Hey guys,
Got my bike back from the tuner yesterday. Dynoed the new tune @ 72hp/75ftlbs.
When I picked it up he said he tuned it, but turned off the O2 sensors as they would mess up his tune as itll adjust the tune. hmm??
So I got home, bike felt about the same as my, as he called it 'Incredibly rich' tune which he dynoed at 65hp.

after looking at his tune i'm pretty miffed. I came from a PC-V in order to for one, get away from open loop. Also, his AFR is just a giant bank of 13.8, which again, for being open loop I guess makes sense.
What do you guys think, is this a good tune? does it make sense to run open loop 100% of the time? Is 72/75 a good number for an 08 1200 with hammer AC and rush slipons? Im hearing 80-85 should be the right numbers..

Now my bike was on the dyno when the dyno broke, so I have a feeling he might have been pressed for time and just did a mediocre job because, well, its a stage one, 08, and as he mentioned in the comment of post about the tune, its a small bike. I know its a 'just' a stage one, but I feel like for $300 for his tune, I should be getting better than open loop and 72 hp.

Dyno results:

Tune: (change from txt to PVT to open)

 

The WOT run you show looks about right for your engine. The horsepower and torque numbers are about right. Personally, I have no problem that it is in open loop if the tune is properly done--I'm sure others will argue that point. If indeed the entire AFR chart is set to 13.8, then that is alarming. The part of your tune that bothers me is the fact that it only took 50 minutes from start to finish. There is no way to tune the entire map on both cylinders in that amount of time. I'd be very concerned about all of the part throttle tuning or lack thereof. You might consider another tuner to evaluate the tune on another dyno to see if it is anywhere close to proper. Most tuners would do an evaluation at a reasonable cost.

 

so my estimation that it shouldnt look like this was correct:



thats a LOT of 13.8

 

Well that is richer than what most tuners would target but every tuner has different ideas. At least it does vary based on load and RPM. I'm guessing your fuel mileage isn't great? It will be hard to evaluate without seeing what the afr's are doing at part throttle settings.

 

Ive only gotten it back yesterday, and since 'they' broke my hammer intake during the after tune 'road test' I cant ride it till I get a new one (hammer is going to take care of me since these guys basically pointed at it and said 'thats a bad design') so no idea on milage.
It does vary based on load, but those values above 13.8 - those are all mine. Thats what the previous tune was set for, if I look at the delta, its 0 across the entire bottom, so it was only touched at 90 and 100 KPa.
I was looking for more thoughts on it before I call them and ask them what BS tuning this was. Your statement here is i think what Ill suggest. Now I know the dyno broke, so maybe they spent time on it before, and started again after it was fixed, but still, theres no middle ground tuning. its just flat. thats not what I wanted. I dont want open loop either.

 

That isn't the tuning strategy I like to use. If closed loop mess's with his tune. It isn't stable to begin with. Why would it do this? I feel it is the tuners responsibility to figure out when and where close loop will work and use it in those area's. If it doesn't work across the board, why? Something I haven't ran across yet.


The 50 minute thing? Hard to actually know what he was doing and to make assumptions on this. Since you can't chose what data to use and what to filter out tuning with the vision. Meaning that Vision uses the whole data log. I start with idle and 2500 rpm at around 70kpa. Then I move to WOT. Once I take care of that area. I move on to others. This keeps me from changing the VE's I already mapped with transit fuel that I mapped with steady state. I am not saying this is what this tuner did but more of a heads up that WOT isn't always done last.

 

Well I spent about 20 minutes on the phone with FuelMoto before calling him.
Fuelmoto confirmed what I thought. This sounds like the tuning method used by someone who is used to tuning Carb bikes. Get it in the window, and thats pretty close.

FuelMoto recommends always using Closed loop while you can in cruising range as it prevents excess fuel use and keeps track of the variables that are adjusting the system.
With a properly tuned system, PV is specifically designed to basically take advantage of these sensors on board, where PC-V isnt.


So I called the shop, and spent 45 minutes on the phone with them.
I started by explaining that the 13.8 'map' he sent was hog wash and that there really isnt any mapping going on here.
His rebuttal was that the VE is basically where you figure out how much air you have in the system but using sniffers and wide band O2. Once you know that, you can dial in exactly how much fuel will make the most power most efficiently. This somewhat makes sense, as he said the MAP and temp sensors will still adjust the tune based on those parameters, but he didnt modify any of them compared to the Fuelmoto tune.

When I asked about 14.6 stoichiometric value, he said he would never tune a bike to run that anywhere. He said 13.8 will give you the best fuel economy you can get without causing harm to the engine. even mentioned that sparkplugs can melt from the heat under such tunes, and if you off even a hair with that tune, you'll quickly be so lean as to be damaging your engine. He said thats the reason people run the O2, so that they can run very lean, but not go too lean. If your bike is tuned specifically for your bike, then you wont need to have them because your running fuel exactly for the amount of air your specific piston really, breathes. (ok..)
He said in his mutiple years of tuning drag bikes, iron heads, and turn of the century flat heads, this works best, with the lowest head temps, best performance, and longest life. And that under WOT the tune lowers down to 13.2 to 12.6 depending on bike, mods, ect.

I asked about the peak power number, and he said not to listen to the internet, and that my bike was probably starting for air, probably the AC was to blame for not getting enough air in. (hammer impact, i think not).

Thats where I am at. He said if Im not happy after riding it a few days, (i need to burn up all the carbon thats in the exhaust from the rich tune I was running...) let him know if im not happy and he can add back the closed loop, but doesnt think right now theres a reason to look at his tune / put the bike back on the Dyno.

I do believe him that there probably is a way, if you get the VE just right, to tune a bike to run and that 13.8 would be better than 14.6 since although its complete burn, that might not be best for engines, although, Id have to think since these were introduced, engines have been more designed to handle that than say a 57 knucklehead.

What says you?

 

Shop saw my comments on the sportster page I shared and messaged me this am :

" I would like to clear up some information we spoke about yesterday. This morning I checked our company facebook and did notice the share. I am at fault for not communicating my thoughts well at times and want to clarify some thoughts.

All dynos read differently, even though there are correction factors in place for environment variables no two machines will read the same hp. Ours has typically read less then most which we have confirmed in the past with two motorcycles that have been untouched in the tuning and modification sense since being on another known lower hp reading machine. On our page you will see other FI spotsters with very similar hp figures to yours, so in comparison you are in the same ball park. The dyno is meant to be a comparative tool when tuning so you can compare changes made in the pursuit of hp and torque increases. All my graphs are also outputted in SAE correction factor which typically reads less then uncorrected or any of the other correction factors available, also all my hp pulls are done in fourth gear on a 5 or 6 speed trans (this is important when doing comparative runs as this will have an effect on final hp figures)

When tuning a power vision I am utilizing four sets of 02 sensors logging data, two of which I am visually keeping track of during tuning, along with all other sensors that are available. My goal and the job of any tuner is to perfect the VE table and that is the designed use of load controlled dyno and high resolution o2 meter.

My method of tuning a closed loop fuel injected motorcycle with stock sensors and ecm is to turn off the use of the narrow band sensors (if an after market stand alone ecm is used or piggy back wide band sensors are to be utilized then I prefer to keep an self defined area closed loop an NOT the whole map) because I and many seasoned tuners familiar with air cooled motor agree that the 14.2-14.7 window of a narrow band is too lean. Yes stoichiometric (14.7:1) is a complete burn, but what is needed is some unburnt fuel to keep the combustion chamber cool enough to avoid pre detonation and to control engine temp all together. The margin of exactly how much richer then stoich changes with combustion chamber design and if the motor is water or air cooled. If you do some reading on tuning strategy theory all experts are in agreement of this.

As far as the spark plug melting, that thought was never meant to be conveyed so I apologize if that is the information you received, in our convo. I mentioned that at sustained near and over stoich afr reading you can actually see small aluminum particles that will adhere to the ground strap of the spark plug that can be seen with a high power loupe or low power microscope. Those small aluminum particles are from the piston top and from the combustion chamber signaling that there was some pinging/pinking/pre detonation.

In the part of our convo we spoke about what can cause a motor to peak in hp early, and I mentioned its mostly about air flow and velocity, not enough and the hp will peak early but with the benefit of higher torque figures in some cases. I did not intend to convey that that is the cause of any hp deficiencies you feel you have or your air cleaner was at fault for you not realizing your hp goal. If your goal is to make more power then what you are making now without doing any internal motor modifications I would recommend a different exhaust system, I have had very good results on stock sized motors with the Bassani 2:1 road rage. Out side of that you will need at the very least a none EPA compliant cam shaft choice, if not additional top end work.

And yes I do have quite a bit of experience with older harley motors and tuning them, and they require a whole different set of rules in comparison to your particular motor. But I have much more experience tuning fuel injection, stock ecm, piggy backs, and even stand alone systems that do not come provided with a base map at all that require complete base map and offset tables be programmed from scratch.

I hope this clears up some of the thoughts I tried to convey, Please ride the bike and if you feel like the tune is not what you expected we will make adjustments to the tune if you would like."
I appreciate their commitment to help me learn / understand what and why their doing what they do, but as I said to them, it seems to be contrary to the 'standard' process used by a lot of others. As I told him, its easy to explain how the sun rotates around the earth to someone who doesnt know, and Im certainly not an expert in tuning, but everything ive ever heard from cars to bikes, is 14.6 is safe, while running closed loop. from the above he says that air cooled Vtwins arent really designed for that, and it can harm them, or at least its not worth the effort and time to save a little gas, to run it that close to potential issues. hard to argue there, but again that says Harley hasnt changed their designs, basically ever.
Anyway more info for everyone. Thoughts?
Still going to get my filter cover, and then drive it and see if the throttle response, faster rpm climbs and better overall performance show up once the carbon build up from my rich tune is burned off...

 

That is what you would expect a poor tuner to say. The closed loop system is great it allows a real tuner to tune a bike so it does it's best in both worlds.
Find a real tuner that does no take short cuts.

 

And so the sun does revolve around the earth