ECU

[callison]

Are you kidding? We'll never get close to the number of posts that Al has!

[dlaing]

[moto]

Thank you Moto for the post about Kinetic Analysis. I have been looking for a recommendation for someone in Southern California, but that may be close enough. I may just have to compare prices with Mike Rich and Ferracci.

Shouldn't you be comparing quality as well?

Regarding the FIM, I was more drawn to the PCIII as it gave ME control of the map.

Makes sense, although if the tuner does his job, you shouldn't have to fuss with it again, at least until the next time you decide to make some hardware change/modification.

For $500 dyno tuned it seemed reasonable.

I think that depends on how you define "dyno tuned".

The time to tune the FIM on a dyno would have gotten expensive, but hey, I may have then kept the QuatD muffler, maybe it just needed more advance to boost top end power. and less advance to kill the midrange ping.

I think it would be good to know what exactly which throttle positions/rpm were tuned for the $500. We already know the methodology (hitting "A/F ratio" targets) that was used, so you could ask the FIM guy/gal how much he/she would charge to do something at the same level. The added expense might only be due to additional precision/thoroughness he/she normally employs, which he/she might be willing to forgo if asked nicely. I know for sure that Doug Lofgren could tune to "A/F ratios" using the FIM software if so desired, but he could also tune for power and change advance as needed.

Along time ago, I posted about shiming the engine position sensor to adjust timing when going to twin plugging, but nobody paid attention to my post

I don't know how the pickup fasteners are arranged relative to the crank axis on a Guzzi, but what I had imagined is that they were parallel, which means you might be able to slot the mount. Is the rotor splined or keyed on the shaft?

Carl, getting a baseline may be an excellent idea.

At the risk of stating the obvious, have the person doing the baseline also do the tuning.

When I went to the QuatD muffler I had no baseline and Comparing it to another bike's stock graph, I lost Peak HP, which I expected, but it showed that I did not gain below 4000 RPMs, where I swear I gained power. A baseline of my bike would have given a more accurate comparison.

That'll learn ya!

But I am not gonna waste money on Tuning Link for mufflers that I am not going to keep, again.

Makes sense to me, except then you won't know if the gains came from the exhaust or the tuning. You could just optimize 100% throttle and ignore all other throttle positions for comparative purposes.

So maybe just a $40 dyno run with the stock headers, or the mistrals???

Perhaps, but see above...

Moto, so a shorter exhaust system may lose power, hmmmmm?

Yes, I would think so, exept maybe at the very top. If you shorten and install a less free flowing muffler design, you might loose everywhere.

I really miss the QuatD muffler, but I want something with a little more power potential.

How do you know what the power potential really was without optimizing fuel and ignition properly?

I was going to try to do what Frank did, and even bought St. Augustine's scratched up carbon fiber  stock Scura Lafranconi cans. Hower what might make them work is that they effectively increase tuning length three times the length of the can.

Mufflers don't do that unless they're not really mufflers.

They just may be too restrictive without a crossover.

Agreed, getting rid of a crossover means that you must have much, much more free-flowing mufflers to compensate.

Moto, any opinions on going crossoverless?

Yes. Don't do it.

I think it could work if the mufflers flow well enough, but the common consensus is that crossovers and two into ones are a good idea.

I generally agree that crossovers are a good idea on a vee twin, but for two into ones to work, the design is very, very critical. In other words, you can't just expect it to work because it happens to be a two into one.

From my inexperienced mind, I believe crossovers on V twins are a bad idea, or atleast the crossover should be subdued.

No, it just needs to be the right size and in the right place.

[moto]

Oh, and more evidence of the success of Tuning Link Dyno tuning was just posted here:

http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?...t=0entry41736

41765[/snapback]

I think that given the extreme temperature difference between the previous run and this one, I would have opted to do another baseline with the original configuration. SAE corrections work well in general, but I have also found that I do need to do another run if the weather has changed drastically since the last one. I think a delta of 28.82° is what I would call drastic. Even if the starting engine temp was closely monitored and exactly identical, it would have climbed much faster on the hotter day, especially with the poor cooling arrangement evident in the photos. This could possibly have been mitigated somewhat by doing step tests instead of inertia tests (so you could measure every rpm at the same starting temp), although DynoJet dynos have the nasty tendency to take a long time to stabilize at each step due to the high inertia of the rollers they employ, which again cancels out some of the benefits of that strategy.

 

You need to be careful with inertia runs, because simply swapping rear tires can erroneously show you a horsepower gain/loss.

 

It would be great to see the before/after runs for all other throttle positions and just for shits & giggles with the "A/F ratios".

 

I'm also suspicious of this "CF:SAE Smoothing:5" business. What's that all about? Waddaya need that for?

[dlaing]

Shouldn't you be comparing quality as well?

41917[/snapback]

I thought I was. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

I don't know how the pickup fasteners are arranged relative to the crank axis on a Guzzi, but what I had imagined is that they were parallel, which means you might be able to slot the mount. Is the rotor, splined or keyed on the shaft?

41917[/snapback]

I don't know much about the pickup.

I believe it is magnetic but has a tighter air gap than a Dyna. The Manual says to set the gap 0.6 to 1.2mm.

It is depicted as item C

I think it uses a lost slot to determine TDC.

I would estimate that if you moved it one mm, it would change maybe one degree, assuming the sensor trigger wheel has a circumference of 360mm...which may be about right looking at the photo, perhaps a little smaller.

But keep in mind that as you change the position, the gap will change.

Could be tricky if you are aiming for more than a degree....

Thanks for the muffler/crossover tips.

Doug Lofgren's posted V11S dyno test sure do show that a small change in crossover design creates a huge change.

[moto]

I thought I was.

Good news. What are your criteria?

Do you have evidence to the contrary?

The only evidence I have is that you didn't mention anything about it...

But keep in mind that as you change the position, the gap will change.

I was suggesting that the pickup be moved circumfrentially around the rotor, which doesn't necessarily imply that the gap would change.

Could be tricky if you are aiming for more than a degree....

I know you were estimating a 360mm circumfrence, but without knowing the exact size of the rotor, hard to say. From the picture, it does look rough because the pickup seems to be located in its hole and has those screw bosses on either side of it. Is there normally oil in this cavity?

 

If the rotor is keyed to the shaft, you might be able to use an offset key.

Thanks for the muffler/crossover tips.

You're welcome.

Doug Lofgren's posted V11S dyno test sure do show that a small change in crossover design creates a huge change.

I'd like to check that out, do you have a link handy?

[dlaing]

Regarding Ferracci, I don't have much evidence that they would do a great job.

Moto Euro Magazine wrote an article describing the mods, including valves and porting, done to their V11S. The claimed results were very good.

Regarding there valves, here is there sales schpeel:

Race Series Stainless Steel Valves for Moto Guzzi

Fast By Ferracci Super-Flo valves are the best of their kind. We have developed a valve that can withstand the punishment of high rpm, high compression engines. Our Super-Flo design actually reduces the stem diameter in the port area. We use an innovative technology that compresses the stem to achieve the Super-Flo effect with special rollers, maintaining and compacting the grain flow in the material. This exclusive process provides our valves with excellent strength and reliability, increasing flow over straight stem valves considerably, yet with no adverse effect on reliability.

For all I know, Ferracci may not even use a flow bench to do his porting.

 

 

Regarding Mike Rich, He has gotten critical acclaim from many people on this list. And he has been involved in the Guzzi Land Speed Record project.

http://www.cookedgoose.org/sponsors/richmotorsports.htm

The address there is outdated as he has moved the shop to Pennsylvania.

Mike Rich modified some heads that raceco had previously modified. The result is in this article:

http://www.cookedgoose.org/2002maxton.htm

However his good work appears to take time, so one might want to buy a second set of heads to reduce bike down time.

 

Ideally, I'd like to find someone good in San Diego who I could leave the bike with, so that they could do both porting and squish redesign.

If it could be done within the budget of my wallet.

I may just replace my valves....

 

 

For Doug Lofgren's V11S dyno write up go here and read

" Moto Guzzi exhaust comparison Moto Guzzi V11 Sport"

and

"The latest installment of the Guzzi chronicles More Moto Guzzi Exhaust System Testing"

Note he does not use an accurate baseline, but I think we can still conclude that the Mistral crossover boosts midrange the most, that the Stucchi is overall the best crossover, and that the stock crossover has good peak HP but the worse midrange.

[dlaing]

Doug Lofgren also wrote this excellent article describing how one O2 Lambda range is not a good indicator of where to tune for power:

http://www.visi.com/~moperfserv/chip_talk.htm

Edit, I am mistaken.

The article does not describe that, but rather how one map will behave differently on two bikes.

If anything it may reinforce the idea that an O2 sensor defined lambda will result in good power.

[pete roper]

Just one point on physically moving the timing.

 

The trigger is the *missing teeth* on the 'Phonic Wheel' as Guzzi so charmingly call it. This is behind the cam sprocket and the pick-up is mounted in the wall of the timing chest. To change it's position you would either have to make slots and some sort of clamp to enable you to move the pick-up in relation to the sprocket and my guess would be that sealing such a mechanism would be a right frontbottom.

 

The other alternatives would be to slot the 'Phonic Wheel so that it could be moved in relation to the locator peg, this would be probably the easiest but changing it's position would require removal of the timing chest each time you did it, this idea also has whiskers on it!

 

I believe you can change the timing a tiny bit by varying the gap betwixt wheel and pick-up but probably not by a meaningfull amount.

 

For these reasons I think it has been widely assumed that probably the best way of doing it is by programming timing changes into the ECU.

 

Now. NONE of this is my province. Other people may like traffic lights! I like Carbs, I even have a sort of medieval attatchment to point I make no claim to being able to offer any scintilating insights into this debate but I have to agree that it'd decended into fatuous, masturbatory, tripe. S'probably why Cliff seems to have given up on it. I find the sort of agressive, hectoring and derisory tone of a lot of the contributions tedious beyond belief. If people want to come here and offer help and advice? I'm all for it. If the aim seems to be to belittle other peoples efforts, (For why? To corner the market in tuning FI Guzzis? Well, I wish them a happy retirement to the Bahamas on the strength of that ) and generally big note themselves while putting down other peoples work??? I also find people who post serious tech stuff annonymously tedious, don't you have confidence in your own abilities???

 

Ahhh, bugger it. I'll shut up, s'not worth getting all hot under the collar about.

 

Pete (Who reckons it's about time to hop on the mighty Convert and adjourn to the pub where he'll inject a couple fof Carlton Draught's into his system )

[antonio carroccio]

When does stop this!!!

[dlaing]

What a shame that some of the smartest posters on the list have to resort to calling this thread masturbatory. Maybe it is envy.

I thought about saying worse, but like you said Pete, it is not worth it.

For what it is worth, I have learned more from this thread, than all that I have learned on all the other lists combined.

Perhaps that is why this thread broke all records for most replies.

Thank You All, even Pete and Jeff with their tasteless disgruntlement.

[moto]

To all of those who I may have offended, please accept my apology. To offend was not my intent. I am not the type of person who thinks that anything positive could come from it. My intention was to be rigorous. I can't see how the truth can be revealed if falacies are allowed to stand. This goes for myself as well. I have welcomed (whether it seems so or not) the challenges presented to me, because I have had to examine further whether the knowlege I have or think I have is correct. My only interest is to do the best job possible, which I can't do if I don't continue the push the boundaries of what I know, and if I am not willing to reexamine what I have held to be true. I had hoped everyone would benefit and that the bar would be raised. I had hoped that empowered consumers would go out armed with a more exact idea of what they wanted, how they wanted it done, and the ability to specifically ask for it.

 

I may be completely off base here, but it seems that especially in the United States, no one wants to be bothered with any details. Unfortunately, the truth happens to be in the details. Unfortunately, potential for progress happens to live in the details. Some of you may find this to be tedious, masturbatory and whatever other language was used. I don't think it would be possible for us to have motorcycles that perform as well as they do if someone had not concerned themselves with dissecting these details to what seems like a mindnumbing extent. We certainly would not have this internet forum do discuss these matters in. Without getting too philosophical about this, people put their blood and sweat into the fruits we are reaping today. Should we be betray them by being advocates of entropy? Without thinking on things deeply, and being awake, I don't see any reason to live.

 

Maybe it was not my intention per se, but the unskillful way in which I went about things that is the culprit. Again my apologies.

 

If anyone wonders why I have been anonymous so far, I would like to quote a couple of posts from earlier in this thread:

talk about taking it in the ass, look at what this guy is charging to set up PCIII's. Probably because he is not using a tuning link....

 

http://www.moto-lab.com/dyno_services/tuning_PC500_html/

 

and to set up a tuneboy

http://www.moto-lab.com/dyno_services/tuning_Tri_html/

 

imagine shelling out $1,800 to tune your EFI. No freakin' way! I paid $150 to set up my PCIII.......

and

Hey, Jeff,

Don't forget your coupon, or you won't get this "special" pricing.

 

"Hello, I'd like the sucker special,please." Here's my coupon.

 

I've got no problem with people making a profit.

I'm willing to give it a try myself,

but Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! $2800 to tune a tueboy? Yowzza!

etc.

 

Now, I've really got nothing to hide, so I suppose having been anonymous was misguided. I don't know and don't care if I'll ever tune another Guzzi. I won't be retiring on any island soon. I have dedicated my entire life since I was a child to doing what I am doing and I am not making a lot of money. I am just concerned with doing the best job I can. If I can't do that because there is no market for it, so be it. I would rather live in a cardboard box than do a job that I cannot be proud of.

 

Best Regards,

 

Derek Capito

 

http://www.moto-lab.com

[Cliff]

I'm still here. In lurk mode now as everything seems to have been said. I haven't been offended, perhaps a little flustered and fustrated but most importantly a little more educated.

[pete roper]

Yeah, OK. I apologise too. I think it may just be a cultural difference, the US 'In your face' type attitude. It just grates a bit with me from time to time and i still found, after re-reading the thread, that there seemed to be a whole lot of derision and accrimony that was un-necessary Anyway, I'll crawl back under my rock and play with my brass tubes

 

pete

[Guest Jeff in Ohio]

What a shame that some of the smartest posters on the list have to resort to calling this thread masturbatory. Maybe it is envy.

I thought about saying worse, but like you said Pete, it is not worth it.

For what it is worth, I have learned more from this thread, than all that I have learned on all the other lists combined.

Perhaps that is why this thread broke all records for most replies.

Thank You All, even Pete and Jeff with their tasteless disgruntlement.

41975[/snapback]

 

 

masturbatory? Is that even a word?

 

Anyway, it wasn't envy. There is always a better solution, a more detailed solution, as clearly pointed out. Problem is, the better, more detailed solution always cost more money, something the average frugal (dare I say, tight?) Guzzi rider can't seem to recognoze. You can't get something for nothing. Sure, it would be great for someone like moto to tune my bike to the last decimal point of perfection, but is it REALLY worth that kind of money? To me, no, not really. Is the average person going to know the difference between a $500 PCII setup or moto's $1000+ surgery, maybe, maybe not, but given the option 99% of the 'frugal' Guzzi riders out there are going to go the cheapest route possible. Would I like te have Cliff's ECU - sure, that would be cool too (better thanhaving tuneboy I think), but for me, I don't have that kind of cash or dyno access to tune in a base map. I have already paid for the cheap solution because I am one of the 'frugal' ones. Not as frugal as most of the Guzzi folk, but still, I have other things to spend cash on other than the 'ultimate perfect' solution. It just so happens, that the cheapest route actually works pretty damn good in this case also! The whole A/F thing not being accurate got pretty damn old after awile too. Hey, Cliff has TREMENDOUS success using it as a target on his ECU, as do a lot of other systems out there. The thing is, an internal combustion engine can take a tolerable range of input and still provide a reasonably good range of output, so a little fuzz here, a little fuzz there really doesn't screw up the works that bad.

 

It's like trying to squeeze the blood out of a turnip. In this case, a turnip that is based on a 30 yr old design......

 

Now if you really wanna wrap your brain around something, try this one on for size.....

 

You guys REALLY wanna know how common EFI systems use a narrow band sensor? well, as many of you have noticed, a narrow band sensor has a steep, almost vertical output right where the target lambda ratio is (say 1 for this arguement).

 

See pic:

 

 

Above the ratio it has a high output, below that value it has a low output. As temperature of the sensor changes, the values of its output changes, but that sharp vertical rise at the target lambda remains in the same place. A common automotive ECU is NOT looking for a sepecific output value from the sensor. In fact, it can never really reach a lambda of 1 becasue as you can see, at L=1, the voltage out can vary on that damn near vertical line. What it does is (at steady state cruise) is essentially 'count' how many times the output of the sensor jumps from a high output to a low output - basically, counting how many times the output jumps across the steep (damn near vertical) line at the desired target. The ECU tries to maximize the numer of jumps back and forth across this line. As it maximizes the number of jumps from high voltage to low voltage, it is essentially 'aproaching' the target value of L=1 - rememeber 'limits' from high school calculus everyone? Anyway, the above explains a few things. One of which, trying to use a narrow band sensor to hone in on specific voltage for a specific lambda is useless. Thats why we now have wideband sensors (and whay Cliff is using one)! Ah, screw it, I'd really like to go on and on about other things, but I gotta get to work now.......

 

So, here's my choices:

 

for the cheap guy:

1. PCIII tuned at good ol local cheap tuning link center

2. new technoresearch adjustment program - why junk the stock ECU yet? Plus they are a REAL company that know there stuff.

3. Cliffs if you MUST have absolute perfection with adjustability at your finger tips and wanna junk your stock setup

4. tuneboy - sorry, you loose do to lack of locations that will work with it. Plus, the jury is still out. Tuneboy - party of ONE or a legitimate full scale company?

 

For the guy that likes to spend and tinker and DEMANDS perfection

1. Cliffs. You can have your cake and eat it too - in your own garage!

2. technR tool and lots of dyno time

3. PCIII tuned by moto - you can still change it later!

4. tuneboy and lots of dyno time - sorry, still not sold on this above the technoR tool since we don't know if they are a REAL company, or just one really damn smart enthusiast.