All this talk about maps and auto tuners and plug and play....have we forgotten that there are LOTS of carbed bikes out there that this stuff dosent work on. Those of us with carbs will keep the dynos in business for a long time coming.
DOWN WITH EFI, CARBS FOR LIFE! lol
John

 

It won't be too much longer before carbed bikes become classics. Most Carbed bike owners have made all the upgrades they are likely to make many moons ago therefore there's hardly a need for dyno tuning. I'm sure some carbed bikes get upgraded when they change owners but my guess is that they are limited in #. Check you're local dyno owner and my guess is that less than 10% of the bikes getting dynoed each year are carbed. And that # is probably getting smaller every year.

 

+1 for dyno tuning.

 

I personally don't care for dyno tuning for two reasons. 1. Hard to find a really good dyno operator, 2. a dyno runs my engine much harder than I do. I just don't like to rev or load my engine like a dyno does.
I use a V&H Fuelpak on my '08 and a Power Commander on my '06. I am a bit partial to the PCIII because of the support available from Fuel Moto. My 2 cents.

 

As Harleytuner said earlier, the PV will be compatible with the AT-100 units to tune the entire AFR range. It won't be a true auto-tune process, but as I understand it you'll be able to have AT establish trim values and those tables can be applied to the ECM base map at a time when the bike is not running.

 

I agree on all counts. The closest verifiably competent tuner in this area is 70 miles away, and I also don't like the idea of thrashing the motor repeatedly to the extent required for a dyno-tune. Besides, I feel that there are other means to establish a good tune that will get me very close. I also have relied on Fuel Moto for my maps and to date I haven't been disappointed. After adding Auto-Tune 18 months ago I can see how close their maps really are by the trims that are created.

 

I hear this all the time and I don't get it. If your bike can't handle a few quick blips to the rev limiter then it isn't a very good build to begin with. (My opinion). The people running auto tune, V-tune or smart tune are doing the same thing only on te road in an uncontrolable environment. On the dyno we can monitor what is going on with the bike, not to mention it's not being run without a tune for very long for the purpose of data gathering. I understand you start with "close MAPS" from fuel moto so this might not relate to you as much, but there are people out there that don't have starting MAPS anywhere near their build and the first thing they do is head out on a half hour data run with a MAP that isn't correct for their bike. I've changed cams 3 times this summer, full tune everytime plus when it was built last year. That's 4 tunes in a year. Changing cams again this winter. Of all the In over 10 years on both our dynos we've only ever had 1 motor failure, and it was a part failure that would've happened on the street regardles of the dyno. I'll start a thread asking members to tell there dyno horror stories and see what we come up with. I'm sure there's a few, but probably not many.

 

I think it would be better to lose the motor on a dyno then in the middle of no where. I agree a good dyno tech will not cause an issue that was not already there just waiting to happen. Maybe a ham bone which I suppose there are some out there might do some harm.

 

On my 2002 Fatboy I tried canned maps, custom maps from similar builds, so forth and so on. The bike never ran right.
Like someone said above. No two motors are identical. One map will not work the same on two similar motors. Just ain't gonna happen.
I put my 1K miles on my Road King with a canned map. The bike was running hot and popping. Trailered my bike up to JD's Cycle Works and let Dave tune it. Yeah, it cost a few bucks and it was a haul, but now I have a great running bike. If my internally stock 103 can't take a few pulls on a Dyno by someone who knows what they are doing, how am I supposed to trust it going 70+ mph on the Hwy?
I didn't do it for more power, I just wanted my bike to run right. And now it does.
If you all want to waste your time playing with Auto-Tune, Smart-Tune, or Looney Tunes, go ahead. While you're doing that, I'll be riding.

 

As long as your engine is broke in, in good condition, properly lubed and warmed up, it can handle the high revs required for a dyno tune nooo problem. Just don't make a habbit of running it like that. I also like the idea of a bike/setup specific tune vs a generic map.