A member "Shredding rubber" posted in another post of a guy asking about tuners for a stage 1 because his bike pop's on deceleration, in part "Shredding rubber" wrote:

"It will only sputter for a short time while the ecu re-learns and compensates for the extra air OR you can unplug the battery and let it clear the ecu learned memory. This forces the ecu to start over. It will compensate for the extra air faster,and negate the need for a tuner altogether. Ride the bike for a week and all the sputtering and popping will go away as the ecu learns"

First off, is this true? I was under the understanding that a tuner is needed after a stage 1 because the ecm "Can't learn" as it runs on a preinstalled "Map" or is that wrong and that the computer will compensate for the new air being sucked in and more open exhaust totally eliminating the need for a tuner for a stage 1 upgrade??

 

The ecu can learn to a point. From the factory these bikes run lean and will continue to do so with no intervention. Your engine is basically a big air pump that takes air in and lets air out. If you increase the amount of air going in and out, you need more fuel. For a Stage 1 bike, the XiED's are a great product that will get you most of the power of a tuner for a fraction of the cost. They basically intercept the signal from the oxygen sensor and tell the ecu that the bike is lean, so it compensates by richening the mixture. There are different versions depending on what year of bike you have. The 2012-2013 bikes like the XiED's which let the bike run at 13.8:1 air fuel when you are cruising. This lowers the engine temp also. If you plan on adding cams or doing headwork later down the road, you may want to go ahead with a full tuner if you can afford it. Even if you buy the XiED's for now, you will get at least half of your $100 back when you sell them to somebody else.

The Power Vision is something you can learn to do yourself and will grow with the mods you do to the bike. Personally, I came off of 1000cc-1300cc sportbikes and our Sporty's aren't fast at all. For me to chase a couple of HP is pointless. I went with Khrome Werks slip on mufflers and a Vance and Hines V02 air cleaner. With the XiED's my bike runs great and has a nice tan color to the plugs indicating it's running good and not lean. When my bike is cold I get a bit of decel popping, but that goes away when fully warmed up. On my last 150 mile road trip I averaged 47mpg cruising at 65-75mp.

Dk sells the XiED, ViED, X14iED: http://www.dkcustomproducts.com/EFI-Tuners_c74.htm

Fuel Moto sells the Power Vision: http://www.fuelmotousa.com/

 

Some of the newer HD systems utilize a narrow band O2 sensor and have the ability to slightly modify the Air Fuel Ratio (AFR) trying to maintain the stock AFR as programmed from the MOCO. They are limited by how much they can adjust and again try to maintain the already lean AFR. To truly auto adjust, you need wide band O2 sensors and a tuner that will work with them which is why anyone getting beyond Stage 1 will seek the tuiner of their choice.

I have an '03 that does not have any O2 sensors so use the Dynojet Power Commander USB III for mapping my fuel and timing

I have a '12 that does have the narrow band O2 sensors and choose not to use them and map my fuel and timing with a Dunojet Power Commander IV. I have installeed V&H Power Duals with 18 mm bungs so if I want later I can add the Dynojet Autotune which comes with 18mm wide band O2 sensors.

 

The shop that tuned my bike told me exactly what I told you. They went as far to say that the stage one download is basically a scam because all it foes is raise rev limit,and advances timing in the new rpms available.
I before I got my bike done I had bad decel pop,surging. I had a fuel pak. I had v&h slip ons and an open element breather. The shop told me to ditch the fuel pak and discharge the system,so I did. Wouldn't you know it the bike had the same power but the decel pop was lessened.So I took it in to the shop. A/F was normal except at wot,where it was slightly lean(13.2) They told me to bring it back on Saturday and he guaranteed it would be within normal parameters. By the weekend the bike was running better than when I
bought it. So I brought it in. At wot it had adjusted itself to 12.3/1 which they claimed was normal.
So my stage 1 bike worked itself out within a week to normal parameters. So you guys can spend all the money you want chasing a problem that doesn't exists. When I mentioned the lean condition from Harley they laughed. Told me it's a money grab and they do not recommend richening the mix at all,unless a customer asks for it.
Not only that but apparently that rich mixture leads to excessive carbon build up in the combustion chambers and leads to pinging on high octane. Apparently this "lean" problem burns the fuel better and hotter,which keeps the carbon build up issue at bay.
Sure does make you wonder how guys with completely stock bikes have none of these ping issues and their bikes are hitting 100000 miles.
Lean my ***. No it's not as rich as the older bikes but it's a non issue. Ever heard of bearing skate.
Many men are fooled into believing they will destroy their bikes without a tuner or fuel management when in practice it's just not happening. My bikes a/f

 

Is 12.3/1 WOT normal, seems to me it is rich?

For gasoline fuel, the stoichiometric air–fuel mixture is approximately 14.7; i.e. for every one gram of fuel, 14.7 grams of air are required (the fuel oxydation reaction is: 25/2 O2 + C8H18 -> 8 CO2 + 9 H2O). Any mixture less than 14.7 to 1 is considered to be a rich mixture; any more than 14.7 to 1 is a lean mixture – given perfect (ideal) "test" fuel (gasoline consisting of solely n-heptane and iso-octane). In reality, most fuels consist of a combination of heptane, octane, a handful of other alkanes, plus additives including detergents, and possibly oxygenators such as MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether) or ethanol/methanol. These compounds all alter the stoichiometric ratio, with most of the additives pushing the ratio downward (oxygenators bring extra oxygen to the combustion event in liquid form that is released at time of combustions; for MTBE-laden fuel, a stoichiometric ratio can be as low as 14.1:1).

 

I challenge ANYONE to offer valid, technical proof of the depth of the Delphi ECM's ability to learn and adapt. You will likely never encounter a single soul who can talk with any expertise AT ALL on the "adaptive" nature of the Delphi ECM. There are perhaps two sentences in all the manuals and literature I've been able to accumulate on the subject. I've talked to Delphi who has declined to offer any technical data on the issue, and the folks on various VROD forums (who are crazy about tuning bikes) don't know either, and can offer no proof.

Supposedly there is some learning ability, but anyone who uses this as their justification as to why some tuner is or is not warranted is TALKING OUT OF THEIR *** and should be ignored. Ignore the "adaptive" learning ability and purchase a tuner as if there was none.

I'm DYING for someone to prove me wrong here.

 

Nah, 12.3:1 is not rich. Here is the AFR table for the injected 1200 stage 1.... This, btw is the EPA approved table, a good dyno guy will drop that AFR down in several spots.

Attachment 624548

 

Anyone who has taken even a half hour to understand how and why the EFI system that HD uses works would never, ever state any of the things you just did. Your dealer doesn't even know what the stage 1 dl covers... I've proved that here several times with comparisons of the two downloads.

 

+1 - It's just not possible for the ECM, or any tuner for that matter, to "learn" across the entire RPM/kPa spectrum using narrow band O2 sensors.

 

Right. With no feedback mechanism whatsoever for measuring AFR, and the only feedback at all being about knock/detonation at the spark plug (which IIRC is disabled on the sporty anyway as a cost savings measure) - there is zero way for the AFR to be detected in open loop, and the AFR table is used as a target only. If the target is missed - oopsie, my bad. Granted it is a complicated set of data that is used to try to hit that target, but it's a target with zero feedback. Tell me how that's going to be a learning enviornment. Assume I'm a total dummy and please educate me.

Additionally, there are SO many variables in a daily riding environment that it is simply impossible to ascribe a change in performance to any one change, especially when it's totally subjective with no data to prove one way or another. Gasoline content, ethanol, water in the gas, ambient air temp, air pressure, even humidity all can change the way a bike performs from one day, or one week to another. The ECM tries to adjust for air temp and pressure, but it's far from perfect. To say my bike "learned" on its OWN with no proof is simply ignorant.