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Thread: Underpowered/too lean?

  1. #1
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    Underpowered/too lean?

    Hey all! So my journey with Buells continues! The bike is treating me well and I am having fun getting used to its riding characteristics coming from a 2010 zx6r. I've been reading all over of people pulling power wheelies with ease through 1st and 2nd. My xb pulls pretty nice, but its definitely not doing any power wheelies. The previous owner had installed a Hawk exhaust and K&N filter which is probably causing the bike to run pretty lean and probably consequently under powered. Now, the only "tuning" I've ever really messed with was installing power commander modules and race maps onto 600cc bikes, which has always had pretty good results. I've been reading tuning threads on the xb forum for a few days now and have been exposed to a lot of great information regarding wide band O2 sensors, O2 voltages, 14.7 AFR, ECM corrections, etc. Also, I've read up on burning a custom eeprom with ECMDroid. This is an option I've been looking at doing through the Buelltooth dongle, but I also read that the ECM will try to correct the values to achieve 14.7 AFR again so its basically worthless..

    Question is, what's my best option to richen up the bike and retrieve some potential power gains? I know the Hawk isn't a "race"muffler, but I'm sure the higher flows of the hawk and filter can be exploited with a "proper" tune.

    Sorry for adding to the number of tuning threads, but everything I read just left me wondering more what the best option would be for power gain vs. ease of application.

    Thanks!

  2. #2
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    I'm not very knowledgeable with tuning, that being said, did you use the Buelltooth to take it out of closed loop ?

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    No, it's still reading the O2 sensor

  4. #4
    Senior Member Cooter's Avatar
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    Putting a better tune onto your bikes ECM will NOT automatically go back to original. Seems like a lot of effort for people to do on these 1000's of threads if that was true, right?

    To put it very simply:
    The ECM uses the O2 sensor to adjust the fuel mix to stoic (14.7:1 AFR) in closed loop only. Closed loop is "part throttle cruise". You want that. It is the most efficient, clean burning, cool, way for the bike to run. So when you are just cruising around, theres no need to dump a bunch of gas in it.

    You want more power on acceleration. That is called "open loop" operation. When you twist the throttle, the ECM goes into Open Loop (OL) and no longer reads from the O2 sensor to adjust the fuel mix to stoic. In OL, the ECM reads off the "fuel map" that was programmed at the factory using stock parts.

    Once you have modded the stock engine to breath better with a better air filter and exhaust, that stock factory fuel map needs to be adjusted (enriched) to compensate for what you did. Installing a new fuel map (from a place like Buelltooth) is what makes this change. It is the best option for you and the end result of what the Power Commanders try to do, but without all the restrictions they have.

    If you are unsure of the process that is laid out very simply on the Buelltooth site, don't forget you have the option of IDSpeed.com

    Even a tired XB9 will power wheelie in 1st

  5. #5
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    Perfect, that's exactly what I was unsure about! There was a lot of information I read through that didn't make 100% sense to me and that's essentially the biggest question I had. Thanks for that info Cooter!!

  6. #6
    Senior Member d_adams's Avatar
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    Side note, you have no idea what it's actually doing and you're taking someone else's word for it that it's running at the correct air/fuel ratio *UNLESS* you go to the trouble of installing a wideband sensor (or 2, my preferred method) and have either the capability of logging the info/data for playback and adjustment or a live display showing it. Want it to run right? Wideband or a 4 (or 5) gas analyzer. Pretty much everything else is a wild a s s guess.

    And the option of IDSpeed.com is actually www.idspd.com

  7. #7
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    I agree. But if there is a performance gain and the bike still runs well, then I would assume the AFR should be better than before, correct?

  8. #8
    Senior Member marcel's Avatar
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    @d_adams, Is a wideband O2 sensor also better if you are logging a ride in ECMdroid to adjust the map? and If so, is a Wideband sensor plug and play? and if that is so, where do I find one? (Buell XB9s 2003)

  9. #9
    Senior Member Cooter's Avatar
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    Yes, tremendously better. A NB sensor only knows rich/lean. A WB sensor knows how much rich/lean. Since you have the O2 disabled (OL operation only during datalogging) so the ECM won't self-adjust, the datalog you put into MLV will be much more detailed with a WB O2 sensor.
    MLV will know how much to adjust that part of the map. Not just up or down.

    The WB sensor screws into the same hole the NB came from and the controller should fit anywhere under the seat. You can use the WB sensor for normal operation after datalogging because the controller should have a NB emulator built in.

    The internet

    (all of these answers are very simplified FYI)

  10. #10
    I disagree. The ECM does not care about the real deviation from stoich in CL, it cares about what it thinks the deviation is. No one knows, how this is computed from the NB O2 voltage, and if the ECM indicates a 10% offset, it's not said, that the mixture is 10% off.



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