I just finished the break in miles on my 124 build so it’s time to hit the dyno... or is it?

Since my dealer talked me into the ThunderMax tuner (wasn’t hard as I used it in my Road King and was happy) it should be tuning itself as I ride it. I emailed ThunderMax Support and they (impressively quickly) responded to say that I shouldn’t need to dyno tune the bike as it is tuning itself as I ride it and it will tune out all the flat spots in the tune over time automatically.

That got me thinking that it would be interesting to see the baseline vs the professional tuned results if I just road it for a few more hundred to a thousand miles before taking it to dyno just to let the ThunderMax fully tune itself and see what the difference turns out to be between the baseline runs and the runs post tune

I think I’m going to ping the dyno tuner and ask him what he thinks. Presumably the ThunderMax should just be making his job easier as I run it and there should be very little difference between the baseline runs and what he’s able to get out of it.

What do you all think?

 

I've had the Thundermax on 2 built 107 twin cams and always felt the Tmax left a lot on the table -- I could never get above 115hp, but felt with the components used I should be in the 120's. The biggest failings I see with the Tmax is that it doesn't autotune the timing, and that it doesn't use the antiknock retard capability of the stock ECM. I had the TC's on the dyno but never dyno tuned -- other than adjusting the timing what can the tuner do? Anything else he changes will be continuously retuned by the Tmax. Also not alot of canned maps available for high performance builds, but Tmax support claims that doesn't matter -- "it'll adjust". In my opinion the Tmax is best siuted to stock or mildly tuned bikes - Stage 1 or 2 at best..

When I built my M8 124 I went with the Power Vision and never looked back.

Good luck with the Tmax, but you should have gone with the PV.

 

The TMax also disables EITMS which I thought was odd and didn’t know until after. I thought about the Power Vision and perhaps I should have gone with it, but I guess I’ll see what I get out of the TMax since it’s in. If I’m not happy, I have the stock ECM to put back in and I can always buy a Power Vision I guess.

 

I'm a fan of the get it dyno'd club. After spending a couple grand on motor work I want know I'm getting my money's worth. I know in sometimes an auto tune is good enough but I'd never be able to sleep at night thinking I left something on the table. I would like to see the results if you did the dyno after the auto tune. I've been threatening to get the tmax but just can't get past my OCD.

 

Oh I’m definitely getting it dyno’d. The only question is whether I do it now and have the tuner dialed in by the professional OR wait to let the tuner do it’s thing and see how that changes the baseline numbers. I’ll post the sheet here either way.

 

It all depends on what you want...
I ran a TM for 6 years on my 2011 RGU. Installed it with my stage 1, no dyno tune. Went to a stage 2, no dyno tune, just loaded a new base map and let the the TM do it's thing. The bike always ran great.
Do I think the TM may have left some HP on the table? Oh yeah, sure it did, but the bike ran so good at all speeds and loads that I just did not care.
If you want want to wring every last bit out of your build then nothing beats a GOOD dyno tune done on GOOD equipment by a GOOD tuner. If you don't get a GOOD dyno tune (how many bad tunes have we seen on this forum?) then you are just throwing away your money....

 

I would speak with the person tuning the bike and ignore 99% of the advice you get here as 99% of the advice you get here isn't from professional tuners. I'm a tmax user and like it, it's worked great for me. I've never seen anybody riding around on a dyno sheet. Do a search in this forum for ping and you'll get plenty of hits and most of those threads will be on stock bikes. If the tune is correct you don't need knock sensors.