues. The latest of which happened yesterday. I was on my way to work and got hung up in traffic a bit which happens all the time but to my dismay I happened to look down at my dash and saw that the check engine light was on. In the six years of owning my Bones I've NEVER had a check engine light come on. Then after a few moments it started to blink! The bike seemed to be running fine but I was still worried. By the time I got to work the light had gone out. I shut off the bike and then restarted it a few time. The light never came back on and the bike fired right up but I did notice a second issue. Whenever I hit the run switch I would hear the fuel pump start priming as I always do but it would prime for a quick moment, shut off and then come back on and finish priming. It did this two or three times. I've NEVER had that happen before. The bike fired up fine each time but again, why was this happening? To me it seems pretty obvious that it's all part of the Thundermax install. By the time I left work everything seemed back to normal more or less. But now instead of looking forward to jumping on my scoot and riding I walk up to it dreading what sort of weird **** I'm going to encounter and that's not how I want to feel about my motorcycle. And the last thing I want to do again is lug out my computer to my garage, pull of my seat and hook everything up just so I can do a data collection so that MAYBE I can get real answers from Thundermax.

 

I had an issue several times with the ignition not turning over. Went in and saw that there was a firmware update. After the update, hadn't had the problem since.

 

Good luck on your Thundermax issues. I know three people that got so frustrated trying to get it to run right they pulled it out and went back to a stock ecm. One of them is a Harley Dealer service manager. The tech support was anything but stellar.