TechnoResearch tuning??

[teknition]

Thanks Bob, I will have a look. I've been busy building the engine and other upgrades so I haven't had a chance to go thru the PV manual yet.

[Don D]

I would have to slightly disagree about the PV timing monitoring and suggested adjustments. What they are using for data is spark knock data. That will keep your motor safe but often times and most of the time is not the same as maximum brake torque values at any speed or load. There is a treasure trove of power and drivability to be found if you give a motor what it wants not what it spits out as what it hates.

[aswracing]

I would have to slightly disagree about the PV timing monitoring and suggested adjustments. What they are using for data is spark knock data. That will keep your motor safe but often times and most of the time is not the same as maximum brake torque values at any speed or load. There is a treasure trove of power and drivability to be found if you give a motor what it wants not what it spits out as what it hates.

This is exactly right. I often find max power well before the threshold of knock or ping.

[hrdtail78]

That is the rub, isn't it.  These manufacture misguide with labels like auto tune and target tune when they are not.  With the standard tuning device in this industry.  You have 30 plus tables to help tune a bike.  These auto programs address 3.  Target, and FRT, RR VE and that is it.  They help map VE's to target but don't even address what is best target.  My job is still secure.  lol

My suggestion on straightening your timing on the street.  You have to come up with a way to validate your changes.  The way I know to do that is by time from point a to b.  Timing changes that lowers this time and doesn't show spark activity are good.  Changes that make the time longer are bad.  Do this for 30% tp and up.  Interpolate the data back to kpa and make changes in appropriate cells.  Sounds more than it is because you will see that 40 on up will be at 100kpa pretty quickly and the kpa will drop as rpm goes up.  Idle can be done by smoothness and decel can be pretty high numbers.  Then blend entire table from there.  This should get you pretty close.  Don't forget to check your VE mapping to target when finished.

[teknition]

That is the rub, isn't it.  These manufacture misguide with labels like auto tune and target tune when they are not.  With the standard tuning device in this industry.  You have 30 plus tables to help tune a bike.  These auto programs address 3.  Target, and FRT, RR VE and that is it.  They help map VE's to target but don't even address what is best target.  My job is still secure.  lol

My suggestion on straightening your timing on the street.  You have to come up with a way to validate your changes.  The way I know to do that is by time from point a to b.  Timing changes that lowers this time and doesn't show spark activity are good.  Changes that make the time longer are bad.  Do this for 30% tp and up.  Interpolate the data back to kpa and make changes in appropriate cells.  Sounds more than it is because you will see that 40 on up will be at 100kpa pretty quickly and the kpa will drop as rpm goes up.  Idle can be done by smoothness and decel can be pretty high numbers.  Then blend entire table from there.  This should get you pretty close.  Don't forget to check your VE mapping to target when finished.

I'm following you on most of what you said but you lost me a little at the part that is highlighted. I've been a licensed mechanic for 30 plus years and when I started out, "tuning" was a fuel filter, points, condenser, plugs, wires, and a timing light. I'm not unfamiliar with Fuel trim, block learn, integrator, o2 voltages, and ecu's but most of the time I am paying attention to any of those, I am chasing down a check engine light or drivability problem. This is my first go at actually adjusting fuel/spark etc. with a tuner.

I made a bunch of progress today and should be ready to heat cycle this engine tomorrow at some point. Pretty much all I have left to do now is run the wiring for the PV/TT and throw the peripherals (saddle bags, seat etc.) back on the bike.

Thanks to everyone posting. You guys helping me out is appreciated.

[HV]

  Hats off the the guys working this thread ....well done and no BS  just real good information ...Refreshing to see

[hrdtail78]

That is the rub, isn't it.  These manufacture misguide with labels like auto tune and target tune when they are not.  With the standard tuning device in this industry.  You have 30 plus tables to help tune a bike.  These auto programs address 3.  Target, and FRT, RR VE and that is it.  They help map VE's to target but don't even address what is best target.  My job is still secure.  lol

My suggestion on straightening your timing on the street.  You have to come up with a way to validate your changes.  The way I know to do that is by time from point a to b.  Timing changes that lowers this time and doesn't show spark activity are good.  Changes that make the time longer are bad.  Do this for 30% tp and up.  Interpolate the data back to kpa and make changes in appropriate cells.  Sounds more than it is because you will see that 40 on up will be at 100kpa pretty quickly and the kpa will drop as rpm goes up.  Idle can be done by smoothness and decel can be pretty high numbers.  Then blend entire table from there.  This should get you pretty close.  Don't forget to check your VE mapping to target when finished.

I'm following you on most of what you said but you lost me a little at the part that is highlighted. I've been a licensed mechanic for 30 plus years and when I started out, "tuning" was a fuel filter, points, condenser, plugs, wires, and a timing light. I'm not unfamiliar with Fuel trim, block learn, integrator, o2 voltages, and ecu's but most of the time I am paying attention to any of those, I am chasing down a check engine light or drivability problem. This is my first go at actually adjusting fuel/spark etc. with a tuner.

I made a bunch of progress today and should be ready to heat cycle this engine tomorrow at some point. Pretty much all I have left to do now is run the wiring for the PV/TT and throw the peripherals (saddle bags, seat etc.) back on the bike.

Thanks to everyone posting. You guys helping me out is appreciated.

Spark tables are KPA over rpm.  100 kpa mean that you are getting atmosphere pressure into your engine.  At 40% TP at 2000rpm's.  The throttle blade is open enough to allow enough air in to achieve 100kpa.  BUT as rpm rise's the throttle blade being at 40 isn't enough to feed the engine 100% the air it can use.  Meaning at 40%.  You will see 100kpa but as rpm climbs to say 3500rpm's you might only see 90kpa and it will continue to go down as rpm climbs.  This means that since KPA is a moving target.  It will be very hard to hold a kpa target even on a dyno and near impossible on the street.  Meaning that if you are trying to hold 80kpa.  As the rpm's go up you slowly open throttle to maintain 80kpa.  TPS is an easier target to keep since you basically get the opening % you want and just hold the throttle steady.  Looking at the data recorded.  The KPA needs to be followed to make sure your timing changes are in the correct spot on the table.

[Don D]

Learned the theory with a 3310 holley, vacuum secondary carb., on a modified LS6 Chevy in my GTO. Because the carburetor was too small the secondaries were wide open until they started to shut down near the traps. Felt like a governor. Not immediately evident and lots of side trips with fuel delivery, then there was the Aha moment.

That said how can there be any real time accurate tuning being done at anything other than sea level as a baseline? Sampling cells at over the maximum achievable KPA can't happen.  For example at 6000 ft altitude in "theory" you can only hit 87 KPA, YMMV.

[teknition]

I have read in the help section of WinPV that autotune can use the ECM's knock control to remove timing/adjust spark advance from areas of the calibration where knock is present, but can only remove timing advance.

WinPV says to address fuel tuning first and and then work on ignition timing separately afterwards.
It says that in the settings area of autotune I can set Max VE Learn to 0 and Max Spark Learn to 10 and by doing this, it will disable autotune's ability to change fuel, but allow it to monitor, record, and eventually correct spark advance based on knock activity.

Does this actually work? Can I tune my timing by advancing it in increments until knock is sensed and watch how much auto tune removes then manually adjust it to optimized timing?

[Coyote]

Does this actually work? Can I tune my timing by advancing it in increments until knock is sensed and watch how much auto tune removes then manually adjust it to optimized timing?

IME having autotune remove timing will not be successful. You can do logs and look at it and get closer though. But it's a manual process.

[teknition]

I'm not above reading and learning. Can someone point me to a manual or other source that explains what needs to be done to tune my bike? The PV information I have found is lacking other than how to do an auto tune session.

[Coyote]

I'm not above reading and learning. Can someone point me to a manual or other source that explains what needs to be done to tune my bike? The PV information I have found is lacking other than how to do an auto tune session.

Yeah, take it to a tuner bud.

[teknition]

If that was easy, it would have done it already. Unlike most that try self tuning, cost of the tune was not the issue. I have already looked down that road before buying the TT upgrade. Tuners must be getting their knowledge from somewhere, they don't just wake up one day and know how to tune.

[kd]

Try searching "Harley tuners" in your area.  I didn't spend a lot of time but I found a few that are WAY closer than many of us have access to and some have that I saw have good reviews. It's tougher with the border closed but they are out there.  One guy I saw has a mobile dyno.

[Don D]

Learned the theory with a 3310 holley, vacuum secondary carb., on a modified LS6 Chevy in my GTO. Because the carburetor was too small the secondaries were wide open until they started to shut down near the traps. Felt like a governor. Not immediately evident and lots of side trips with fuel delivery, then there was the Aha moment.

That said how can there be any real time accurate tuning being done at anything other than sea level as a baseline? Sampling cells at over the maximum achievable KPA can't happen.  For example at 6000 ft altitude in "theory" you can only hit 87 KPA, YMMV.

By the way what I illustrated will not only happen at high altitude but if the throttle body is too small to support the airflow at maximum demand, not able to reach 100kpa. How do tuners at altitude deal with this?

[kd]

Do you mean the hardware or the individual doing the tuning?  Before tuning some parameters are entered into the program and I believe one of those is altitude.  As we all know, the hardware has correction (ie. SAE) for a number of variables.  I also would be interested in hearing a more fulsome answer to your question.

[Don D]

The flash tuners rely on sampling cells to correct the VEs first. If you physically cannot hit the highest MAP pressure cells how can a baseline be established?.

[Coyote]

If you are tuning at elevation,  the right most column or two become a guessing game. Well, extrapolation is a nicer description.

[Coyote]

If that was easy, it would have done it already. Unlike most that try self tuning, cost of the tune was not the issue. I have already looked down that road before buying the TT upgrade. Tuners must be getting their knowledge from somewhere, they don't just wake up one day and know how to tune.

There are classes for this. DynoJet has some I believe. Oasis Cycles teaches one for the Techno Research products which is one of the ones I took. Here's a LINK to that one.

[teknition]

I case anyone stumbles into this thread looking for some useful information, here is some that I have found.

https://www.dynojet.com/downloads/power-vision-for-harley-davidson/

[hrdtail78]

If that was easy, it would have done it already. Unlike most that try self tuning, cost of the tune was not the issue. I have already looked down that road before buying the TT upgrade. Tuners must be getting their knowledge from somewhere, they don't just wake up one day and know how to tune.

No we just didn't wake up some day.  To really understand tuning.  It takes years.  I suggest you ask yourself a couple of questions.  Do you want to learn to tune or do you want to learn the program to tune your bike.  If you want to learn how to tune.  Throw all the auto out the window.  Use equipment to log data and use that data to make a calibration by hand.  I suggest reading all of TTS's documentation including all the tuning comments in the MasterTune program.  There is a TTS for dummies out there that is pretty good.  Also read all documentation for the rest of the tuning devices on the market.  Pay for a weeks class.  Great starting point for me and I also have given a couple.  Just don't stick with our industry.  HP Tuner has great forums along with EFI Live.  Yellow Bullet is a great forum that has some knowledgeable guys.  EFI University, HP University and Evans Performance Academy all have great paid knowledge.  Learn about long term and short term fuel and spark trims.  Learn about wall wetting.  Realize some tables are multipliers and some are direct pulse width.  Learn about the different modes the Delphi ECM run with.  I have been lucky enough to meet and know people that are delphi engineers and people that have wrote in the code for the Delphi and HDDelphi system.  I have notebooks full of notes from hours of phone conversations.  I have no idea on what I have spent on equipment and knowledge, but since I bought my dyno 13 years ago.  It diffidently has been a relentless pursuit of perfection, because it is just a PLC.

So, I guess the second question is.  How much you will to put into it to really learn it?  The Vision is a tuning unit.  Some like the features and how it works but most will tell you that it isn't ideal for spark.  Some use it only as a device to flash and use other programs and equipment to collect and interpret data.  Many ways around the barn.

My suggestion is to get a pro tune.  I am biased and a pro tuner.  Next I would suggest learning the program you have to the best of your ability.  Map your VE's.  Get your starting line out.  Address decel popping.  Then look at timing and if you have questions.  Come back and address them then.  Baby step it.  By then you should be better familiar with the program and sending cals to computer or ECM.  Base of some knowledge so to speak and knowledge always bring more intelligent questions.

[teknition]

Thanks for the thorough reply hrdtail78.

I'm not looking to be a Professional tuner and therefore not looking to go to a tuning school for a week, I'm looking to tune my one bike with the PV/TT tools I have. I am more than willing to spend the time and effort it takes to learn the program and was just asking for someone to point me towards some better information than the few U-tube video's that show you how to enable auto tune and load the resulting map into the ECU. The info in the link I posted is very useful and the type of info I am looking for. Your suggestion to look at other tuner manufacturers sites is very helpful and something I hadn't really considered I will definitely pursue those avenues.

I am looking for answers to what I think are fairly basic questions to tell me if I am on the correct path after the 3 or 4 auto tune sessions such as:

-at a steady state of cruise doing 45-50 mph, the front VE is at 96.5% and the rear is at 85.5%, is that normal? When accelerating, VE goes above 110%, normal?

-same cruise state as above, spark knock front and rear are at 0%. When accelerating, spark knock will go up to 1.00 - 2.00 is this normal? If so, at what point would it be a concern?

-same cruise state as above, WBO2 front it at 14.50, rear is at 14.10 Should they be the close to the same? I would think so. Is this caused by the VE F/R being 11% apart? What should the expected value be?

[kd]

Hardtail's advice about downloading and reading the TTS (Master Tune) manuals is excellent.  There is a series of files that you will need to save. It starts out with orientation of the terms and order of procedures and how they effect each other during the tuning process.  The TTS is one of the more complete tuning devices and will hit on what you need, as said, the effect of changes on other aspects or cells of the tune so you can go there and see the changes if any, what should be open loop or closed loop for best all around use and much more. 

I have all of the TTS documents on my desk top and occasionally make sure I have downloaded any updates so the info is current. I also use the TTS tuner device. Where we are possibly different is I am tuning a high performance engine and prefer to have an expert do that. To me, it is more than well worth the cost as I am heavily invested at this point.  I do also like to be able to discuss (with the tuner) what is going on with the tune so I can recognize issues (if any) that may appear further down the road so I don't cause any engine mechanical damage.  So far, that is the extent of my use of the manuals but still found it worthwhile to learn what I could. That should be one of your major concerns.  Tuning in the dark so to speak can cause you to hit parameters from changes made that will quickly kill an engine. Again, the TTS manuals are well written and very useful no matter which device you are using.

[Don D]

I am not a tuner but I have read the books and know some tuners and some tooners.
The better of them know how to use trial and error plus draw on experience to give the engine what it needs to perform the best and stay safe. This is not a forum consensus opinion but based on data acquisition from testing. It is a method contrary from the way students are taught at Dynojet. They are shown how to correct VEs, told what are the best AFRs, and instructed to leave timing alone unless there are issues. I call this recipe tuning. A computer sauvey end user can accomplish that on the road for the most part.  When you pay a tuner to get the bike tuned they should be able to optimize not just set the values. They should give the engine what it wants not take away what it hates and call it good. At the end of the day it will run good, stay cooler, have no rough spots and have great driveability. Plus get acceptable mileage, assuming sensible riding habits. With that same tune the motor lives a long happy life, does not build a lot of carbon or contaminate the oil prematurely.

[hrdtail78]

I am looking for answers to what I think are fairly basic questions to tell me if I am on the correct path after the 3 or 4 auto tune sessions such as:

-at a steady state of cruise doing 45-50 mph, the front VE is at 96.5% and the rear is at 85.5%, is that normal? When accelerating, VE goes above 110%, normal?

-same cruise state as above, spark knock front and rear are at 0%. When accelerating, spark knock will go up to 1.00 - 2.00 is this normal? If so, at what point would it be a concern?

-same cruise state as above, WBO2 front it at 14.50, rear is at 14.10 Should they be the close to the same? I would think so. Is this caused by the VE F/R being 11% apart? What should the expected value be?

Give me year and model.  Are your VE's set up as KPA or TPS?  BUT I don't worry if VE's match front and rear.  Injectors aren't matched, header pipe is different front to rear, does it have a 90 degree intake, and its a wobble fire engine that shares fuel with a shared plenum.   You also have to give what your target AFR is.  If you are using pro tune.  It sets your target across the board and IIRC lowers timing 2 points.  If your target is 13.5.  Your VE's aren't mapped correctly yet.