| Author | Message | ||
     Hellgate |
Well here it is folks. Bottomline this bitch makes POWER! As many of you are aware I'd purchased a Free Spirits full exhaust and a Power Commander V. Last week I dropped the bike off at AF1 Racing in New Braunfels, Texas. AF1 Racing has one of the very best tuners and a really nice guy, period, Micah Shoemaker. Micah has turned other bikes for me and buddies of mine. His results are, well, the best. http://www.apriliaforum.com/ http://www.af1racing.com/store/Scripts/default.asp AF1 Racing uses a Factory Pro dyno and 4 Gas EGA, not a simple 02 sniffer like DynoJet does. Also the plots are not exaggerated results, like DynoJet. Google "True Horsepower". As a result the number will look lower than DJ numbers, but who cares? It's all about relative change; eg: before and after. Also Factory Pro tunes to CO, CO2, NOX and O2, not just 02. In this case AFVs are not measured, I've no idea what they are/were. Sooo....here's the story. I drop the bike off with the PCV and the FS system installed, and O2 sensors removed. With the stock PCV map and the FS system we ended up with a really funky plot, lost hp in the mid range and is spiked on the top end, very not 1125R like, more like a 1098. The plots are very similar to Aprilia RSVs with a stock exhaust, not what we are looking for. Micah's take was the baffles in the mufflers were too restrictive. So he removed them. Needless to say I'm think, ****, those were expensive. So the next runs are with NO baffles, and the bike is now stupid loud, way too loud for the street. More on that solution later. With that baffles out he's able to tune the bike resulting in huge gains. +17hp at 6,000 rpm and +12 on the top. The mid range at 40% throttle now makes more power than stock at WFO. Numbers about 124 true hp, or about 138 to 140 hp in DynoJet numbers. 72 true pounds of torque or 84ish DynoJet pounds of torque. Yes all numbers are corrected and the dyno never varies by more than 1/10hp from day to day. Key to the plot: Yellow, bone stock Blue, Free Spirits with standard PCV map Red, Tuned results; FS with open mufflers and custom map So what is the key to this? Tuning to complete combustion not AFV; AFV is a dynamic, ever changing number that doesn't matter. When tuning to complete combustion ths goal is to have the CO at about 5%. Note the lower plots. Red is the CO after tuning, yellow and blue are prior. Note the much higher levels of CO prior to tuning. http://www.factorypro.com/dyno/4gasEGAvso2sensor.html The next phase is getting the sound down to a reasonable level. We are looking at removing the FS mufflers, making a merge pipe with a taper and then going into a large volume muffler, large muffler = large torque. There are two options, one medium muffler on each side of the bike, or one larger muffler on the non-drive side. Dunno yet. Micah owns an Aprilia dealership so we'll find a muffler that will work. Akrapovic carbon would be cool. Finally, here's the email Micah sent, I pick the bike up Saturday. "Tuning is done. Yes, the noise is insane and here I sit with a head not quite right and an upset tummy but….how does 15 ft/lbs gained at just 6k rpm and 17 bhp at 6k, carrying a gain of over 12 bhp to rev limit sound? That part sounds very good, it just needed to breathe. Now at 40% throttle and 6k rpm, you are making more power than you were wide open at the same rpm either stock or as delivered this time! The real solution to the noise issue will have to be sorted by a custom exhaust shop like Muffin in Austin. You need to extend the collectors and add full length silencers hangin off the right side of the bike. I have a pretty good idea of what you need to do, and with that will come more midrange yet…imagine that! Micah Included is the dyno from dead stock (yellow), the way you brought it in this time (blue) and the way it is leaving…think the results are nothing short of amazing!"  (Message edited by hellgate on January 31, 2010) | ||
| Blackflash |
It makes total sense.I ran mine with a wide open downpipe no muffler and it made more torque than stock and made the same hp.If i added fuel im sure I would make more power.These bikes like flow and lots of it ive found.Just trying to keep the db down will cause you to loose power on this beast.Keep us updated. | ||
| Tbenson |
Blackflash, This sounds all to familiar, does it not? From the PC-V, Dyno, tuning, all the way to the exhaust. See maybe we do have a clue? Well maybe you, little hope for me! Which one of our phones is tapped? LOL!!! Seriously Hellgate, It seems you are going in the right direction, updates will be greatly appreciated! | ||
| Easyrider |
Hellgate, Did you drive it on the street (-: Can you take a picture of the System, Just wanted to see the type of slipon, We run the same system here. | ||
| Blackflash |
Its all to funny troy .Exactly what I've been saying in my other dyno results thread.This bike likes flow.It needs very little backpressure. My wide open exhaust dyno test proven to show numbers over stock just lean. Noise reduction will be hard to achieve in a straight through or wide open state but thats what will make power and gobbs of it.Which also brings me to another point about the drummer.I havent seen a dyno chart to breakdown the afv chart.How lean is it?It makes a couple hp over stock and tq as well but where is the afr on a dyno sheet.That will tell me how much potential the drummer really has.Straight through styles are not limited a baffled style could have limits. | ||
| Blur |
Good information in here. It's good to know what this beast likes. When you take it out post up how much of a difference you can feel. | ||
| Hellgate |
I took it for a short ride yesterday, the weather is terrible but all I can say is WOW! The motor is very easy to control for everyday riding and the power is stunning, I really can't describe the difference. Currently the exhaust is the full Free Spirits, so it doesn't look any different from what they sell, only the Archimedes screws have been removed from each can. I'm looking at two muffler options, a single version and a dual. I've got a line on a pair of Leo Vince cans for an Aprilia RSV1000. Option A) Remerge the manifold into a larger pipe and hang a single muffler under the passenger peg. Option B) Leave the pipe separate and hang a muffler under each passenger foot peg. The problem with this option is the drive side has very limited space. We may need to fab up some shorter, replacement passenger foot peg brackets to gain more room. I suspect we may go with Option A...who knows...I'll need to talk to the exhaust fabricator first. Right now I'd guess the DB is about 110ish, I think with a good large volume can we can get down to 98 to 100 DB. With DB Killers it will drop even more for touring days, I really don't like loud bikes. Also the larger cans will increase mid-range torque even more; one of the reasons I'd like to go with dual mufflers. Also lean isn't the problem here, if anything it is fat. See the lower CO% plots. The stock (yellow) CO plot is much richer than where we ended up, the results speak for themselves. Finally the dip in torque at 2,500 rpm is from the cam timing of the stock cams which have high lift and high duration. This in turn causes a loss of charge velocity at lower rpms, this corrects itself once the rpms are back up to 3,200 or so. Being that these are putt around block rpms it's not even noticeable. Note that at 4,200ish rpm this set up make more torque than peak for the stock set up. And we can get more. : ) (Message edited by hellgate on January 31, 2010) (Message edited by hellgate on January 31, 2010) | ||
| Highscore |
The Freespirits full exhaust system is an adaption of the "old" Termingnoni exhaust lay out for 996 Ducs with individual header tubes and mufflers, correlated to each cylinder, featuring a merging area, a bypass, in the middle of the overall length, where this individual runner are joined. http://www.freespirits.it/prodotti.php?lang=2&cat_ id=13&prod_id=239 This is an efficient design for V2-engines, but it works only sufficiently without any restriction inside the mufflers. When installing here a baffle, a db-killer to calm down the noise a little bit, the power breaks down dramatically in the middle of the range. This is caused by the uneven firing order of a V2 engine, pushing via this joint exhaust gases from one header into the other. The graphs here are the proof for this: The Freespirit full exhaust works only as a real straight thru system. The two slim mufflers probably produce a noise hurting the ears, but the overall performance of this system should be outstanding, close to be a benchmark for Helicon engine performance pipes. The only thing, another exhaust could make better, is to deliver similar engine performance, but in a silenced manner. This is the project, I have worked on: "Straight thru" performance with a "social acceptable", street-legal noise emission. . Regarding fueling: Looks like as the standard PC-V map was more than rich. For new bikes and when things are "curious" I also prefer CO-reading: 4-5% CO are a common benchmark for performance. One percent more or less CO in the exhaust gas sound less, but regarding fuel metering this difference means a lot: There are engines, which show all symptoms of richness, when operated on a mixture for 5% CO making better power with a 4%-fueling. Other engines like it even richer offering best performance with 6% CO in the exhaust. Therefore, when testing a new type and model, it is necessary to find out its "performance window" , its individual "A/F-target as the fuel-ratio for its best engine efficiency. For this first approach CO-readings are my preferred choice, because its is the "clearest" reference gas of the exhaust with a direct relation to fuel and combustion. O2-readings, measuring the residual oxygen in the exhaust gas, is a too delicate measurement for such an "first approach" to combustion, simply because the wide band probe reads any oxygen in the exhaust, no matter where it comes from. But when this job is done and the A/F-target is discovered, from my point of view O2-reading by a WB-probe is an acceptable tool for setting up an engine. You will find here the same relation for the A/F-ratio, no matter CO or "residual) oxygen is sensed as reference gas. I prefer the WB-probe for its fast response for most part of my work. 5% CO represent an A/F-ratio more at the rich side. I have seen for the Helicon engine the same value on my Sun gas tester. This 5% CO corresponded to Lambda 0,85 or 12,2:1. This is valid for WOT. At light engine loads the A/F-ratio is leaner. | ||
| Highscore |
One thing left to say: This "true" power graph shows peak power at the rev limiter, the torque is flat and keeps a high level up this margin. So it looks like as the apex is beyond the limiter. For this reason, if the engine would be allowed to rev a little bit more, each 100 additional revolutions should be good for 2% gain in power. The safety limit for the stock Helicon engine is 11.000 (I have heard this number here). Rising the limit up to this margin could be therefore the key for 10% more power. Where is the limiter at the pre-adjusted EBR-race-ECM for US$ 250,--? (Message edited by Highscore on February 01, 2010) |
