there is a surprising amount of power trapped in your adventure motorcycle
your bike's potential has been intentionally restricted by the manufacturer fortunately using
modern electronics we can easily transform the way your machine performs. welcome to MOTOTREK.
my name is Mike Spurgin. your motorcycle is the result of the compromise and negotiations between
three players in the production pipeline the Engineering department wanted to
deliver a motorcycle that was amazing exciting fun race-ready. in Sales and Marketing they were after
a motorcycle that was safe reliable something sensible had broad appeal and then the Regulatory
Agency they needed to have a motorcycle delivered that was quiet and efficient. the indication is
that someday they will give us 300 miles to the gallon. So we've got three cooks in the kitchen
that are baking up a bland moto-casserole but luckily we don't have to settle on this mediocre
performance we've got some magic black boxes that will boost the performance of any adventure
motorcycle so to understand this new technology let's take a look back at the humble carburetor
we just came through the needle valve that lets the gasoline into the carburetor that is the float
on top of the gasoline... The carburetor! Look at this thing! it's a mechanical marvel. since 1888
these have been on internal combustion engines.... everything... motorcycles for 100 years
we had a carburetor on our bike these are fuel metering devices that bring the air fuel mixture
into the engine some of these components are just incredible in their complexity and intricacy so
many of these parts need to work together in this little harmony for the engine to run and
you can see how many points of failure there are you've got all these screws and o-rings
and diaphragms if there was a vacuum leak in any one of these or a fuel leak you could have
major problems that could leave you stranded so the carburetor being this really beautiful piece
of equipment is also very flawed in the fact that it's so mechanically complex fortunately we don't
have to use this hundred year old technology to fuel our bikes anymore from the complexity of
the carburetor and grandpa's bike now to something much more streamlined and effective we have this
fuel injector and throttle body this is what's replaced it we're using now digital signals and
electrical impulses to inject fuel into our engine instead of using vacuums and ports and orifices on
the side of our throttle body is a potentiometer known as a TPS and the TPS is reading the position
of the butterflies the voltage output of the Throttle Position Sensor is used by the computer
to make a determination about how much air is flowing through the throttle body as you pull back
on the grip and this opens up that voltage changes and so as you rip the grip that tells the computer
how much fuel to send to the injector the fuel injector is a very simple electromechanical valve
gasoline is presented on this side under pressure and then the outlet nozzle is over here
inside of here is an on and off valve and the ECU is commanding this on and off hundreds of
times a minute so based on where you are in the throttle and the rpm range the map
inside of the ECU then outputs all of that information to the spark plug and to the injector
to run your bike your stock motorcycle came with an ECU that was programmed by the manufacturer
and looking over shoulder was a regulator from whatever country your bike was designed for
and so all the values for fueling ignition all of those things are preset they're locked they're
locked into the ECU and it's not user configurable you can't change any of these data points
so if you do anything to your bike like add a pipe change the exhaust do anything with the intake
you're going to need to change feeling remember back in the carburetor days when you do that you
would have to change jetting well we need to do that exact same thing now with our fuel injector
bikes these are piggyback field tuners these are little magic boxes basically what these guys do
is they're going to increase the pulse width of the injector so when we plug this into the
system this is going to increase dynamically the amount of fuel that the injector gets
from the computer so we're just adding or taking away pulse width from the duty cycle of the system
so back in the day when we would do that on a carburetor we would just increase jet sizes
or needle clip or do all those mechanical things we're now doing it electronically zeros and ones
that's how we're adjusting carburetors now through these fuel injection tuners
now there's another option and that is just to re-flash the map that's inside the ECU and so
that's some voodoo magic that there are guys out there who have the capability and the technology
and the understanding to plug this into certain computers certain systems and then go into the map
data the firmware um the software of how your bike runs and then make adjustments and calibration
changes so that they you can accommodate those exhaust pipe or intake mods that you might make
the guys who do this are very specialized very trained there are some software locks that are
on on these built into these to prevent that but there are some clever guys who have found
workarounds to do that it's also important to note that any changes that you make to
any of these systems really the intake or exhaust or the fueling may be a violation of some of the
emission codes and laws and standards in your part of the world so be very aware that these changes
may put your bike into a category of off-road or competition use only so now we come to the holy
grail of engine tuning and that's to replace out our stock ECU with an aftermarket and there's some
real strong advantages to doing this i've got a couple here this one over here again is that stock
ECU these other two these are aftermarket ones made by Vortex out of Australia and then this is
get Athena Get they're out of Italy and so there are many manufacturers that make these for many
different types of bikes these are for KTM the half liter dirt bikes some of the advantages
of going with an aftermarket ECU over the stock ECU are things like processor speed
these just run on a faster chip they also have increased capabilities for example
some of these have traction control traction control that's variable that's data processed
so here you've got this little black button this is a barometric pressure sensor and so that's just
essentially like an altitude compensation device and then these are interesting you've got these
little pigtails for example this one allows you to run a second injector that is a very unique
feature if you're going to build a race bike you're going to need extra fuel because of the
increased horsepower demand and then these other two one of these will go to the programming and we
can plug this into the laptop and check all kinds of telemetry out of this and do all kinds of high
value programming features and the other one lets us plug into things like map switches and traction
control knobs you know one of the things i like to say about maps is that's really like describing
the personality of your bike if you want a bike that's very hard-hitting and aggressive
that's a personality if you want one that's more docile soft hitting more linear performance for
trails and off-road riding that's a personality and so these aftermarket ECU's give you the
ability to almost tailor and customize the the power output that that you may want for your bike
and a box like this will let you do all those customizations where
you're not going to get that out of the stock ECU or even like the stock ECU with the fuel tuner
there's just so many extra features and benefits to having one of these ECU's now all of these
features come at a cost these are pretty expensive this particular one's $900 retail and the other
one is $700 retail so these are not for the faint of heart this is really for somebody who's trying
to push the envelope as far as tuning performance capability of their bike maximize the horsepower
these aren't for everybody you may be on a bike that you just already feel is powerful enough
you just want to maybe clean up the fueling maybe that fuel tuner is a good way to go
but if you're looking for something that's racy and at the extreme end of the spectrum are
like i said what the race department or the manufacturer is really hoping to deliver
that the same marketing department took away or the regulatory agencies stripped out
having one of these on your bike opens the door for all that horsepower and all those
possibilities before you modify your fuel system make sure that that TPS sensor is in spec you can
do that very easily and simply with a throttle position harness and a meter it's that simple
you're on an adventure bike. you're not doing flat-tracking, stop light wheelies or racing,
so why should you care about making any modifications to your fuel system? almost
without exception every machine is under-fueled from the factory by design. with corrected
fueling you get smoother throttle response, safer power and better engine reliability.
a lean burn makes the engine run hotter and could create engine durability problems. a rich fueling
condition creates sluggish power poor fuel economy and could potentially wash the engine oil out of
the cross hatches of the cylinder. the optimal fuel ratio is 14.7 to 1 - stochiometric. that's
what we're after and that'll give us the best balance between power and durability you and
your bike will both be happier if your air fuel and ignition ratios are correct and optimized.
gasoline is powerful but each drop can give a 100 account of himself only when he finds the most
efficiently designed gasoline system to help him along his journey for a successful life every drop
of gasoline depends entirely upon what happens to him after he gets in the swim oh a nice one