Fuel Controller question

Ok, so in my quest to learn about the 99 I recent;y bought, I ot to thinking. The previous owner had a PCII on it which I'm supposed to pay $100 for along with a couple of other things. I have reservations now for a couple of reasons. First, is that with the PCII hooked up I get a repeating long flash of the FI light. I don't know if this counts as a 1 or a 10. Either way, it's not right. Second reservation is that I can't get a computer to connect to it, due to it's age. I have a DB9 serial cable that was supposed to work, but it needs two male ends, not one male one female.

 

Most likely you need a null-modem cable. Basically it reverses the transmit and receive pins on the cable. There are adapters that can be placed on the end of the cable to not only change the gender but the tx/rx pins. You can find these at Fry's electronics.

 

Any idea what I should ask for?

 

Um, yeah, it's in my last post...A male to male Null Modem Cable If you want the adapters, then you can ask for a male to male null modem adapter. There is a chance that it is a male to male straight through cable so let me see if I can find that out.

 

Derr, sorry. And thanks.

 

Take a look at the Power Commander Website. They list replacement parts, the one that is intersting is the little adapter that has the 9v battery attachment to it. If memory serves me well, I think the older units needed the tapped in power to communicate over the serial port. I would give them a call and verify what you need.

Here's the link... power commander replacement parts

 

I've asked DynoJet about it and the guy I spoke with said that I could only use a CableMax cable. They tried other cables from various places and they didn't work. This brings up another complication. None of my computers have the proper connection. I have a couple of friends that have old computers in storage. I'm going to see if either of them have the correct serial ports.

 

I'm also wondering how necessary it is to even add a computer to it, as it only controls fuel, since the fifth gen doesn't have O2 sensors.
DynoJet and my Dyno guy says I can put a PC5 on it. I'm assuming that would require said sensors. But that is all basically conjecture on my part.

 

Knight has a PCV on his 5 Gen and it does take a little more effort to setup correctly, as there is not off the shelf map for the 5 Gen in the PCV maps. Unless you are going to have your bike dyno'd or unless it's having fuel issues, I'd say don't even bother. My 5 Gen actually gets better gas mileage than my 6 Gen and my 6 Gen is setup with a PCV. I typically get 43MPG plus, in fact I have yet to get less than 43MPG (52MPG was the highest). Where as on my 6 Gen, I barely get above 40MPG on a consistent basis (47MPG was the highest).

 

The owner of Jett Tuning, John Ethell, sells PC5 controllers and I know he could dyno it, but I'm looking at about $600+ for both.

 

[edited since original post]

Lint, boy you brought back PC nightmares. I used to keep cables, chip heat sinks, memory sticks, adapters, cables, etc. in case an issue like this ever arose. A few years back I took my box of goodies to recycling. I had to let go of the legacy hardware, knowing that one day, someone would need it. Although I probably kept one serial card in case someone wrote a new driver for my SpaceOrb 360 game controller. (I can still dream.)

First of all it sounds like you have the option of buying this PCII or not? If not I would give it back. If you keep it:

In general you do not want to rely on an old computer. The day that the bike is not running correctly and you want to eliminate the PC as the issue, you will press the button on the 486 and nothing will happen. POOF power supply or motherboard dead as a doorknob. That's how it always happens.

I wonder if Dynojet is referring to something from Cablemax like this, which adapts USB to the old serial standard:

http://www.cablemax.com/product/CA232A1

Because any true serial setup will work as it is a standard. So brand would only matter like they mentioned if you are doing some conversion from old serial to USB for example, and some brands may not be smart enough in their driver software programming. So for clarification the null modem setup OOTV provided, with an old PC with a serial port should work with any brand of equipment.

Are you able to hook a computer (versus a laptop) to the bike? If yes:

1) Check if you have not already that the PCII software will run on your current PC.

2) If yes, see if your buddies have a PCI serial card in one of those old PCs, and plug that into your current computer.

3) Does the PCII software connect to the bike through this PCI serial card? There, you are good to go. But 1-3 are a lot of "ifs".

I imported one of the PC3 Maps into the PCV. The bike runs great. The main problem with our bikes is in the acceleration range the stock fueling is lean and so we pull the throttle and little happens. Any stock map adds fuel to that critical 3000-8000 RPM (or whatever) range, and now I pull the throttle and the suspension on the front of the bike lifts up noticeably.

There is not a significant difference in power among different slip-on mufflers according to exhaust designers I have read from. The pulsing pressure of the exhaust is primarily set in the first 18" of exhaust. I am saying there is only so much difference among various bike setups. I am coming to reject this notion that a dyno is required by all.

I will be running an experiment, but I cannot tell you when it will happen as the suspension is currently in the mail towards Jamie's place. But I bit the bullet and bought the Wide Band 2. This will be installed along with an O2 sensor. I will start with the stock map and do some tuning with the Wide Band 2. I have a suspicion that the changes are going to be extremely small. Why? The engineered design of our bikes limited the operational parameters and flow to a very high degree. Whatever my result, large or small adjustments, I will share with you anything that I learn. But I do have a suspicion that it will not truly be worth the cost of the WB2 that I bought, or a custom dyno, vs. the stock map.

As an option for you I would encourage you to get a PCV and plug in a stock map. Make sure it is the 6th gen PCV part and not the 8th gen part. The 8th gen does not work on our bikes.

Everyone here says a dyno is required over a stock map. However, I have yet to see a single comparison of a Dynojet stock map (who dyno'd our bikes to develop that map) and a custom dyno. Everyone displays a stock fueling dyno against their custom dyno. However the EPA took a large amount of fuel out of the bike, so of course adding gas back in that range is going to produce 15% power. The bike was starving without it!

The stock maps will serve you very well. I saw a huge jump in power.

Ask John Ethelll to show you results for VFRs, between the PC maps and their dyno. I am open-minded but I bet you the differences fall within margins of error for the process. This is also presuming that the shop is not like many who will finagle the final result with manipulations that they do not apply to the "before" test. If they do not have a database chocked full of a comparison between the DynoJet stock map and the custom tuning, that would be telling about the value of the dyno. If I saw a significant difference in power, then I would look at the fuel map and compare the actual numbers, and make sure the differences there reconcile with the variation in the power graph.

 

I'd really doubt that he would "finagle" anything, but I cannot say 100%.

Who John Ethell is.
https://ultimatemotorcycling.com/2015/12/28/john-ethell-interview-inside-jett-tuning/

Thanks for the info!

 

I miss the days of owning my 2000 Triumph Sprint RS. I could download a map from TuneECU which is an open source program that gives you full control. It made such a major difference. All it cost was a $15.00 for the cable. It seriously woke that bike up. Pulled the front tire in second gear with me leaning over the tank!

 

Yes, locking all of the vehicles down, the EPA has us over a barrel and the fuel controllers and dyno shops know this. I know that DynoJet raised some prices this year to ridiculous levels.

 

So, this afternoon I disconnected the battery positive lead for a couple of hours. Reconnected it all and started the old girl up and no flashing F.I. light. I've not had a chance to ride it yet tho. Maybe Saturday.