Click pictures to supersize.

When I first started this Tuning page, I had read just enough about the Power Commander V and Auto Tune units to think I would be able to work out a reasonable approach to installing them, setting them up, and dialing in the tuning. I envisioned a fairly short, easily described set of steps that would make for easy reading and not to be off-putting in length. As I have proceeded down the tuning road, I have discovered there is a lot more to all this than I imagined. So I'm taking this opportunity to warn you: you can jump right in and start reading my tuning notes (which are getting longer and more complicated) or you can just read DynoJet's installation notes and user guides. The DynoJet path is shorter, but you'll discover that there are some missing pieces and you may have to call their Tech Support for help. My Tuning web page is much longer, and you will still have to read all the DynoJet literature because I don't cover what they cover. Your choice, you've been warned.
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Before the Power Commander, there was the FMF Power Programmer.

FMF Power Programmer I had made improvements to the air box and exhaust and thought it was about time to see some performance from my efforts. I had heard about the FMF Power Programmer and how easy it was to setup and use and how it could add performance by increasing fuel to the engine. So I bought one. I decided I wanted to see the lights in action and to be able to adjust the tuning while on a ride (NOT actually while moving), so I made a mount for the FMF PP so it would sit right at the front of the fuel tank, easily reached and readable. The unit was laughably easy to install: disconnect the connector to the fuel injector and add the PP inline and also run one ground wire to the battery. That's it! I turned on the key and pressed the starter button and the engine roared to life (actually purred to life). After a brief warm-up, I went for a test ride. And surprise surprise, there was power, more power. Not gobs of power, but a modest, very much appreciated, increase in power almost everywhere that I could tell. I rode my standard 50 mile test loop and the bike performed great. Now this was more like it. I spent quite a bit of time reading up on the FMF PP. There are six numbers you can change that determine where in the power band and to what extent jetting changes are made. Riders have been experimenting with many variations and I found much information that was being shared. Instead of posting jet sizes and needle settings as we used to do for carbs, they are exchanging strings of numbers, such as 3,4,2,1,1,2. It brought a smile to my face to see the new way of doing things. The FMF PP is designed to add fuel to the Yamaha ECU-calculated injector pulse, never to reduce fuel. It depends on the Yamaha ECU to calculate pulse width based on elevation, temperature, and several other factors. The presumption is that Yamaha has jetted lean for EPA reasons and to get more power, you have to add more fuel. If you open up the airbox and/or add a free-flowing exhaust, you'll also need more fuel. However, I think that my WRR is running too rich at the 8,000" - 12,000" where I ride and that the FMF PP is contributing to the richness. My bike's performance did improve, but I felt the effect mostly at the mid-to-top end. I wanted more power down low and wasn't getting it. I tried several changes based on what others have done, but low-end performance wasn't affected. Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed the higher-speed hit. I just wanted more hit everywhere. Why are we never satisfied with things; no matter how good they get, we want more. And so it was with the FMF PP. As good as it was, I wanted more. The more I read about the Power Commander V and Auto Tune, the more I lusted for them. Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer and ordered the PC V and AT and when they arrived, I took a perfectly good, hard working, trouble-free electronic gizmo off my WRR and proceeded to add two replacement gizmos of unknown performance and reliability to my precious WRR, all in a mad lust for more POWER. Such is the way of boys and their toys, and I'm no stranger to the mad lust. FMF Power Programmer - about $223.  Dennis Kirk

Now for the tuning info, as promised.

After reading all of the PCV (Power Commander V) and AT (Auto Tune) documentation and installing and configuring the PCV and AT, I decided that I would tune the fuel injection system as follows:

I would set up the AFR target table with only one value for all cells. There was supposed to be a default table on the software CD but it was empty. I chose a single value (13.2) just to get my feet wet and see how things go. I planned to make a better AFR table later. Although the AFR table I made did not call for power and economy settings at different throttle settings and RPMs, it would still be useful as a starting point. Now to the mechanics of collecting the data.

Ride a test loop (about 50 miles of mostly dirt roads),
Generate the AT trim values during the ride,
Save a copy of the AT trim values to study later and show on this web page,
Apply the AT trim values to the PCV map to get a new PCV map,
Repeat.

When you apply the AT trim values, the AT trim table is zeroed out, ready for the next run.

Good plan. But I screwed up the very first run (10/11). For some reason, when I applied the AT trim values, they didn't change the PCV map and the AT trim table was zeroed out. For the second run (10/13), I was very careful and everything worked just fine. Here is the first AT run where I saved the trim table. The columns are throttle position as a percentage of full throttle, and the rows are RPM, in steps of 250. The values in the table are the AT trim values, which are applied to the PCV map. Of course, the PCV map itself is just a table of corrections to apply to the fuel injection pulses as calculated by the Yamaha WRR ECU. I'll be showing the PCV map later.

Getting back to the mechanics of how I did things. My strategy is to incrementally improve the performance, generating corrections and applying them, then getting newer corrections, and so on. You can't really fill the table completely on one run, so I figured 3 or 4 should do the job. A look at each run's trim tables will tell when you're getting the performance at most throttle positions and RPMs; the correction table will tend to all zeros as you make more runs. So I applied the first set of trim values (t01) to the PCV map and did another run on 10/18. This generated another set of trim values (t02) which I then applied for the next run on 10/20.

Mileage

The table shows miles ridden and gas used to give MPG. Time and MPH are also shown. Gearing, FI settings, and mods which directly control engine performance and thus MPG are also shown.

Speed and gear calibrations

I've done some more reading and finally figured out how to make PCV maps and AFR tables for each gear (that would be six) and that has changed how I plan to continue. Putting all that data here would be too confusing so I have decided to do the tuning rides, apply the corrections, review the data on my computer as it is applied to the PCV map, and report anything that looks interesting or unusual. I'll summarize how the performance is changing (better or worse) and update the mileage table above, and report any significant developments that pop up.

The first step in using AFR tables for each gear is to do the speed and gear calibrations. DynoJet suggests doing this on a dyno, but that is pretty much out of the question; I live in a little town in the mountains and I'm two hours away from a dyno in Colorado Springs. Alternately, the guide says to put the bike on a stand, so that's what I did.

I put the WRR on a solid wooden stand that was placed in the middle of my 5 x 10 trailer, then tied the bike down solidly with tie-downs all the way round. I also tied the front wheel to the front trailer rail for stability. I connected the computer to the PCV, started the bike and warmed it up for a few minutes. Then I put the bike in 4th gear and opened the throttle until the speedo showed 40 MPH. This corresponds to a true speed of 30 MPH, which is the calibration speed. At that moment, my wife hit the calibrate and OK buttons on the computer and the speed calibration was done.

Next, I put the bike in 1st gear and ran the RPMs up to 2,500 and my wife hit the calibrate button for 1st gear. I cycled through all six gears, running the engine up to 2,500 RPMs and my wife capturing the calibration on each gear. Then I shut the bike down, disconnected the computer, untied the bike, and rolled it back in the garage for final setup.

One note. Even though the WRR was tied down with 8 straps and the front wheel secured, the bike jumped and bucked whenever the RPMs got over 2,000; it actually scared me on the first practice run. The two lower rear straps hooked to the axle loops on each side of the swingarm were essential in steadying the rear wheel and swingarm. If you do this, be very careful.

Follow-up: I found out that I made a mistake when calibrating the gears and had to do the calibration again. I dreaded loading the bike on the trailer, tying it down, and having it buck and jump while I calibrated away. Then it hit me - I didn't have to do it. I removed the chain from the front sprocket, then removed the sprocket. I pulled the chain back away from the drive shaft and secured it. I put the WRR on the wooden stand in my garage, fired it up, shifted through all the gears, revving the engine, and there was no significant bucking and jumping at all. Brilliant! Learn from my experience.

When I got the PCV and AT kit, a software CD was in the box. This CD had the software and maps that I installed on my PC (actually a MacBook Pro running in Windows mode). The fuel injection map files provide a variety of maps pre-configured for stock to fully modified bikes. But one thing was missing; none of the maps was set up for six gears. I called DynoJet tech support and the tech sent me a 6-speed map file via email. It was time to load this map file into the PCV on the bike, which I did with no problems. The WRR was now set up for another tuning run, but with a 6-speed map file and a fully calibrated PCV and AT. We're talkin some serious tuning here, folks. It will be all I can do to get my head around and understand all the numbers that will come pouring out during the next AT and trim-accept session. As soon as a bit more snow melts, I'm off for a tuning ride

After two tuning rides I had a look at the trim data and found a problem. There were no trim values for any gears from 1 to 6, but there was a trim table not associated with gears that had values. Back on the phone to DynoJet tech support I discovered that my PCV tables were not correct. These would be the ones that were sent to me several weeks ago via email. So the tech sent me another set that looked like this:

So I went out for another tuning run and success, I now had values for each gear in both the PCV gear tables and AutoTune Trim tables. So it was now time to put some miles on and populate the tables with values.

But not so fast. Thinking again (always gets me into trouble), I decided to work up a better set of AFR values. The ones the DynoJet tech had sent me were just estimates that he had set up on the fly, so I would have some valid tables to work with. I wanted something more appropriate to how I ride. I was thinking that I wanted rich AFR values (for power) for lower gears and lean values (for economy) for the upper gears. But I really didn't know what was rich and what was lean. Here is an excerpt from a thread I started on ThumperTalk:

Posted on TT 11/12/09, Intake - Jetting / Fuel Injection forum

Target AFR

Questions for Eddie, but I welcome other knowledgeable input (not speculation, please).

2009 Yamaha WR250R with Power Commander V and AutoTune. Bike to be used on dirt roads (80%), easy trails (10%), and paved roads (10%).
I want to set up my own target AFR tables and would like some help.
I would like the lower gears (1-4) to be set for power and the upper gears (5-6) to be set for cruise/economy.
For all gears, I would like the lower RPMs to be set for power and upper RPMs to taper to nominal.

The DynoJet AutoTune guide shows:

Dynojet does not recommend inputting values in the 0% column of the Target AFR tables.
Dynojet considers the cruise range to be around 5-20% throttle.
Dynojet does not recommend making the bike any leaner than 14.7 in the Target AFR cells.
Dynojet has found that for the best compromise of fuel mileage and throttle response to set the cruise range to 13.7-14.0.
For all other ranges 12.8-13.4 seems to work best.
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Should I use 12.8 for maximum power settings and 14.7 for best economy settings?
I would set the minimum and maximum values, and then set intermediate values in a graduated fashion.

Do you consider cruise range to be around 5-20% throttle as DJ does? What if you're cruising at high speed and need 50% throttle? I would prefer to link upper gears to cruise range instead of throttle position to cruise range.
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Here is Eddie's excerpted response:

Eddie Sisneros 11/12/09

You will find that above 14.0 the bike will run bad; I would not go leaner than 14.0.
12.8 is also rich for max power production; you will want 13.0-13.2.

I would set the 100% throttle column at 13.0 and the rest of the columns except 0% to 14.0.
This will give you good economy at any partial throttle openings and best power when you open the throttle fully.

If you decide you want better driveability than what 14.0 offers at partial throttle, you can test 13.5 to 13.8.
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I have not included Eddie's idle AFR setup notes, which I will address after getting off-idle performance set up.

My conclusions after reading what Eddie had to say: use 13.0 - 14.0 initially and change to suit. Back on my WRR, I set up the AFR tables as follows:
gears 1, 3, 5 - AFR 13.0 (rich) for all cells (except 0%),
gears 2, 4, 6 - AFR 14.0 (lean) for all cells (except 0%).

So why did I do such an odd-ball setup? I wanted to test rich vs lean in the lower gears, back-to-back if possible. By setting 1st gear to rich and 2nd gear to lean, I could compare rich to lean by just shifting back and fourth. For instance, I could be climbing in 1st gear and switch to 2nd to see how bad the power drop off is, within reason, of course. I couldn't be shifting to 2nd on a hill which really needed 1st, but I think you get the drift. Same reasoning for 5th and 6th. I wanted to see how different rich and lean really were. The only challenge was to keep track of each gear pair mentally so I could correctly determine performance relative to AFR.
 

Nov 25, 2009

Well that was interesting. I was able to tell the difference between rich-lean-rich for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gears but didn't notice rich vs lean in 4th, 5th, and 6th. The upper gears all pulled pretty good.

So now I'll set up the AFR tables as follows:
gears 1, 2, 3, 4 - AFR 13.0 (rich) for all cells (except 0%) for power in low and mid range speeds,
gears 5, 6 - AFR 14.0 (lean) for all cells (except 0%) for economy when cruising at higher speeds.

This will be much closer to what I think I'll eventually end up with. So for the next week or so, I plan to ride varying terrain at different speeds and get a good set of corrections that I can study further.

That's it for now, stay tuned.

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