Power Commander really needed?

E

Eric Lawson

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Ok so i am aware many of you have Power Commanders on your FZ1 and i know my bike runs lean. For those of you who dont know, i have the home made SuperTrapp exaust on my 08 FZ1 which i am proud of and love the unique look and sound it gives me. The SuperTrapp disc system will tell you by the color of the disc the condition in which your bike runs, if the disc are grey you have a lean condition and mine are very grey. Of course we all know our bikes run a bit lean from the factory, add aftermarket exaust and gut the cats and it only makes things worse. I still have stock air filter but i removed the screen and plugged AIS as you all instructed....Sooo im NOT saying my bike runs poorly, it cranks good, idles fine and does all things as normal. That being said i wonder if the lean condition is causing any long term issues and would the addition of a Power Commander really benefit my bike? What can i expect from adding a power commander as far as performance gains or in terms of reliabilty? What brands and which ones do must of you guys use and how easy are they to use? Im not very tech savy so i would say the more simple the better. I just wanna do whats best for my bike.
 
I'm in the same boat as you. I have added a slip-on, done the Lars slash cut airbox mod, DNA high flow filter and I will be gutting my cat this week.
I have decided to buy a Power Commander V from www.motomummy.com $275.
I will get the bike dyno tuned once I get it as I don't believe in using maps made for other bikes.
 
Go to the Power Commander web site and down load their software, it's free. Then down load the "Map Pack" from the other site. Then review the maps. The majority of maps remove more fuel, over the entire map than they add. In other words the bike is not lean. Low end and high end are rich, for the most part, and for a bike of your set up fuel is removed in those areas. Tuners will add a few points of fuel in the mid-range. Also, if you are still using your O2 sensor the ECU has you within safe limits. So you're fine. That said, can you have better throttle response and performance with a custom tuned bike, of course, but your bike is safe.
 
:+1:

Agree exactly with what he said! Slip on will not require PC, especially in your case. I personally can say I installed GYT-R and PCIII USB and got some nice gains, but Hellgate's description of the changes in every map is correct, and fuel is almost always reduced, not added to increase power and precision.




Hellgate said:
Go to the Power Commander web site and down load their software, it's free. Then down load the "Map Pack" from the other site. Then review the maps. The majority of maps remove more fuel, over the entire map than they add. In other words the bike is not lean. Low end and high end are rich, for the most part, and for a bike of your set up fuel is removed in those areas. Tuners will add a few points of fuel in the mid-range. Also, if you are still using your O2 sensor the ECU has you within safe limits. So you're fine. That said, can you have better throttle response and performance with a custom tuned bike, of course, but your bike is safe.
Click to expand...
 
I consider a powercommander to be a first mod before. Most people put it off until the EFI is so bad that riding the bike is no longer enjoyable. Bad idea.....

AW
 
Last I heard, the autotune is still busted. I elected to get a pc3 to get the display. It also had the ignition module available if it heeded it. Now that the new display is available, I would go the pc5 direction.

AW
 
whittlebeast said:
Last I heard, the autotune is still busted. I elected to get a pc3 to get the display. It also had the ignition module available if it heeded it. Now that the new display is available, I would go the pc5 direction.

AW
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I agree the PCV is the way to go, unless you have your heart set on the ignition module then the PC3. Not sure way DJ doesn't make an IM for the V.

Also autotune is terrible. I've know several guys who've tried it and it drove them nuts. It's akin to chasing your tail. The best option is a custom tune for your bike by a good tuner.
 
I've done all the mods on my Gen 2 and no power commander, it doesn't run lean, it runs great and has for the 15000 miles I've put on it. For me it is not a "must". Someday maybe, for dialing it dead on, but currently it's great without it.
 
Missyl1713 said:
I've done all the mods on my Gen 2 and no power commander, it doesn't run lean, it runs great and has for the 15000 miles I've put on it. For me it is not a "must". Someday maybe, for dialing it dead on, but currently it's great without it.
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As with Missy, I too have done nearly every mod available but a PC and the bike is running fantastic. While I would like the PC V, I hardly think it is a must*have mod as well. The bike hasn't given me a reason to believe it needs it at this point.

@Eric Lawson... What octane are you running in the bike?
 
Eric Lawson said:
i consistently run mid grade 89 octane. I know the bike only ask for 87 and dont feel Premium 93 is needed, i just like using the 89...am i wrong on this?
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Not really wrong, but I am wondering of the higher octane is burning the fuel a little hotter and thus the difference for you? I'd need a total fuel-head to jump in at this point. :D
 
In theory, a higher octane fuel should burn 'cooler' than a lower octane. Because a higher grade of octane is needed when the engine prematurely ignites the standard grade, using a higher grade than recommended will result in a 'slower' burn and potentially reduced power and fuel efficiency from unburnt fuel--almost like a rich scenario. This is my take on it.

I think you can't actually tell your bike is running lean or rich until you hook it up to a gas analyzer and get it checked for real.

I've always found it's worthwhile to get a custom tune done on the bike; it makes a world of difference. :)
 
Pro's & con's with or without PC3 or PCV. If you decide to run one get your bike mapped on a dyno properly this will fully utilize the commander, why pay $300 and not get the full potental out of it?. Also, downloading someone elses map is not ideal and fuel quality differs from country & state. The bike will be more fuel effecient & very good performance gains are to be had, bang for $ PC3 is the best peformance add-on. The big problem is the FZ1 runs very rich even with all the mods & no PC3. The big advantage with the PC3 is you can add an Ignition modual unlike the PCV. Tuning your fuelling is only half of it= timing is the other half. The IM will adjust the timing and make the bike run smoother, cooler & give nice torque gains. Some think the IM is a waste of $ but believe me it makes a big difference in low-end torque and shifting. Biggest Con is the $ & i would rather upgrade suspension before going down the PC & dyno road.
 
Just when i think i know something i come here and find out i dont know jack, haha! But its all good, i love the input people give, its all good advice and im learning from things. I believe i will switch back to 87 octane and just ride!:Rockon:
 
I wrote this for a different forum. Hope this helps here.

* * * * * snip * * * * *

There is a ton of confusion regarding AFR that I see around this site. Lots of people just want to know what is the right amount of fuel for my motor. Let me see if I can clear up some of this.

A motor wants to run out of burnable fuel at the same time that it runs out of oxygen. The critical word here is burnable. Fuel is only burnable if it is fully evaporated. Any fuel that is still a droplet is just on a ride thru the combustion chamber. If the motor is fat enough and you are following it, you can smell the unburned fuel in the exhaust.

Refer back to the huge post I made earlier regarding AE (Acceleration Enrichment) to get a feel for the things that make fuel evaporate fast. High intake air temps, hot intake manifolds, low pressure in the intake, tight squish/combustion chamber turbulence, really small holes in the injectors all help. I few of these things lead to detonation and have down sides.

Keep in mind that when all of the stars are in the perfect alignment and all of the fuel evaporates in time for the spark, the perfect AFR is 14.7 This number works fine most of the time till about 3000 RPM as long as the intake pressure is around 50 KPA or less. As you get deeper into the throttle, and as a result the intake velocities start rising and the KPA in the intake starts getting closer to 100 KPA, the fuel has more trouble evaporating in time you have to start adding extra fuel into the mix hoping to get the perfect amount evaporated in time for the spark. Most normally aspirated motor wind up at right near 13.0 AFR at WOT. Some motors more and some less.

The next thing that makes all of this stuff even more sketchy is how much used up air and fuel really got out of the chamber on the last exhaust stroke. If a high pressure exhaust happened to bounce back at just the wrong time, some of the exhaust may have gotten shoved back into chamber at just the most inopportune time.

The combination of these two situation is what makes up this magic thing called VE. Volumetric Efficiency is just a fueling fudge factor. Real world VE runs from about 40 at idle to 105 at peak torque if you are lucky.

So now the big elephant in the closet is what target AFR was the tuner using at each and every one of those 100 or so intersection points in the VE map. I have heard from PC that they use 13.0 across the board. Wrong answer.....

Just for fun, here is a video of one of the team of cars that I just took on tuning. Wish me luck.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jfnr3eVt1c"]YouTube - VIDEO0013.3gp[/ame] ( The silver one :) )

This is a log from one of the slower cars in the team that we want to get well into the 8s in street trim.

http://www.ncs-stl.com/racecardata/RichVelocity_9_SecDragCar.jpg

Hope this helps

AW
 
Target AFRs wind up looking something like this. This one happens to be for a Harley. Once we get close to these guidelines, then we start playing with things in search of max acceleration.

TpsVsAfr.JPG
 
Great response Whittlebeast.

I look at AFR as a number, and only that, a number that will change over the entire map; it is what it is, a number.

The guy I work with for tuning doesn't use AFR, and doesn't even bother to record it. He aims for complete combustion, or the optimal amount of fuel for a given rpm and throttle position. I'd imagine that if he did record AFR it would be all over the map, no pun intended. :)

Interestingly he has many owners who've given up on trying to make their bikes run right at shops that use a "target" AFR. He simply tunes to complete combustion and the bike runs great. Most often bikes are "drowning in fuel" and don't run correctly because the tuner has targeted the "magic" AFR. Once he tunes the bikes correctly the fuel mileage and the performance of the bike both improve. On 1098s he'll see a 4 to 5 mpg improvement, in addition to a 10 hp+ bump.

Manufactures run the bikes a little rich to meet a broad user range and geography, and use cats to clean the emissions up; hence three cats on our bike. Once the bike is tuned correctly the emissions from a bike are next to nothing, it's amazing. Once my FZ6 was tuned the CO emissions were .01%.

Another thing that he has found time and time again, it that "performance" products are often not. All of that bolt on stuff does not guarentee that the bike will run as well as a properly tuned bike with a quality exhaust. (Insert popular tuner products here, Screamin' Chicken is the king of crap.) He often removes the popular forum mods, puts on a quality exhaust, performs a proper tune up, then dyno tunes with a Power Commander, TEKA, etc. and ends up with a great running bike.

Remember the old racer's saying, "Lean is mean."
 
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