ECU or PC3

TripleZee Cycles

Motorcycle Fuel System Specialist

DynoTuning & Electrical

ECU Remap vs Add-On Boxes, eg PowerCommander

This isnt an anti Power Commander rant, far from it. They work well but if you have the choice, remapping the oem ECU has the potential to deliver a far better result when tuning Fuel Injection maps. There are a number of reasons.

For a start you dont have to install the extra box. Some bikes arent blessed with a lot of spare room and fitiing extra wirining, plugs, and the box can be difficult. The majority of addon boxes are fuel adjustment only, and while with most simple tunes you can get away with fuel adjustments, if you really get into it you need access to ignition tables as well.

Generally speaking the difference between tuning the oem ECU and adding an aftermarket fuelling box is like night and day. The add-on box is very limited in adjustment range and adjustment accuracy. Tuning the stock ECU is easier to get right. I prefer to tune the ecu because we can do a far better job. The add-on boxes always involve some degree of compromise to the quality of the tune. Tuning the ECU can take a little longer, but it is worth it.

Why doesnt everyone do it this way?

Most shops use a Dynojet dyno and getting a decent tune using an Inertia dyno can be difficult. Dynojet have an auto-tuning feature which makes it easier to "tune" power commanders. The advantage of this system is its easy to do, the "tuner" doesnt have to do a lot, just strap the bike in and push buttons. And the result is generally sort of OK. So from the shops point of view it makes sense to push Power commanders. The downside is the resultant tune is certainly not as good as it could be. Good tuners will put more effort into the tune even after the bike has been auto tuned.

Tuning the ECU does require the 'tuner" to get fully involved with the whole process. ie I am tuning your bike, not the computer. We dont just rely on a Wideband AFR when tuning, we have a spiffing Tuning and Diagnostic Brake Dyno, with real time Torque and HP output, a 4 gas EGA, WBo2, Datalogger, and Diagnostic programs to help us when tuning. But even with all this gear I still decide what to do.

And I believe we have one of the best quality tuning services available in the country

	ECU Tuning	Add-On Box
Cost	Normally purchase an "access key" which gives access to all tunable areas of the ECU. Cheaper than a PC3	Requires purchase of a PC3 or other box
Tables to edit	Fuel, Ignition, Compensation, A/F, warmup, accel, decell, functions eg O2, exhaust butterflies, rev limit, secondary valves etc	Normally just fuel, sometimes ignition, may require extra boxes.
Idle quality	As stock	Some bikes end up with a rough idle due to injection timing differencs from stock
Reliability	As stock	Another point of failure introduced. Extra wires and plugs and sometimes the loom has to be modified.
Accuracy	As stock	Questionable. A lot of addon boxes only add fuel and cant really be called "tuners". The little boxes with 3 buttons or 4 switches have a very limited adjustment range and are very basic in their operation. Each adjustment covers such a wide operating range the result is always a compromise.

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