Ace UCE project.

[1 Thump]

It's worth the wait. I ride an iron barrell with a fireball kit, and I can tell you it's done right. And thats very important.

[ace.cafe]

The Fireball kit took more than a year to get ready for the introduction.
I am certainly trying to get it done in the most timely manner possible. I want to see it out there as much as anybody.

[Ducati Scotty]

You know what they say, you can have it done fast, right, or cheap.  Pick two.

Scott

[Ducati Scotty]

Status?

[ace.cafe]

Status?

Still waiting for them to get it done.
I have made some of my own progress on some techniques to get some rocker ratio, while I have been waiting. It worked on my Iron Barrel prototype, so it will work for the UCE rockers, and now we'll be able to get some more lift out of it.
But the only progress has been what I have been able to accomplish myself, and I'm still waiting for the shop to get the port development done.

[Ducati Scotty]

Oh well   I guess we're getting out of race season and their time should free up soon.

Scott

[Ducati Scotty]

If you were looking for a whole UCE engine to do testing on, HobbyDad just totalled his ride.  I think he was going to call it and just take the check but the buyback was only $700.  You might want to drop him a line if you'd like a whole engine to play with.

Scott

[Ducati Scotty]

Speaking of getting more lift from the rocker design...

Which of the mods you're doing would require an EFI re-map, and which could go with the map as it is?  Just curious since the PC3 is everyone's favorite tool for that job and the one for the UCE seems to be stuck with that RPM spiking problem.

Scott

[ace.cafe]

Speaking of getting more lift from the rocker design...

Which of the mods you're doing would require an EFI re-map, and which could go with the map as it is?  Just curious since the PC3 is everyone's favorite tool for that job and the one for the UCE seems to be stuck with that RPM spiking problem.

Scott

We don't know.
We'll find out when we fire it up. The flexibility of the RE EFI is unknown to me, and the actual fuel/air efficiency of this engine change is unknown as of yet. After we did the Fireball, the efficiency of fuel usage was so much better that we had to go leaner on the jetting. So, there is some hope that it will still fall in the range of what the EFI can handle, but use the fuel to better efficient power-making.

[Ducati Scotty]

Thanks.

[ace.cafe]

Okay, we have movement, finally!

We now have a baseline flow chart for the UCE head with standard valves in it, just like is in all your bikes. That's the good news.
The bad news is that it flows pretty much exactly like the Iron Barrel head does, except the UCE has smaller valves.
Basically, the flow differences could almost be considered small enough to call it about the same as the stock Iron Barrel head in terms of actual supply to the engine. There are some design differences, but the outcome is about the same, which we suspected. Some notable observations are that the UCE head definitely flows better at the very low valve lifts, but not quite as good at .300" lift, which is about the lift height for both stock engines on the intake.
For reference purposes, the Iron Barrel max flow at .300" lift is 143 cfm, and the UCE max flow in the same conditions is 136 cfm. Pretty close. The flow at just .050" valve lift, just as it's opening up, is 28.7 cfm for the stock Iron Barrel, and 35 cfm for the UCE, which is a good bit better(percentage-wise) at the lowest lift. But not much flow takes place at such a low lift, so it isn't really giving it much of a boost there, but every little bit helps some.
In terms of average flow over the entire lift range, the stock UCE flows 94 cfm average, and the stock Iron Barrel flows 92.1 cfm average. For all intents and purposes, a virtual tie.

So, the next step was to make a try at improving what was already there, with the same valves and lifts. This yielded some improvement of about 17% in max flow. Now, the intake flows 159 cfm at .300" lift. Average flow goes up a couple of percent. This is still not great. But it's better. And if somebody wanted just that alone, we could give them that right now.
There are some issues with the port bowl shape which need to be addressed to get better flow. I will be discussing this with them tonight.

The goals that I have in mind are to get the UCE intake flowing as close to the Fireball head as I can. And I want to treat the UCE exhaust as its own special case, because it has some potential to get some exhaust results that we just couldn't get with the large exhaust port in the Fireball.
The Fireball head flows 182.4 cfm at .300" lift. I'm using .300" lift as the reference height because that's what the UCE intake valve lift is with the stock system. To increase lift higher would mean cams or rockers, and possibly a piston to match, so that there is clearance on the piston for the increased valve lift at TDC. I plan to seriously try to get into doing that too, but this initial discussion is comparing things to the stock arrangement. With higher lift, we could substantially increase the max flow AND the average flow, so we'd like to go there to the extent that it is feasible to do.

So, we have a basic initial look at what we have to work with, and how it compares against a stock Iron Barrel head, and a goal of trying to come as close to the Fireball head as we can.
The heads are fairly similar in layout, and a lot of the things we do with the Fireball can work on these UCE heads.

[Ducati Scotty]

Great news that thigns are moving forward!  Any thoughts on whether there is a possibility of using the stock EFI or will it most likely need to be modified?

Scott

[ace.cafe]

Well Scott, the stock EFI stuff will bolt up on it.
Whether the stock EFI map has enough latitude to auto-adjust the mixture for it by the O2 sensor readings is up to the EFI controller.

I don't know anyone anywhere who has that answer. This ECU is a black box that nobody has any answers about, and the RE factory isn't talking. Hitchcock's can't seem to make the Power Commander work right. It's all a big mystery.

When we get to a good stage of completion for testing the stuff, we'll have to put it on a dyno and see what the Air/Fuel curve looks like.

[Ducati Scotty]

Thanks  

Do we even know for sure that this is a "learning" ECU, that is, over time will it adjust it's base map?  I thought those types of ECU were fairly expensive and figured we had a more economical fixed base map type.  What I mean by that is the base map is fixed at the factory and does not change.  When the engine is running at steady state it uses the O2 sensor and cycles between lean and rich, when it's  acceleration, decelerating, or the throttle angle is changing it read the map and uses that information.  I know some people have said it seems to learn over time when they add a new exhaust but I've changed the exhaust and never noticed any difference or changes over time.

I'm pretty sure the IDM is remappable, as many people who had the early map and had problems had them remapped by technicians with a PC.  They were very secrective, took things into another room then brought them back much improved.  I've read a few accounts like this from Indian owners.  If so we may at least be able to remap the base map of the export ECU.

In the last few years some outside people have cracked the Magnetti Marelli ECUs that Ducati use.  They first figured out how to disable the immobilizer that would go wonky and kill a bike, then later figured how to get to and alter the EFI map.

Scott

[ace.cafe]

Thanks  

Do we even know for sure that this is a "learning" ECU, that is, over time will it adjust it's base map?  I thought those types of ECU were fairly expensive and figured we had a more economical fixed base map type.  What I mean by that is the base map is fixed at the factory and does not change.  When the engine is running at steady state it uses the O2 sensor and cycles between lean and rich, when it's  acceleration, decelerating, or the throttle angle is changing it read the map and uses that information.  I know some people have said it seems to learn over time when they add a new exhaust but I've changed the exhaust and never noticed any difference or changes over time.

I'm pretty sure the IDM is remappable, as many people who had the early map and had problems had them remapped by technicians with a PC.  They were very secrective, took things into another room then brought them back much improved.  I've read a few accounts like this from Indian owners.  If so we may at least be able to remap the base map of the export ECU.

In the last few years some outside people have cracked the Magnetti Marelli ECUs that Ducati use.  They first figured out how to disable the immobilizer that would go wonky and kill a bike, then later figured how to get to and alter the EFI map.

Scott

I don't know.
As far as I understand, the 02 sensor detects rich or lean, and corrects the mixture to suit.
If it will do that, and has some latitude, we have a good shot at it.
It has to have some latitude for richer, to handle cold weather.
We just have to see. I really don't have an answer for the EFI until I see exactly what it fails to do, in terms of what I need.