2Wheel

What's going on folks in here to old Dino works and today I'm going to do somet Now before we get into anyt All of our products are intended for close course competition use only. Use of any of our products or tuning services for any purpose other than that is strictly pro By purchasing any of our products or tuning services you're acknowledging that product and or tuning service is being purchased for race use only and t Such use is completely pro Okay, now that we've got that out of the way let's go ahead and dive into the meat and potatoes of what we're trying to get to here. So first and foremost most folks want to know what is actually getting the ECU properly flashed going to do for my bike or for me as the rider when I'm on it. And the answer to put it most simply is that the bike is going to run massively smoother, stronger and cooler than it ever has before. We'll get into different exhaust and intake specific tuning here in just a second because that really isn't what you as the rider are going to notice or feel once you get on the bike once you've had the ECU properly tuned. Regardless of any intake or exhaust modifications almost all modern motorcycles are heavily restricted for the North American and US markets right off the showroom floor. Now they have no control whatsoever over modern emissions compliance. They have to meet it or they can't sell the bikes. So the way that most of those manufacturers have gone about meeting modern emissions compliance is to either dramatically neuter the electronic throttle by wire mapping. So when you're asking the bike to give you 100% throttle, you're often not getting anywhere near 100% throttle to way up at the top of the RPM range or the opposite where you give you the 100% throttle and then also at the top end they really shut the plates down and we can show you what that looks Now, that does not only apply to wide open throttle performance. It's very difficult on a dyno to show you anyt You really have a tough time trying to target Most modern throttle by wire bikes are not a linear curve. So even though you're holding the power at say maybe half throttle, you're probably only getting You might be getting more So I can't really show you that. But what I can tell you is that from a throttle by wire mapping standpoint, the restrictions are not only in place at the top end or the bottom end at wide open throttle. They're there everywhere. And that is why so many of our customers experience a massively more connected feeling when they're riding the bike once they've had the ECU properly flashed because the throttle now does what you're asking it to do. The other way that manufacturers have had to go about meeting a lot of the submission compliance is with ignition timing. Ignition timing advance is a critical part of tuning any modern control combustion engine. And in a layman's terms, the quicker and hotter you can burn the fuel, the more cleanly it will combust and therefore the more cleanly it will come out the tailpipe. That's not what you want all the time when you're riding a bike. Oftentimes what you're feeling as you're slowly trying to roll on the throttle on many modern bikes and it feels twitchy or That does not give you a nice connected and smooth throttle response. So we go through and customize all the ignition timing curves. So as you roll on the gas, you get a nice smooth and progressive throttle. And then on the flip side of that, at wide open throttle, they often have to neuter a lot of the additional ignition timing they would And we're not necessarily talking about specifically things They can't have that. There's a federal standard they have to meet. So they really just can't do what they want to do with the ignition timing curves anywhere. It's as good as it can possibly be w So now that we've covered sort of what you're going to feel and experience once you have your ECU properly flashed for your bike by someone Let's dive into our next most common question that we see probably two or 300 times a month as of the time that we're filming t And that is, do I need to flash my ECU or have my bike tuned for my aftermarket intake or exhaust system? So in almost all cases, the answer is no, you don't have to or need to get your bike properly tuned if you modify the intake or exhaust system. It'still going to combust fuel. The engine will still run. However, you are dramatically changing the air flow through the engine, whether you're uncorking the intake or the exhaust, both when you modify those systems. And the ECU does not have any good way of knowing that you've done those modifications. So all of a sudden, the fuel mapping and the ignition timing is not going to be optimal for your new intake or exhaust combination. In many cases, the bike will still run okay and you're not going to have any problems. In extreme cases, you can burn up the valves pretty quickly or run into serious pre-ignition detonation issues from lean combustion due to the improved air flow that you've added now through the engine and no proper fuel mapping to match those modifications. Now that answer leads us right into the next most common question that we get, usually directly after that second question, w It has no two sensor. I'm going to do that by itself, just The answer is not exactly. In general, motorcycle engine management and electronics are about 15 to 20 years be And the automotive industry, So the fueling needs of the ve None of that is true for your modern motorcycle. Almost without exception, all modern motorcycles are still using narrow band, two sensor technology, the automotive industry abandoned nearly 20 years ago. Those O2 sensors are not capable of doing any sort of accurate fuel trimming for your bike with any sort of accuracy. Now because of that, we either disable closed loop in the ECU w Because again, the fuel mapping that we developed for your specific intake and exhaust system. You're not going to have a good time if all of a sudden the ECU is trying to constantly pull 10 or 15% of the fuel away for emissions compliance when we've actually added that into the base fuel mapping. Because all of a sudden you're going to have this bizarre scenario where when you're in that very small closed loop window, usually right off idle to maybe 20% throttle and down to maybe on most inline four engines, four or five, 6,000 RPMs, it's going to be trying to run at 7 to one air fuel, w All of a sudden outside of that closed loop window, so everywhere else, we've programmed the bike to run somewhere in the low 13 to And when you go from that closed loop portion, a little tiny emissions compliance section to the rest of the map, you get t It doesn't feel good. So just eliminate the closed loop system on the bike when it comes to the O2 sensor and that specific feedback mechanism if you want it to run properly. Now when we tell that to a lot of folks, it brings us immediately to our fourth question I believe we're on now, w How is my bike and my ECU and all the electronics on it going to then adjust for different riding conditions? You don't have the same fueling needs, for example, like down here in your sea level, that you do up at like 4,000 or 5,000 feet or based off of different h So how is that going to work? Is your tuning even going to be good for say where I live in some other part of the country if you built it here? And the answer is yes, it will be just fine. So regardless of the O2 sensor, all modern motorcycle engines again, fuel injected motorcycle engines have other input sensors to go ahead and accommodate for these varying conditions. There's intake temperature sensors, barometric pressure sensors, all sorts of stuff on the bike that feed back into the fuel mapping algorithms to adjust for these conditions as the bike experiences them. So for example, when were finally testing a lot of these sensors back and I t So yes, there is an extreme range that these sensors will finally no longer be able to adjust for, but if you're between They were perfectly adjusting within about 2 or 3% in all the testing we have ever done in every scenario between sea level and In fact, the much more important variable when it comes to making sure that your engine is running properly once we've gone ahead and flashed with our custom ECU mapping is making sure that you're using the fuel that all of our tuning is developed for. All of our ECU mapping here at ToolDynoworks is built specifically for 91 to 93 E5 to E10 premi Not Ethanol free fuel is from a bygone era of carburetor fed engines that no longer applies to any of these modern motorcycle engines because that 5% to 10% ethanol that's in modern premi Now there's one other common emission system on most modern motorcycles that we get asked about all the time and again, we cover an RFIQ and in a note and bold in every easy e-flashing service on our website that this applies to and that is the air injection system that you most The air injection system from the factory is designed to allow fresh air from the airbox to skip the combustion process and goes straight into the exhaust stream, again, post combustion in most cases, and allow the catalytic converter to effectively heat up much faster than it would otherwise without these systems in place. They are designed to essentially prolong the life of the catalytic converter and to improve catalyst efficiency as unburnt exhaust gases pass through the catalyst material. Without a catalytic converter, the system is no longer necessary nor should it be left in place. Now, leaving the air injection system functional when our website will clearly stay in a giant note and bold for every single EC flas First off, we disable the deceleration fuel cut, which is in place in almost every modern motorcycle for fuel economy and emissions compliance, because that deceleration fuel cut essentially allows the fuel injectors to be treated So instead of treating them more like a vol That's why a lot of modern bikes have that big hitch right as you roll off the throttle and then right as you try to roll back on because they're just being flicked back open instead of nicely increase in vol So disabling that decel fuel cut is in almost all cases 100% necessary to smooth out the on off throttle transition. However, when you now have fuel flowing through the engine on deceleration and all that additional air from the air injection system in a hot pipe, you get huge fireballs coming out the tailpipe. And that's a problem. Now, not only will all that raw sort of stalled flame in the exhaust pipe on deceleration go ahead and burn up things It also causes problems with again trying to ac And it shouldn'take any sort of And even with a catalytic converter still in place, so say if you've got a motorcycle that you've just installed a slip onto, but you still have the catalytic converter in the header, you cannot leave the air injection system still functional. A lot of other tuners and folks out there dramatically misunderstand our intention when we go ahead and disable they're just that is not the case. Again, the whole goal here is to keep the exhaust gas temperatures from going through the roof because guess what happens to your catalytic converter when you go ahead and exceed that Your bike will not run well. It will massively lose power and your fuel economy will be effectively obliterated. Eventually, when folks ignore t So just follow the instructions on our website when it comes to the air injection system. If you don't, you may get some cool fireballs in the meantime, but you're going to have a bad time in the long run. Now that brings us right to my least favorite question that to date I still answer several times every single day, whether it is over the phone or via email. And that is, but I want to pop some bangstone or a flametone or a burble tune. I am sorry. I'm not actually at all. You can't get that here. We do not develop our custom ECU mapping with any other intention to maximizing performance and improving rideability and engine longevity. Pops and bangs, fine tunes, burble tunes, whatever you want to call it, do not improve engine longevity. They reduce it. I could actually spend probably an hour discussing the downfalls of t Combustion gases inside the cylinder are roughly 2,000 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. And inside the combustion chamber, so when the piston is approac It's okay. That's what they're built to do. The post combustion gases, so after combustion has occurred, the pistons now being forced back down and the exhaust valve opens for those gases to exit the system are more What tuners are doing when they create t It's all done the same way. They are so dramatically retarding the ignition timing advance that it's no longer occurring appropriately as the piston is approac It is now occurring at or past top dead center. And what happens is that the combustion gas is no longer combusting inside the combustion chamber. It's happening in the exhaust system. The exhaust system is not designed to see 2,000 to 3,000 Fahrenheit temperatures ever. So the best case scenario in the worst case scenario and the scenario that we more often see is that after a few thousand miles of your exhaust valve, specifically the cold side of the exhaust valve being exposed to those temperatures for any prolonged period of time means that the valves are completely burned up. So again, we will not and have not and will never offer pops and bangs, flametunes or burble tunes. They're bad for the bike. Please don't seek them out. And that brings us right into my favorite question, w Go ahead and flash your ECU versus many of the other tuning options out there on the market. And t So stick with me here because t What truly sets us apart, and I mean dramatically apart from pretty much every other tuner on the planet for the motorcycle industry is the level of R&D that we go through on each and every bike that we offer proper tuning support for. Most tuners are getting one exhaust system one bike, tuning it on their dyno, and then offering that mapping that they developed on their dyno for that one system to all of their customers. For all of the potential intake and exhaust combinations you could have on that bike. And that's not the right way to do the difference in fueling needs for one intake and exhaust combination versus another can be dramatically different on the same motorcycle. Let's first real quick just talk about the variants and exhaust systems. That's probably the single most common performance upgrade that folks are going to purchase when it comes to bolt-ons for their motorcycle. So we're just going to quickly walk down the line up here of the bikes I've got sitting here in the shop that we have here for tuning for customers or for development here at the shop. And you'll see just how truly varying exhaust designs are from one bike to another, regardless of the engine configuration. The exhaust system on t It is a four into two into one header design. The exhaust system on t And again, there is no crossover pipes in between the headers. And this inline four system, which I'm probably going to have a really hard time showing They are just four individual headpipes with crossovers in between and then straight all into the collector without separating into two individual pipes first. All of those exhaust systems, those header design differences create significant differences in the power curve and therefore the fueling needs when you have them installed on your bike. So any tuner that is offering you a ECU flash with any sort of custom mapping that is only been built with one aftermarket exhaust system is offering you a huge disservice if you don't have that exact same exhaust system installed on your bike. Because again, the fueling needs are different even between the slight variances in the header design on the bike, let alone the rest of the exhaust system length, whether or not you have a baffle in the muffler, the muffler diameter and all sorts of other variables that they truly cannot account for accurately for your specific system again, unless it is the exact system they've had on the bike. And that's just focusing on the exhaust side of t Imagine that you say have exhaust system A on your bike with aftermarket air filter B and velocity stacks C, most tuners. And again, I can say 99. 99% of tuners on the planet are not going to have ECU mapping developed for that specific combination. That is the biggest difference between how we do t I spend six to eight hours every single day in my Dino Room right there putting every intake and exhaust combination that we can possibly imagine or get our hands on for all the bikes that we offer tuning support for. Now, I've been doing that for the past several years here since I've been running operations at Tool Dino Works, but previously to that, Nels, who owns Tool Dino Works, had been doing that for over a decade. We did t And that worked incredibly well wit But I wanted to even further tighten the variables here and eliminate as much variance as possible for the tuning services that we provide. So now we actually go ahead and purchase every new motorcycle that we offer tuning support for ourselves. So there is no more mileage variance. There's no more maintenance variance from the bikes that are coming in. There's no more variance in the fuel that people decide to have in their tank when they come on in. None of that is a problem for us because I spend $100,000 to $200,000 a year on new models here at Tool Dino Works, and then we put all the intake and exhaust systems on them ourselves. So there is not a single variable from break in of the motorcycle until we're done with our tuning R&D that we cannot perfectly control here in the shop. And we also take t A lot of modern engines, especially those that are fed by Ram air boxes, so any modern intake that has a Ram air cone in the front of essentially that provides some level of positive pressure or charge into the intake at Those systems cannot really be accurately dialed in on the Dino. I see all sorts of tuners posting videos all the time of, say, a Jixxer 1000 or a ZX10 or a CBR 1000, whatever it is, with a Ram air style intake, and they're tuned to the t 2 to 1 air fuel on the Dino. And that's great if the bike's not actually going through the air at 180 miles an hour. The Ram air effect is real on those bikes. And we have data logged enough of these now on the track to see that the fans on the Dino do an OK job of packing the intake with nice cold air that's a little bit less heat soaked in the rest of the room or the engine, but it is not a good simulation for a proper Ram air effect on a track. So for the past several years, all of the tuning that we develop here at Tool Dino Works is not only done in our Dino room, it's done on the track, w It's a great excuse for me to get out of the racetrack and I love it. But more importantly, it provides It also allows us to test again on a closed course, w The effect of our ignition timing curves and our throttle by wire mapping. There's a lot of other tuners out there that are starting to offer street tuning. And w The bigger issue is that you're never going to accurately be able to make these bikes perform on a public road in traffic Not only are you not able to do it, but even trying to do it on the road is insane for your own safety. So when we're going ahead and developing our custom throttle by wire mapping and all of our part throttle ignition timing curves, we can make sure that they are as smooth and strong and consistent as possible and provide exactly the response that we want them to w Because if you don't get that throttle mapping and those ignition curves right, you end up with this nice big lurch or disruption in the trassy when you're trying to come out of a corner and that's how you end up on your face and your bike ends up t And well, So with our custom ECU mapping for your bike'specific intake and exhaust system, not only are you getting custom fuel, ignition, throttle by wire, engine braking mapping that we've developed here in-house on our dyno, but those maps have also then been refined and tested and data logged on the racetrack. And you just will not find any other tuner out there going through that level of R and D for your bike'specific setup to make it respond as smoothly and strongly as possible in all riding conditions. Now, a lot of times once we explain that to folks, especially when we explain it in public for And that'simply not the case. That couldn't be further from the truth, actually, when it comes to most modern motorcycles, because not only have we just covered that with any You can't also replicate the throttle by wire mapping or the ignition timing curves that we develop here to will dyno works just on a dyno. If you're taking it to a dyno tuner, that means they're only tuning the bike on their dyno. They're never going to be able to replicate or dial in the part throttle, mid throttle, roll on mapping that we've built here to a dyno works because we build that out all on a racetrack as well as building it initially on the dyno. So yes, if you in some bizarre situation were to ass So let'say the optimal fuel target for that bike is 13. 1 AFR. And instead of running at 13 point one, it's wanting it 13. 3 or on the other end slightly too rich at 9. The difference in power at wide of a throttle and that 200 horsepower bike is one horsepower, w So yes, in that very bizarre and almost completely unapplicable scenario of a seal their box and fueling on a dyno. Yes, there is a slightly better chance that the fuel mapping that your local dyno tuner is going to develop for you could be slightly more accurate, but it just doesn't matter because you're missing the rest of the equation. They can't get the ignition timing dialed in for you. They can't get the engine braking map dialed in for you because you can't simulate deceleration properly on a dyno. And they're certainly not going to get all the parts rattle throttle by wire mapping properly dialed in for you. So ultimately the end result is a worse quality tune than what you'd have got from someone And you truly do not need to take my word for that. You can go on to our Google or Facebook and you can find hundreds of reviews of folks saying the exact same there are tons of folks out there that we help every single week that have had their bike tuned on a dyno and they're not happy with the results. They take it back to that same tuner and they're still not happy with the results for all the t And again, the reviews are out there. You're more than welcome to read them for yourself. So to s You just won't find If it's a bike that we offer our mail in ECU flashing service for, and that is something that I can truly guarantee because nobody goes through a tuning development process quite So one of the other common questions we get because people just don't seem to read all the fine print anymore and I don't blame them. I don't read the fine print on most the answer is maybe if there's going to be a check engine light, there will be a big note at the bottom of our website in that specific bikes ECU flas And it will clearly state that is a temporary light. Most modern Euro five and Euro five plus compliant ECUs when they're powered up outside the bike, all of a sudden throw faults for everyt They're not plugged into because well, your bike's not sitting right here. So yes, you will have a fault code or several fault codes present for probably two ride cycles. But after two ride cycles, the codes do self clear. If you for some reason have four or five, six ride cycles on the bike and you still have a check engine light on, then you've done somet If you go ahead and properly follow the instructions on our site for your specific bike, when it comes to what emission systems you need to physically disable, If you do feel free email support into an hours. com and we can point you in the right direction for helping you troubleshoot the problem you've created for your specific bike because there's a lot of common mistakes that we see people make all the time when they have these bikes apart and they're putting them all back together once they're done modifying them and reinstalling their flash ECU. Another common question that we get for a lot of folks out there, especially in the last couple of years is where can I find the results of my bike on your dyno? What am I going to get specifically in terms of raw power? Why can't I find a video for it on your YouTube? Well, we really did not j So in the past, most of the tuning results were shared on our Facebook and Instagram and just quick sort of pictures and video or sorry pictures and write ups of dyno graphs and explanations of what we've done and what we're doing. But we've also gone ahead and put up dyno graphs for just about every single specific year making model we offer support for on our website. So if you don't see it on YouTube and you can't find it on our Facebook or Instagram, it's just that we did not have the time truly with the staff that we had here in previous years to go ahead and share the results with You can almost certainly find the wide amount of dyno graphs for your specific year making model. If we offer tuning service for it on our website in the specific tuning service product description. Now, a lot of folks will also ask us, I don't see my bike on your website. So their bike isn't listed in our Fitment Finder. All the bikes that we support mail and ECU flas So if you have a little website and punch in your year make model for your specific bike and you see a tuning service listed for it, no problem. We've gotten incredibly If you do not see your bike listed on our website, we cannot offer a mail and ECU flas Now a lot of folks go, well, why not? Why haven't you built tuning for t A lot of times it has not For a lot of modern motorcycles, it takes a long time for the software developers to figure out the correct read and write protocols and initialization procedure for these modern ECUs. So most often there simply isn't In cases that there are, and it'still not listed on our website, there's often just not a So sending me the ECU is pretty useless if I don't have a bench harness that I can actually plug into and communicate with the ECU with. So in either scenario, if you're curious, if we can still tune your bike here in-house on our dyno, you are more than welcome to email us at support at Tool9Works. com and I will happily respond with what your tuning options are for that bike. Now as we're getting here toward the end of our common questions, I'm going to make these shorter and shorter because I know t If you see a bike on our website that we go ahead and offer tuning support for and you're somewhere here on the West Coast and you just want to ride on over or drive on instead of mailing us here at ECU, no problem. For any bike that I list on our website, you are more than welcome to swing by any time during business hours. And either myself or my staff will go ahead and get it flashed for you w No appointment is necessary. And for those of you outside North America looking to take advantage of our mail in ECU flas That is due to two simple facts. One here in North America, the bikes that we have for testing and tuning development are specific to the North American market. So the emissions restrictions in place here in North America are not necessarily the same. And most commonly are not the same as the bikes that you may have in the European market, the Asian market, the Australian market, wherever else in the world you may be. So the ECUs that you have in your bike are not the same ones we have here. So we can't build proper mapping for them because we don't have those ECUs. Even if we did have those ECUs or some other shop claims to have access to those ECUs, do not go purchasing tuning built outside of your specific emissions market. Those emissions markets also are very tightly controlled based on the fuel that's available for those specific markets. Again, here in North America, we have very Like I said, all of our mapping is built for 91 to 93 E5 to E10 premi It is incredibly tightly controlled by regulatory agencies. It is incredibly consistent from p The fuel that you have in Europe or in Asia is completely different from both a blend and octane standpoint. And the fuel mapping that's developed by any North American tuner is not going to be accurate for that fuel period. Now, a lot of folks want to know specifically what maps that we modify in each ECU. And I actually have that listed in every single ECU flas So again, go to our website, tooldownworks. com, go to your specific gear making model and the flas And there you will have a list of all the custom maps and parameters that we modify for each of those by specifically. And lastly, if you are looking for answer to a question that is not a question, please isn't listed there on our site, isn't listed Do not hesitate to email us at support at tooldownworks. com. I personally answer any of all tech support questions that come through the shop here every single day that we are open. And I am truly always happy to help get your bike properly tuned and dialed in.