I’m coming back once again to Stage I of the new Milwaukee-Eight 114″ engine because the case I am writing about could be used didactically as an example.
The Harley is a 2019 Touring with a complete Stage I:
- Vance & Hines VO2 Naked air cleaner,
- Vance & Hines Power Duals head pipes,
- Screamin’ Eagle Street Cannon Performance slip-on,
- mapped but not tuned ECU.
The reasons the owner came to the Tuning Center were: poor performance, engine knocks and excessive consumption with an average of less than 15 km/l.
To begin the setup a Power Vision Tuning License had to be generated because the mapping performed was of the disposable type, leaving the customer with no possibility of going back to the motorcycle’s ECU to make any further adjustments.
Below is the dyno graph of the bike before and after setup. As is almost always the case, the owner was enthusiastic about the job – modesty is not a virtue of mine. The bike had gained 12 N-m of torque, 11 hp of power, the knocks had disappeared and consumption had gone from an average of 15 to 20 km/l.
This case also shows the big difference between mapping and fine-tuning. With an optimum job the benefits are immediate and enjoyable:
- increased overall performance,
- increased driving pleasure,
- decreased fuel consumption,
- decreased engine heat.
Two economic considerations on today’s widespread mapping with disposable methods:
- it doesn’t permit refining the map; to do so requires additional spending, unlike the Power Vision Tuning License which can be used as many times as you want on the bike for which it was generated,
- often the maps provided give few benefits in terms of performance and increase consumption dramatically, with an ensuing economic loss.