Tuning

To be able to get the most from the engine it has to be set up properly. To set up the fuel injection properly you will need special tools. The problem with all new Ducatis are that they are using the new latest and greatest super duper computer ECU 5,9. It is a very small box with a lot of things inside and nothing on the out side. It has no replaceable chip and no external adjustments at all. You can not even adjust the idle fuel on it. To adjust the idle fuel or do any trouble shooting you need a special tool. In Ducati language you need a Mathesis. This is Ducatis official tool for fuel injection I guess that Ducatis plan is that as soon as you do something to your bike it has to go to a “Ducati approved garage”.  Ducati will make more money and the none official Ducati tuners that exists should close down. It must be very annoying for Ducati that the external tuners tune the bikes better that the factory and the official shops are capable of doing. As I don’t like this and I want to do it my self I had an idée that I should get some tools. The first tuning tool I got was delivered by Santa Claus as a Christmas present from my girlfriend and her parents. It was a  Techno Research Vehicle Diagnostic Scan-tool software for my PDA. It is a nice little tool that is needed if you work on the injection system on newer Ducatis. It does a lot of things. Not every thing that a Mathesis does but not far away

Here is a small list of what this little nice toy can do. *View Real-Time Engine Parameter data (RPM, Throttle Position Sensor, Battery Voltage, Lambda, etc.) *View Diagnostic Trouble Codes *Clear DiagnosticTrouble Codes . *Perform Active Test (injectors, Coils,...) *Reset Service Light, and Malfunction Indicator Light. *Adjust Idle/Fuel Trimvalues. *Reset TPS (ThrottlePosition Sensor) *View System ID *Data Recording (RPM, Throttle Position Sensor, Battery Voltage,)

Later I installed a PC III on my bike and left it for mapping at an approve Dynojet Tuning Center. I was running the bike for a while but soon realize that I was not very happy with the map that the shop did. This is how I decided to start my on road tuning. On top of this I also like the idée of individual cylinder mapping to compensate for the cylinders different inlet and exhaust routing. To do this I needed some more toys. Sorry I mean tools. I started to check what was available and decided that Innovate motorsports LM-1 was what I needed. It is a 6 channel recorded that samples 11 times per second and has a memory big enough for 44 minutes logging that also has a wide band lambda. The data can be down loaded to a computer and analyzed later. It also has a display so you can see the lambda when you are driving and you can also connect an indicator to install on your dashboard if you want. For the moment I am logging TPS (throttle position) RPM and lambda (mixture). I manufactured a Y-harness to install between the TPS (throttle position sensor) and the TPS harness from were I got TPS information. I also tried to use the fuel injector signal as a RPM input but soon found that it did not work very well. For the moment I am using a clamp at the ignition wires. It is not the best but alright for the moment. Finally I welded one bung at each header to measure the lambda. This means that I still have 3 unused channels for future installations. It might be another lambda sensor coming later to make it possible to tune both cylinders individual.

This is a 75% power acceleration from just bellow 5000 RPM also going up to the rev limiter

This is a full power run from just bellow 5000RPM up to the rev limiter at 10000RPM

Full power to rev limiter again. If you look closely you will see how it is indicating very lean in the end as it starts to miss fire when it hits the rev limiter

This is the standard LM-1 kit

The curves are as follows. Red is Power, Black is RPM and purple is Lambda or mixture on all the runnes Normally when I am logging I go out for a 30-45 minutes ride and make 10-20 short 20 seconds loggings. I found this to be much easier then letting the logger run for 30 minutes in one go. The best is also to have a plan before the ride. What do I want to log? Full power, cruse, slow acceleration, medium acceleration. When I log I always have to try to log at a TPS that I can make adjustments. Following adjustments are possible to do at the Power commander PC3USB. 0,2,5,10,20,40,60,80,100% TPS. Fuel can be adjusted at each TPS setting at every 250 RPM or 500 RPM  depending on the setting I am using. As you can understand logging at 30, 50, 70 or 90% does not make sense as it is not adjustable. After a log it is just to upload the logger to my computer. Analyze where fuel is missing or where fuel has to be added. Then I update the fuel map for the PC3USB and finally upload the updates to the PC3USB. Next step is to go for a test ride and log again and do the same thing again and again and again. Every time the map is getting better and closer to perfect. The last map I was using was revision 12. It still had some small things to sort out but it was very close to as good as I can get it. I am sure that a professional tuner could make a better map but as I am a happy amateur I don’t care as I think this is fun and interesting to do

During this run I am trying to hold approx 4000RPM with the back brake and increasing the power in steps up to 100%

Here is full power acceleration from 3000 to 7000 RPM with highest possible resolution indicated. The time difference between the two boxes in the bottom is one second so the information from the lambda is very detailed with 11 readings per second

Here are som different low power settings (10-20%) from 4700RPM up to 7000RPM. As always Power is red, RPM is black and lambda is purple. The shaky RPM is becauase I tried to use the fuel injector controll as a RPM indication and as you cans see it was nor a good idee.

Here is a simular one but with 5000RPM

By some reason the quality on the pictures are very bad when you click on them but I noticed that if you right click and save and then open them separately it is much higher quality. Don’t ask my why it is like this as I know nothing about computers

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