[BAD V-R]

Well, I spoke with Chris for about 20 minutes and then Steve at V-Mod to make sure things look good for my BB Stroker motor. I got the green light from both, so I ordered mine just a few minutes ago.

I did read something on the site that said it was compatible with the HD Handheld Scanner (technician) so I would assume that can still be used to reset any error codes.

A few things I did not see is a setting for the gear ratio (like for a chain drive or 28 tooth pully), table entries above 10K rpm, rev limit above 10K.

 

[BAD V-R]

I received my VRFI kit today from Daytona Twin Tech! The quality of the components and documentation is TOP NOTCH :thumb: !
I plan on pulling the exhaust off tonight, drilling for the probes and trying to get them Tig'd tomorrow. If that goes well I will try to get it back together and out to the dragstrip Friday night. My plan would be to run the Delphi unit that night and set up the VRFI Saturday, get some learning cycles into the unit and take it back to the track that night to compare.
Lofty goals? Yes, it sure is, but I'm going to try!

 

[BAD V-R]

Any updates?

Well, things did not quite as planned. I did get the headers re-installed on Friday night and got out to the racetrack while there was still some prctice time left. I made my first run (3rd ever for the bike and me) which was 11.098 @124 and everything felt pretty good. When I was back in the pits letting things cool down a bit, I noticed a puddle of oil under the left rear side of the motor. Closer investagation showed oil all the way down the swingarm and on the wheel... not good. I did have an idea what the problem was, but needless to say, I was not equipted to make the repairs at the track, so that was the end of my night.

The next morning I pulled off the front sprocket cover and sure enough, my suspicion was correct, the leak was coming from around the output flange. It looks like I did not get the flange fully seated on the output splines. Just to be on the safe side, I removed the flange, the inner seal and cover to replace all o-rings and seals. After searching high and low for the seals, I wound up robbing those pieces from a complete gasket set and I was able to get things cleaned up and back together for another trip to the strip.

This time things went much better and after about 8 runs, we (the bike and I) settled into a 10.94-10.97 @ 125-126MPH range. Now with that out of the way I will try to get VRFI system installed tonight and give the system sometime to learn my powerplant. If all goes well I should be out to the track again for some comparison runs this coming Friday and/or Saturday night.

 

[BAD V-R]

A little more update.

The WEGO unit and probe are calibrated and installed. The DELPHI unit has been removed and the VRFI installed in its place (cables are pretty jamed in there). One note, the allen head screws mentioned in the instructions to mount the VRFI unit were not included in my package, but fortunately I had some that would work from the motor when I changed out the hardware to stainless.

I made a few simple edits to the base data files for the bigbore like setting the estmated crank horsepower to 170, raised the rev limit to 9900 and changed the notes to reflect those changes.

With a little extra throttle, the bike started and I was able to release the throttle in a few seconds. I did idle a bit rough until the startup period expired (90 seconds) and the automatic adjustments could start to work. I had left the computer hooked up so I could view the real-time data and it was very cool to see it adjust the injector pulse width to get to the nominal AFR value. I just opened the throttle a bit more to verify that it would make the adjustments at other cell locations as well, which it did.

At that point I shut things down and went to compare the ignition map since I far as I can tell, that it not adjusted automatically. I figure a good starting point for the advance tables would be to use the settings that were used by the Race Tuner and set by the builder of my motor. Then with that set in the VRFI, the AFR correction so be just about right, Right???

Well that all sounded like a good idea to me but I encountered a couple intesting problems with performing that simple advance table copy. First, the RPM steps for the RT are different for that on the VRFI. That was not a big deal as I could interpolate the values for the cells not included on the RT table. A bigger issue is the fact that the RT uses a MAP value from 10-100 in steps of 10 for the other axis of the table, while the VRFI uses 16 to 30 in steps of 2. I'm not sure if there is a direct relation, so I will be calling Chris tomorrow for clarification. Lastly, there is only one advance table that I can see in the VRFI, while the RT has a seperate one for the front and rear cylinders and my RT file does have different values in the front and rear.

That's it for now.

 

[BAD V-R]

Thanks Mark.

First off, I did not make any change to the AFR or Advance tables when I first started the bike. It just needed a little help for a second or so, then things were fine. After it ajusted the injector width the first time it was no longer required... just as I would expect.

Thanks for the conversion table, that will help a lot, but there still is a bunch of hand conversion to be done on the ignition advance tables. Chris might consider having an option on the PC link to use the same range the RT uses for those converting over.

As for the front to rear offset on the Advance table, that should be fine. Going over the tables from the RT files, there are only a couple degrees difference front to rear.

As for the automatic setting of the ignition, I'm a bit un-educated. You mention the ION sense. Is that the same as the Knock Sensor? In speaking with Steve at V-Mod, he tells me that the advance was set by finding the peak power and/or finding the point at where knock occurs and backing off from there.

I'll be creating the new advance tables today and putting them in the VRFI tonight. I will try to give another update after that.

 

[BAD V-R]

Mark,

I just looked a little closer at the conversion chart you provided and now am I a bit more concerned again. One axis of the Advance table has a range from 16-30 inHg yet to match up to the range of the RT it would have to get down to ~3 inHg. Am I missing something here or perhaps the coversion is not linear.

 

[BAD V-R]

Mark,

I did spend a few minutes with Chris on the phone this morning going over the RT vs PC-Link advance table data and your assumptions pretty much echo his comments. Basically, anything below 40 or so kPa is pretty irrelevant since (as you pointed out) it only occurs at no load or even engine deceleration. He said that I could simply use the values from the RT at the 30-40 point as the 16 on the VRFI and work upward from there using the 3.(something) factor and filling in the gaps. A bit of hand work, but it should not be too bad. I hope to have it done and in the bike later today.

In the end, after my VRFI makes the adjustments to the injector tables, I make the rear cylinder correction runs and get the advance table updated, we ALL should have a good starting point for the next Big Bore that converts to the VRFI.

On a side conversation with Chris, I pointed out that the mounting instructions for the unit were not correct for the '05 models as they changed up the way the ECU mounted. I beleive that it is easier on the late models since it now mounts to a removable 'tray' that can be accessed without using a stubby allen wrench.

More later.

 

[BAD V-R]

Well folks, you most likely won't see any more updates on my VRFI adventure since my bike is now down for the count.

After I uploaded the advance maps using the Excel spreadsheet, I drove the bike to fill up with gas. It was really running like crap after I restarted it at the station, but by the time I reached home it was starting to feel much better. I took it out again a few minutes later and I noticed the speedo was not working on either the stock gauges or the V-Gauge, but I when on none the less, figuring I would find that I loaded a stupid figure in the VSS setting. (the wierd part is that fact that the stock trip meter was working???) THe bike was really starting to feel good and running smoother and smoother. As I was heading home again (not running hard at all), I began a turn by pulling in the clutch and downshifting. At that time I heard a bunch of clanking from what sounded like the clutch area and the motor instantly died. I pulled to the side of the road and tried to restart the motor, but it would not even turn at all. I finally called my wife to pick be up so that I could return with a trailer.

At this point I still do not know where the problem is, but I removed the oil pan and there was a bunch of copper colored flakes in the bottom along with a couple ~1/4" pieces of steel that had an arch to them. I have also removed the clutch cover, oilpump and clutch pack, but still no turning the motor. I can rotate the crank backwards a bit and try again, but I aways stops at the same point. I fear the worst at this point.

Any suggestions before I pull the entire motor?

 

[BAD V-R]

I just got my motor and bike back togther. Fired it up with the Delphi unit first and everything looks good. I was just in the process of creating an updated map for mine, then I will load it into the VRFI module. Since it is raining outside right now, I won't have much data until I get a chance to ride it.

 

[BAD V-R]

Still blazing the VRFI on a Big Bore trail.

With the motor running fine with the Delphi unit after the rebuild, I turned my sights again to the VRFI unit. I used an ignition profile that was extracted from the RT version using a Excel worksheet that Mark provided. Looking at the 3D graphs from both programs, the profile looks almost like a perfect match. I also used Mark's latest AFR map which would give better mileage without sacrificing performance. I went through a few other areas and decided to reduce the HP figure used as the base fuel calculation since the HP was lower at the 8000RPM point required by the program. I also adjusted the ET (engine temp) based idle speed to match that of the RT.

I loaded the new program into the VRFI unit and tried to start the bike. As before, the motor would not start or idle without me holding the throttle open slightly. Being Sunday (and not being able to call DTT) I went ahead and started to look at other areas of the IAC (Idle Air Control) settings that differed between the RT and the PC-link. As it turns out, the IAC values on the RT were much higher. I went ahead and increased those using the PC-Link and downloaded it back into the VRFI.

Success! The bike started right up and idled very nicely while cool and as it got warm. Other than a little running of the throttle up and down, I was not able to do any real riding since it was raining on and off. I went ahead and took a look at the logs and I could see that the VRFI was still needing to take fuel out on those TPS and RPM cells I visited during the short test.

I went ahead and called Chris at DTT this morning and told him what I saw and what adjustments I made. I was a bit surprised when he told me that I really should be making the idle adjustments in a different manner since I had to add so many steps to the IAC. He was saying that on a really cold day, the bike may not start or idle properly now since I used most of the 'usable' IAC steps just to get it to idle now. What he says I should do is actually adjust the throttle body idle set screws to allow more air in without the assistance of the IAC. This would allow me to reduce the IAC values to 30-40 nominal and down to 0 for the ET based values when the motor is at operational temperature.

Chris pointed out that I will need to make sure that the TPS values are still in range for a 0% reading when the idle screws are adjusted.

I'll give this a try later and post my results.