PCIII and Palm adapter

[Lex]

There has been plenty of talk about the PCIII on this site and other places but I would like to bring up something I hadn't heard much about. My bike (completely stock) worked better with the PCIII than without but it was still not perfect. I figured the best solution would be to get some miles on the bike, make the changes I was going to make (mufflers, X pipe, whatever) and then have a custom map made at a shop with the Tuning Link software. I may have a custom map made or not but I have found a simple way to get the bike very close to perfect without a dyno and Tuning Link.

 

I ordered the null modem adapter so I can connect my Palm to the PCIII. This has proven to be a very cool tool. Everything (Palm, sync cradle, null modem) fits in my tank bag. I build a set of maps, load them in the Palm (you can have as many as the memory on your Palm allows) and go for a ride. Try map A, try map B, try map C, etc. Counting taking off the seat changing maps takes about 2 minutes. Make notes, if you like the throttle response at 10% with map A but map B is better over 20% you can build a map that combines the small throttle setting of map A with the large throttle opening settings of map B. If you build a map that is a real dog you can just go back to the last one that worked or even the base map Dynojet provides.

 

This is like how we did it in the old days but without the time lost (and burned hands) from pulling a carb off a hot engine, changing parts and making you hands smell like gas for several days. Lets not talk about how much fun it was when you spilled gas on the hot engine or pipes. Liquid gas is actually pretty safe but gas fumes can ruin your whole day. Also, I don't miss needing to buy twenty jets to find the two you need or looking for weeks to find the one place that has an unusual size jet.

 

If you have a Palm (or other Palm OS based product) the "Dynojet Palm adapter" (part # 42907090) is fairly cheap, $8 plus $5 shipping. What makes this null modem different from million of others is that they cut the pins off of location 4 and 6 on both ends. You could probably do it yourself but for $13 and taking a chance on voiding your warrantee I'm not sure it is a good trade off, YMMV.

http://www.powercommander.com/palmadaptor.shtml

 

Cheers,

 

Lex

[Cliff]

In what ways is you're bike not yet perfect.

[Lex]

Cliff,

 

(He said feeling like he better get this right as he is awed by anybody who can make his own ECU )

 

It runs very well now, the problems that got me started were poor response when opening the throttle (nothing for a few degrees of throttle rotation followed by more than I needed when it does start to make power) from closed throttle and a miss when accelerating between 2500 and 3000 RPM.

 

At this point (I've removed most of the leanness in the base map from 5 to 20% throttle at 2500 and 3000) the throttle response is very good. Even down at 3000 RPM (as low as I normally let the tach go the high gears) the bike accelerates powerfully and smoothly. I am trying to trace down an occasional hesitation at 2500 RPM. Yes, I know 2500 RPM is below normal operating range but I sometimes find myself in situations (read traffic) where being able to stay in second gear is much better than constantly going back and forth between first and second.

 

Is that what you were looking for?

 

Lex

[Cliff]

Very hard to crack that miss. I've had it come and go even with My16M. Not as bad as the WM. In fact right at this moment I'm looking at the issue again. The few who have My16M don't seem to complain of the miss, but I know its there (''). I think the idle stall is related also. There are two causes I think may be the cause.

1) Noise fooling the ECU into thinking and engine pulse has occured

2) The varying engine speed. A big V twin is not going to be constant in rotation speed but is rather lumpy. This is much worse at idle than at speed.

 

My current tact is to delay the spark timing calculation to just before required. At the moment I do it up to 4 pulses before ( 60 degrees ). At this point the crank is deaccelerating due to the compression stroke.

[RichMaund]

I bought a used three year old Dell Pentium 366 laptop from Dell financial services on EBay this winter. Only $330 for the complete kit with cables, power supply and a fancy brief case! 12.1" display. It drops into my tank bag sideways. Though I haven't felt the need to do it yet, the bike runs great with the PCIII as it is now. Nice to know I can do it!

The Palm is a great idea, but I think my used laptop is a good solution for us cheap bastards out there!

[dlaing]

For us cheap bastards who have to have the Marelli software, the palm version is supposed to be half the price of the PC version. But that may be with less features???

I am still so cheap, I am only dreaming of the palm or a laptop...

What I have been getting a kick out of, is riding the bike for a week. tweaking the PCIII buttons under various conditions and making mental notes of where to try adding or subtracting fuel. Then I go home to the POS PC Clone, and remap it using the 9volt battery adapter.

After my third map the bike was running great but still getting only 35MPG. My goal is to get it running perfectly, no popping, no pinging, good throttle control, and get 40MPG.

Of course I am about to get a new muffler, and I intend to make a ram air set up, which will further complicate the map...

[Cliff]

I've just had my first ride after tightening up my spark calculation. It was a short ride, 10k around the suburb, not too much idling.

 

However I didn't notice any misses. So spark timing may well be the culprit.

I can tighten it up a little more but I was seeing some missed events so I need to fix some bugs to go any further.

 

BTW a lot of my round town cruising is at 2500rpm with no problems. Nice ad relaxing engine speed.

 

Anyway I'm off to work on a Saturday and the weather at the moment is great