PCII and CO adjustment

[BobQ]

So I have a PCIII on my 07 with the wally smoothness map installed, I also have a G3 throttle tube and the slack out of the cables, and the spring unwound. Now I still have some abruptness when coming off idle, or from a throttle closed position. So i played with the CO settings and found that if I added three points, the bike is wonderful! I am wondering if this is because the PCIII cant make any change until the throttle is opened, and the CO setting affects the idle? any way what are my potential problems running this way? clogged cat? anything else? It sure runs great now!

Thanks for any help.

Bob

 

[Fred W]

Look at the Wally map zero percent throttle column.

 

[900gc]

So I have a PCIII on my 07 with the wally smoothness map installed, I also have a G3 throttle tube and the slack out of the cables, and the spring unwound. Now I still have some abruptness when coming off idle, or from a throttle closed position. So i played with the CO settings and found that if I added three points, the bike is wonderful! I am wondering if this is because the PCIII cant make any change until the throttle is opened, and the CO setting affects the idle? any way what are my potential problems running this way? clogged cat? anything else? It sure runs great now!
Thanks for any help.

Bob

Don't worry about it. If it runs good, ride and enjoy. BTW is the idle set to 1100rpm? That can help too.

 

[ajpagosa]

So I have a PCIII on my 07 with the wally smoothness map installed, I also have a G3 throttle tube and the slack out of the cables, and the spring unwound. Now I still have some abruptness when coming off idle, or from a throttle closed position. So i played with the CO settings and found that if I added three points, the bike is wonderful! I am wondering if this is because the PCIII cant make any change until the throttle is opened, and the CO setting affects the idle? any way what are my potential problems running this way? clogged cat? anything else? It sure runs great now!
Thanks for any help.

Bob

Have you enabled the accel pump feature on the PCIII? A lot of problems WRT throttle went away when I did that. It is an add-on piece of software, you may have to do a firmware upgrade on your PCIII to run it.

 

[BobQ]

So, I ment it was a PCIII, but any way, turns out the PCIII is not working correctly, tech support remoted in to my computer and sure enough it is not doing what it is supposed to. I am going to send it in for repair. I will report back.

 

[BobQ]

Thanks, I was doing the firmware upgrade when everything went bad, I was only getting throttle responses on the top graph of 55% to 67%. The bike just started acting up. If they can not repair it I will have to replace it with a V I suppose.

 

[ajpagosa]

Bumping this thread for update from OP. Did you get your PCIII back? Do you remember what your original CO settings were?

I decided to go ahead and do the BJM mod on my 07 yesterday, it does seem to run smoother and stronger esp low end. Other mods are K&N, 2Br pipes, G3 tube, PCIII + accel pump enabled on standard Dynojet 2BR Vale base map (M419-002), O2 sensor eliminator plug. Oh also has the altitude fix ECU. I added 5 points each cylinder, original was 5, 18, 18, 21. So far so good. Was not able to do a long test ride due to incoming weather, will do some more riding today.

I had previously run the Smoothness map, and a number of other cut and paste maps I made myself out of smoothness and the various dynojet maps. Adding various points across the board to each cell etc. BTW I now believe unlike what Dynojet says in its literature, the numbers in each map cell are not % above or below stock fuel settings, they are % of duty cycle for the injector. Which is completely different. So for example if you added 2% to each cell you are not 2% richer than stock across he board, you are adding 2% duty cycle. If the stock map at that point was 2% DC, you're now 100% richer, not 2% richer.

Anyway I was never pleased with any of these tweaks, I think the smoothness map is about like base 002 map with accel pump enabled. Maybe the latter is a little better. CO is a large improvement on top of that, or so far it seems like it based on a 40 mile test ride. One of the things for my situation that may be different, I live at 7600 ft ASL and ride mostly above that, so all the fuel tables vs air density and throttle position are in a different region than most folks.

 

[ajpagosa]

Just an update here, was able to get out on a 200 mile ride yesterday. Bike runs hands down better than it ever has. Maybe I should have done the BJM first who knows. One thing has always bugged me, it has never felt like a 1300cc bike. Like there ought to be some massive TQ in here somewhere where is it? OK it is there now. I also have a beater bike, old carb version Honda Blackbird, now it begins to feel a bit like that, but with some low end grunt I'd expect from the extra displacement.

The roll in on throttle is much improved. It always felt before as if there were several different engines in there. Like now we are cruising, so we have the cruising engine. Now we are accelerating, so (etc). And there was a time delta between when you'd get these. Now it is all one big torquey motor.

May do some tweaking on this but for the first time in six years it feels like this thing is running close to its full potential. A lot of that was me mucking around with the PCIII (and the undiagnosed altitude fix). WhatEVer. It's all good now.

 

[900gc]

Just an update here, was able to get out on a 200 mile ride yesterday. Bike runs hands down better than it ever has. Maybe I should have done the BJM first who knows. One thing has always bugged me, it has never felt like a 1300cc bike. Like there ought to be some massive TQ in here somewhere where is it? OK it is there now. I also have a beater bike, old carb version Honda Blackbird, now it begins to feel a bit like that, but with some low end grunt I'd expect from the extra displacement.
The roll in on throttle is much improved. It always felt before as if there were several different engines in there. Like now we are cruising, so we have the cruising engine. Now we are accelerating, so (etc). And there was a time delta between when you'd get these. Now it is all one big torquey motor.

May do some tweaking on this but for the first time in six years it feels like this thing is running close to its full potential. A lot of that was me mucking around with the PCIII (and the undiagnosed altitude fix). WhatEVer. It's all good now.

Good to hear. At 7,000+ feet, you are losing quite a few ponies so any "found" ones would be a nice addition! I live at sea level and have never found the power wanting in any part of the range.

Calculator for altitude power loss:

https://www.wallaceracing.com/braking-hp.php

 

[ajpagosa]

That looks about right. It is a simple function of air density on a normally aspirated engine. @7500 ft you lose 22.5% of HP, @12,500 it is 37.5% etc. You just have to live with it, or get a turbo. Which I did for exactly this reason on the most recent car I got, but the bikes...

The other thing not commonly realized is heat exchangers (to air) also experience loss of performance, as the air is thinner it accepts less heat from something like a radiator. Also turbos make up some but not all of the power loss, as to achieve a specific level of absolute air density in the engine, it has to work harder than at sea level. EG 20 psi of boost at sea level is absolute 14.7 + 20 psi, but at altitude the turbo has to make up the difference below 14.7 ambient. To do that it has to work harder, spin faster, then it gets hot, the charge gets hotter (from more % total charge is from compression), and intercoolers + radiators have more heat to dissipate.

Not to mention lots of vertical climbing. Anyway would not move anywhere else, it's just there are issues to deal with at altitude. Back to bikes, big normally aspirated air cooled bikes tend to get really hot up here, esp dual sport type bikes riding slow on trails.

 

[BobQ]

Still waiting, power commander is running late due to busy season. I'm going with auto tune one way or another, I will report back when I hear.

 

[ajpagosa]

Still waiting, power commander is running late due to busy season. I'm going with auto tune one way or another, I will report back when I hear.

PCV with Wideband sensor is def better way to go.

 

[BobQ]

So I finaly got word the power comander iii is dead and not repairable, so a V with auto tune is on its way!

 

[ajpagosa]

So I finaly got word the power comander iii is dead and not repairable, so a V with auto tune is on its way!

Long live the PCV! Interested in your impressions once you get it installed. Have an older PCIII + wideband on another bike, and the difference is night and day. That bike's ECU has a very large closed loop operational area, so targeting a richer AFR using wideband has a big effect. FJR not so big a closed loop area, but my understanding of the PCV + autotune is all of the rpm vs load area is closed loop + wideband monitored under autotune. This is really the way to go, tweaking PCIII maps and so forth is not optimal.

 

[Fred W]

I hear you there. But unfortunately, Power Commander has not made a version of the PCV with the right connectors to use on a 1st gen, so we are stuck with the PC3.

 

[ajpagosa]

I hear you there. But unfortunately, Power Commander has not made a version of the PCV with the right connectors to use on a 1st gen, so we are stuck with the PC3.

Well that's frustrating. There is a product called an LC1, basically stand-alone wideband sensor. You can configure it with various data acq tools and then have your own on road dyno. Guy set one up on a r1150rt BMW and has gotten good results. Of course he could have just got a wideband PCIII (that is the only kind of PCIII you can get for the r1150 motor) but got to admire his skills. He spoofs the closed loop motronic ECU and its extensive supporting adaptation software into tracking whatever AFR he wants.

Anyway for the FJR you could do the spoofing on the limited area the FJR ECU is closed loop, and then track AFR's on the rest and tweak the PCIII maps to get close. Here is the manuf website on the LC1

https://www.innovatemotorsports.com/

 

[Fred W]

Interesting. I'll check into that idea. But no need to spoof the closed loop mode at all with the FJR. Just unplug the O2 sensor and voila! no more closed loop worries and no check engine codes.

 

[ajpagosa]

Interesting. I'll check into that idea. But no need to spoof the closed loop mode at all with the FJR. Just unplug the O2 sensor and voila! no more closed loop worries and no check engine codes.

I was not clear what I meant by spoofing. You can set whatever AFR target you want (say 13.8), the LC1 sends rich/lean signal (or whatever) to the ECU and then you're running closed loop at the richer setting using the wideband as real time feedback. So you'd leave the wideband sensor in to send a signal to the ECU. For open loop segments you monitor AFR's under various load conditions and then adjust PCIII map manually to hit target AFR's. I suppose if the closed loop section of the ECU is insignificant this is not very interesting.

On the BMW the closed loop section is most of the map (on an N-Alpha type controller) so spoofing the lambda sensor using the PCIII wideband to run richer all the time in closed loop is a big deal. Was trying to figure out a hack autotune for ya!

 

[Fred W]

Yes, that wouldn't work very well on the FJR. Its relatively simple ECU only accepts closed loop feedback in very limited and specific circumstances: at idle (of no consequence) and during steady cruise (light load and steady throttle). The rest of the time it runs open loop. The simplicity of the ECU is evidenced by the fact it doesn't even care if you unplug the O2 and just happily runs open loop all of the time.

Hence the need for a PCV (or equivalent) which would allow for wideband O2 sensor feedback at all times and conditions to optimize the F:A ratio.