| Author | Message | ||
     Rob04xb12 |
I currently have the SpecOPs pipe and a K&N... and I went with the Buell pro series plugs also. But my question is how the bike will ride with the race ECM on it? Is it bad to have these kinds of mods without changing the fuel curve, and spark if the ECM controls any of that. Is it worth the money with day to day home to work riding?? | ||
| Lost_in_ohio |
Some believe your motor will run to lean and you will blow it. $200 for a race ecm is some cheap insurance. Again others don't believe it is any problem. There was a discussion a week or so ago about it. Here is a link judge for yourself http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/32777/206506.html?1150442264 (Message edited by lost_in_ohio on June 07, 2007) | ||
| Indy_bueller |
The race ECM is worth it, IMHO. | ||
| Beachbuell |
One word.....Yes! | ||
| Hammer71 |
Didnt notice a bit of difference. I ride the balls off the bike so there is no issue of if I ride it where it's supposed to do it's magic. Back to stock ecm and havent noticed a thing. Now on the other hand for the 12 I hear there is a huge difference but for the 9 I wouldn't bother. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
It made a significant difference to me. It seemed to smooth out the off idle response. I would recommend it. | ||
| Ejiii |
I have a 9 and it made a big difference on my bike. | ||
| Rob04xb12 |
Im kinda thinking that my daily rider kinda thing is not begging for a Race ECM. Does my buell have any kinda of mass airflow sensor or anything that will reconize a higher airflow... or is the ECM just guessing? I guess the O2 sensor could have play in that. Why did they put the O2 sensor on only one of the cylinders? | ||
| Rob04xb12 |
Anybody know a Buell service center that can put the race ECM on the right way? Im in the Charleston, South Carolina area. My Harley dealership tried once before but couldnt get the bike to idle... even after numerous attempts with swapping ECM's. I finally just got fustrated with it and told them to forget it. | ||
| Ironheadsporty |
I KNOW THAT ON CARBED V-TWINS LIKE MINE THE REAR CYLINDER USUALLY RUNS MUCH RICHER. FRONT CYLINDER IS ALOT LEANER... COULD BE THE REASON FOR ONLY ONE O2 LOCATION? Sorry about the caps, my job requires me to use them and i forgot to turn it off... | ||
| Ds_tiger |
Honestly- I did not notice a difference one way or the other. Nice to have a "RACE" ECM, I guess, but no improvement driveability or felt difference over stock, and I was running the high flow air filter and a Buell race pipe. | ||
| Treadmarks |
Anybody know a Buell service center that can put the race ECM on the right way? Im in the Charleston, South Carolina area. My Harley dealership tried once before but couldnt get the bike to idle... even after numerous attempts with swapping ECM's. I finally just got fustrated with it and told them to forget it. Rob, They have to reset the TPS before it will idle correctly. | ||
| Cityxslicker |
I know that when you crack the RACE ECM from Heat and Running off road it will put the bike in the shop for three weeks and NONE of it is covered under warranty.  | ||
| Lost_in_ohio |
I take it no one read the other thread I linked too. In a nut shell with the stock ecm and an after market air cleaner and exhaust you will run too lean and run a risk of damaging your motor. There is a couple of things you can do to avoid this of which one is the race ecm. The other is get the stock ecm remapped. Al from american sportbike gave a fantastic explaination about the exhaust and fuel curves. The tread was called do I need a servo eliminator. | ||
| Rob04xb12 |
There is a couple of things you can do to avoid this of which one is the race ecm. The other is get the stock ecm remapped How do I remap the stock ECM? There is a race shop near me that has a dyno and offers dyno tuning for like 150 bucks. Would they be able to access the ECM and change fuel curves and }what not?? | ||
| Lost_in_ohio |
$150 seems cheap for a custom map. Al at american sport bike offers one. I am not sure what he charges for it. Ask the local shop if they can do it. I would rather buy a race ecm or get one of Al's remapped ones. Less screwing around. But thats just me. | ||
| Tintin74 |
The race ECM seems to me to be just a stock ECM mapped for the BUELL OEM performance kit (at least the exhaust). Therefore there is no warranty that it will help with any other setting. That being written, it MIGHT be something slightly different: if I let myself be optimistic, I would say that neither race nor stock ECM should let the engine run lean because the ECM supposedly uses a closed-loop system to adjust itself to the current running conditions, possibly including airbox and exhaust modifications. In that case, the race ECM would just be a map that allows to engine to make more noise and emissions, thus running at optimal performance. So IF the race ECM is able to work with the stock exhaust, it should improve performances, freeing the engine from on-street regulations (thus letting you break a couple of laws I guess  ) If you have a custom setup, you might need a custom map. But on top of the price of the map, you MUST add several dyno runs that will help building the map. I'm going to read Al's post now since I just convinced myself I might have some use for the race ECM  | ||
| Al_lighton |
We charge $100 for maps developed for very specific combinations. For the amount of work that goes into the creation of them, and the amount of work it takes to administrate the whole program to provide them, I think the price is reasonable. People point out sometimes that other sites provide maps for free. My only response to that is that one usually gets what they pay for. The maps have been developed by Terry (Buelldynoguy) on the Vallejo HD/Buell dyno, and soon to be the JT&S dyno when they get their new performance shop up and running. After the map is developed on a dyno, we identify a beta tester to do independent testing to confirm that there isn't any AFV skewing issues. The whole process end to end is very time consuming, and has taken a fair amount of time to get right. We've learned a lot along the way. Educating folks on it before they purchase is similarly very time consuming. I really need to write some more detailed FAQs on the issues. There are a lot of anecdotal stories about the use or not of a race ECM on aftermarket exhaust configurations. On the race ECM vs stock ECM issue, I'll make the following points: 1) The top end of the race ECM map is quite a bit richer than the stock map, since the race muffler it was written for is a big power producer in the upper RPMs and needs that additional fuel. It is in the upper RPMs where the most potential for engine meltdown exists. I think that if you don't know exactly what you have going on there fueling wise, or have a custom map that has been designed for your configuration, there is benefit to erring on the rich side there. 2) The race and stock pipes have fairly similar low and low/mid response which is where the AFV is learned. The AFV will learn similarly for most configurations operated on either ECM. And since there will usually be a different low and low/mid response for other pipes operated on the stock or race map, the AFV can and will learn inconsistently. It is not at all uncommon for the AFV to learn below 100 (i.e. scaling open loop response LEANER) over some portion of the closed loop learn mode, and above 100 (i.e. scaling open loop response RICHER) for other portions of the closed loop learn mode. If it learns below 100, AND you don't have fueling margin in the upper RPMs, you will run lean where you can least afford to. 3) If you want to know for sure what you're up against, put your bike in the configuration that you're going to run with a stock ECM. Cruise the bike at several points in the AFV learn domain, read the AFV (VDSTS or digital tech required). Get the AFV to the lowest value you observe, disconnect the O2 sensor so no more learning is possible, and get a few dyno pulls with a wideband O2 sniffer monitoring AFR. If you don't see anything leaner than 14:1 in the upper RPMs, then you can ride the bike with confidence that you're not going to harm it over the long term. If you see leaner mixtures, THEN you can get a race ECM to fix it. 3) Butt dynos are notoriously inaccurate. There is less power difference between an optimized AFR and one that is 10% lean than many think. But there can be a fair amount of heat difference between an optimized or rich AFR vs a lean one, due to both fuel cooling and lubricity. You might not be able to feel the power difference, but the heat difference can be the difference between an engine that lasts a long time vs one that needs a new top end or worse. There is a strong correlation between heat and reliability. There is an old saying that goes something like "an engine never runs better than right before it blows up lean". I think the genesis of this is more in the two stroke realm, where lean mixtures (with less uncombustible oil in the intake charge) often burn better, but there is still some truth to it with 4 stroke engines as well. When you're asking all a motor can give in the top end, there is a LOT of heat generated, and that can be an engines demise. More about that here: http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/327 77/280768.html?1180573772#POST896767 If it wasn't for the AFV/adaptive nature of the ECM, it would be a lot easier to grok. The fact that the fueling is a moving target based on where the AFV is learned makes it more difficult to wrap your head around it. Al (Message edited by al_lighton on June 08, 2007) | ||
| Tintin74 |
AL, do you know the exact RPM learning range? I went through a couple of other threads and some users claimed theirs modified bikes had been running fine for thousands of miles. It makes perfect sense if they seldom rode their bikes outside of the learning range. My personal conclusions are that the race ECM bears it's name well. The way I'm using my bike now I probably would never see a difference between stock and race ECM. I'm not implying people who posted that they felt a difference lied or were under the placebo effect (well, maybe a little  ), just that they probably ride their bikes harder than I do. The good news for commuters like me is that we also probably can change our intake and exhaust bits without too much trouble, provided we remember the risks and avoid the top end of the rev counter. Another thought, for me the EFI design IS flawed because what we call here "learning" mode should be the default mode. Maybe the sensors (including ADC) or EFI chip just can't cope with higher RPMs. As I understand it, when the engine goes outside of the range where it can run in a closed loop, it then uses the on-chip map with a coefficient (probably it just has to make a single operation to get the ratio between real value and the map value). If we imagine a closed-loop throughout the engine revs, then we see that the over flaw is to use a constant air/fuel mixture ratio since the bike might fare better with a leaner mixture at lower revs. In my best dreams that's what the map should do, give the closed loop the target ratio. The way it is now, the map just tries to compensate for the closed-loop "failure". But like I wrote above, there probably is a physical limitation of some sort (well, maybe along with a monetary limitation). | ||
| Ds_tiger |
Lost- We have all read the "my bike will blow up" threads... if I don't remap/ race ecm my bike. Antectodatlly, it does not happen. If you have a drivability issue, (fuelling) look to solve it, but for a great number of people in the world (Buell and zillions of others riding non Buells) a swap to a pipe does not warrant DEFCON LEVEL 5 red alert to change an ECU My .02 worth Hmm, that seems cheap- ? | ||
| Al_lighton |
We have a pretty good guess where the AFV learning takes place. We don't know the exact algorithms and can't see all the set points, we only know by studying the behavior. So I can't say the exact numbers. But we know close enough to tune for stable AFV, it's not like there's 20 RPM rows and TP columns in the cruise range of the fuel tables. If you think "light load, steady state" (i.e, cruise) and monitor the engine TP and RPM profile over a cruise type ride, it's not hard to guess where it's learning in the map. Closed loop is good for steady state type driving, but for dynamic operation, you want to run off a map. How the map gets scaled for changed configurations/atmospheric conditions is different with different ECM types. I think the Buell closed loop learn method is pretty cool. Just to clarify based on a PM I got.. We charge $100 for the map. But you still need to purchase a $249 DirectLink key to unlock your ECM in order for the map to be pushed in. Al | ||
| Tintin74 |
Another thought: Buell isn't the first manufacturer to have sold a combination of OEM exhaust + ECM. Aprilia has been doing that for it's V60 twins for a while now. But again, that seems really race oriented to me. I guess another thing that adds to the confusion is how we assume some engines using the ECU are tweaked to pass worldwide emissions levels tests. This is largely alimented by the motorcycling press, which in turn points out that some manufacturer's new models' only purpose are to pass the stricter new regulations ("killing" in the process some trustworthy if a bit less coveted motorcycles like the Yamaha 600 YZFR that's no longer sold in Europe). Anyways, assuming the ECU and thus the maps are tweaked we think remapping will free our engines for STREET use. From what I read in this post, it's not always the case, at least not for XB Buells. Thanks Al for setting this straight. |
