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Dyno tune can it damage your bike and is it worth the cost

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  • Choco
    Choco
    4 years ago
    G'day all. Now I am in the world of a FI bike I am looking for a good tune for better fuel economy and general reliability. My bike had a shop tune done on it but I was told to get a custom tune on a dyno by someone else. Trouble is for me the idea of revving my bike in forth gear from just over idle to hitting the rev limiter six or seven times on the dyno leaves me feeling a anxious. Btw I never ride my bike much over 3000 revs so would there be any real benefit in getting a custom tune. Oh yeah I was quoted $500 for this custom tune and starting to miss my old carby Evo a lot simpler to tune.
  • Grease Monkey
    Grease Monkey
    4 years ago
    Good tune is not just WOT numbers, bike runs better, cooler stronger everywhere, tuned plenty of stock bikes for blokes that are still smiling, your bike, your call.
  • Krash Kinkade
    Krash Kinkade
    4 years ago
    Quoting Choco on 15 Nov 2020 10:50 PMedited: 15 Nov 2020 11:47 PM

    G'day all. Now I am in the world of a FI bike I am looking for a good tune for better fuel economy and general reliability. My bike had a shop tune done on it but I was told to get a custom tune on a dyno by someone else. Trouble is for me the idea of revving my bike in forth gear from just over idle to hitting the rev limiter six or seven times on the dyno leaves me feeling a anxious. Btw I never ride my bike much over 3000 revs so would there be any real benefit in getting a custom tune. Oh yeah I was quoted $500 for this custom tune and starting to miss my old carby Evo a lot simpler to tune.

    most important, what you need is a good operator!!
    and tell him how you ride.  Problem is not many know how to tune, and a good operator will ask you how high you want yo limit the rev's at, if like you say you don't normally go past 3,000 , I would say, a good operator would set your rev limit at say 5,500. but on EFI a full custom map takes about all day to do. BUT when done right the bike will be beautiful to ride, needs to be experienced to believe !! It's not about numbers, but how quickly & smoothly your HP & TQ delivered. after all a rider who stays around 3,000 , not a racer.

  • paulybronco
    paulybronco
    4 years ago
    Sorry Chaser  i disagree. Its not about chasing those last few hp but smoothing out the curves and allowing the motor to acheive its best VE and AFR
  • paulybronco
    paulybronco
    4 years ago
    I think that the point trying to be made here is that with a dyno tune the bike is still going to be a lot more friendly to ride with a crisper throttle response and smoother than a simple flash tune. Now if you got a tuner with wideband 02 sensors ......
  • Daffy
    Daffy
    4 years ago
    Thundermax tuner. Best money you will ever spend. No dyno necessary. Auto tunes. Excellent.
  • Smokey61
    Smokey61
    4 years ago
    If a dyno tune kills your engine, it was probably going to grenade itself somewhere down the track anyway. If your engine is healthy, you'll be fine.
  • fatbat
    fatbat
    4 years ago
    I’ll echo the comments of others. A GOOD dyno tuner working on a stock or well put together bike will create great benefit with minimal risk. You’d be surprised at how much smoother a bike will run in the rev range you and most of us ride at all the time. As summer comes into play, it’s all the more important to have a good tune as without it bikes run very hot and under load are more inclined to ping at times. 

    I wouldn’t trust any tuner though as many spend minimal time and will simply give you a print out of the chart at wide open throttle. A proper tune will focus across all throttle positions and loads. And pretty simple to tell them you don’t want the bike revved above x rpm if that’s your concern. Hardly matters if your bike is perfectly tuned or not above 5,000rpm if you never ride there anyway. 

    I’m personally not a fan of replacing the Delphi ecu with a Thundermax as the Delphi unit works perfectly well and reliably. The Thundermax ecus  reportedly work well until they don’t work at all. Plenty more of them failing than the stock Delphi ecu. Flash tune the Delphi ecu I reckon 
  • Choco
    Choco
    4 years ago
    Thanks for the replies so far. Yes I not really worried about trying to find as much HP as possible I just don't ride that hard. Fuel economy and reliability is my number one concern and I feel with my stage 1 on my 96 cube motor is enough to keep me happy. Anyway a lot to think about so far the shop tune seems ok just at times I think I might not be getting the best fuel economy but then again I am comparing my old Evo Heritage to my twin cam Heritage cheers. 
  • Ratbob
    Ratbob
    4 years ago
    Can you get a “good” tune for $500? 
    I thought they were more like $800 as they should take a while.
  • Choco
    Choco
    4 years ago
    Quoting Ratbob on 17 Nov 2020 06:29 AM

    Can you get a “good” tune for $500? 

    I thought they were more like $800 as they should take a while.

    Where I live I am three and half away from a major city. There is one shop with a dyno in my area and he quoted me that price.
  • Ratbob
    Ratbob
    4 years ago
    Quoting Ratbob on 17 Nov 2020 06:29 AM

    Can you get a “good” tune for $500? 

    I thought they were more like $800 as they should take a while.

    Quoting Choco on 17 Nov 2020 06:42 AM

    Where I live I am three and half away from a major city. There is one shop with a dyno in my area and he quoted me that price.

    Well seems a good deal for a personal tune. As the guys have said, set the limit at 5,500 or given your ride style even 5,000rpm, no worries. 😎
  • Krash Kinkade
    Krash Kinkade
    4 years ago
    Well, I don't know about cost, as a lot of things effect what it will cost.
    Like if operator has a brand new Dyno, with expensive equipment. Like Type of sniffer they are using . ( to get AFR ) as the real accurate ones can have the sensors damaged if motor burning oil, so cost go up for the operator ( owner of Dyno ) & if operator owns the shop dyno is in, or if they lease it.
    For what you want, not that important what make or model dyno is, just as long as operator familiar with your software & can tune. I'd say for you 5,000 would be high enough to ask to have rev limited. but you sometimes need a few more rev's in emergency's.Also when they are tuned right, they respond quicker & smoother, so if you have to open it quick to get out the way or some other reason, you could find your rev's have gone up a lot quicker than normal & when you hit rev limit can feel like a brick wall ( mostly if in a lower gear )
  • Krash Kinkade
    Krash Kinkade
    3 years ago
    rick k , that's great new's!!
    a full custom tune by an experienced Tuner . You notice it! Might not make any more HP or TQ , but the delivery of both will be much improved. Just a full tune on a Dyno, takes a long time to do properly as need to progress from very low throttle % up, also can time the  tune in seconds it takes to make HP & TQ. can write a lot about it, but if you experience the difference you notice when you ride. it's not about just riding flat out. It's about having a motor that feels beautiful to ride both slow and in traffic & fast on open road.
  • steelo
    steelo
    3 years ago
    Is this right.  Bike doesn’t have a tuner. You put new pipes on it. It ran poorly. You took it to a tuner guy who charged you $450 odd for an hours work. He basically just loaded a canned map. Didn’t Dyno it or custom tune it for those pipes  (he can’t) and it’ll run richer. 
  • Grease Monkey
    Grease Monkey
    3 years ago
    Rick I'm just trying to understand what he did with what, you say you don't have a tuner, did he flash in a cal with powervision on a licence or by some other nefarious method? Either way unless you ended up with a dongle of some brand in your possession I think that's a bit steep cost wise, having said that it would be more if you did end up with a dongle but just to flash a cal with no tuning involved, well gee!
  • Grease Monkey
    Grease Monkey
    3 years ago
    Piggy backs are not the norm nowdays so nothing is usually fitted as such, most are just an interface between the bike and a computer loaded with one of the many software options, vision is decent, if he did a bit of tuning on top of the licence price that would be ok, as steelo pointed out though if it's only been flashed a calibration from the cal bank it might not be ideal, better than it was in most cases though, a bike shop I know gets their Cal's for builds sent to them and claim it all good, I don't agree but hey it's not my circus, let us know what you think after a tank or two 👍
  • WideglidingNZ
    WideglidingNZ
    3 years ago
    hi Rick did you get a dyno chart print out? my lowrider S was tuned at the dealers using the power vision software, i did do a cam at the same time but i was extremely happy with the way the bike ran along with the extra power & torque
  • WideglidingNZ
    WideglidingNZ
    3 years ago
    I think it cost slightly over $2000 which included a cam and adjustable push-rods along with full custom dyno tune
  • Krash Kinkade
    Krash Kinkade
    3 years ago
    Hi rick k , I'm trying to work out 18kms around town = ?
    like in most cases these days it's how many L/100kms
    I have never owned a late EFI Harley, but have ridden , so I'm thinking maybe it's how Harley read out economy?
    cheers Have a merry Christmas
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