Ace UCE project.

[ace.cafe]

We have been having some recent conversations with the ECU people, and it seems that they will be making a few tweaks that we need, and we will buy a unit for our testing here. That means that we'll probably have it here by the end of the month, or early next month. And then we'll have to familiarize ourselves with how to program it and get some time on the bike and the dyno with it. We will have to program this thing for our kit.
The unit will just plug into your existing wiring harness. Un-plug your OEM ECU and plug in this new one. We will have it pre-programmed and ready to plug right in when we get these kits ready for market.

Assuming everything works out, and we will probably come up with some things we want to improve along the way, we'll then begin with having our special "ACE" versions of this ECU made for us, which will have all the features and programming to provide with our kits.

So, I'm feeling pretty optimistic about this right now.
We expect to have the heads(we are doing two heads) in our hands before the end of the month too. I don't know why I haven't received the flow charts for the head yet, but they will eventually arrive, and then I'll post them. We still need to get the better rockers made.
Then, Chumma will work out the piston design with our piston provider for the 535 piston with the features that we want to provide with that. And we'll bore the barrels for the new pistons.

The pieces are starting to come together.
The idea is that you bolt on our custom 535 big-bore kit with piston and barrel, and bolt our modified head on top, button it all up, and plug in the new pre-programmed ECU, and you ride away with an Ace power upgrade for your UCE bike that works right out of the box.

[Ducati Scotty]

Awesome progress

[Ragmas]

What's that?  You need another test bed?  Why of course, I would be glad to let you throw that into my bike so I can see how it does. 

Samgar

[mattsz]

Not that I want to take anybody's eye's off the prize, but I'm curious about Ace's statement about poorly tuned factory ECU's, which led me to ask:

Just how poorly tuned are our factory ECU's?  If the 20% gain is due to the Power Commander, the filter, and the silencer, then how much is due to the PC alone?

Can anybody comment?

[Arizoni]

I have no idea how poorly tuned the factory ECU is.
I guess it depends on what you want.

In India, km/ltr is the biggie. 

That probably explains why my RE is giving me better mileage/gal than my old Honda CX500.

I think Ace's projects are designed to improve power and acceleration so from that standpoint there are some improvements that can be made.

[ace.cafe]

Not that I want to take anybody's eye's off the prize, but I'm curious about Ace's statement about poorly tuned factory ECU's, which led me to ask:

Can anybody comment?

Matt,
I mentioned it in the context of the claim of "20% hp increase" from the Power Commander, along with the inclusion of the different air filter and different silencer. This meaning that the addition of these free-flow devices permitted some additional air to be ingested into the engine, and so the additional fuel could be used in a productive way and the Power Commander could then supply that fuel to make a correct mixture ratio.

I really don't know how poorly(or not) the stock ECU is tuned. Only that the Power Commander could not make much improvement by itself unless the ECU was poorly tuned.
Real increases come when the engine gets more air into it, compression is increased, displacement is increased, rpm is increased, or any/all of the above. In fact, it is likely that the stock ECU is tuned fairly well for normal riding with the stock engine. And so I don't think that just plugging in a Power Commander is going to give anywhere near a 20% power increase unless these other items are changed to permit more air to come into the engine, which can then accept more fuel in the proper ratio. And I was pointing out that the ad for the PC was doing just that, and that the free flow filter and silencer were part of this power gain, and a very important part at that
So, the PC is not doing this by itself, and it is just correcting the mixture ratio for the additional air that the free flow parts allowed to enter.

That is really the point that I was trying to make.

[mattsz]

I really don't know how poorly(or not) the stock ECU is tuned. Only that the Power Commander could not make much improvement by itself unless the ECU was poorly tuned.

Thanks for that clarification Ace!  I am a-quiver with anticipation of your results...

[barenekd]

On a dyno test on my bike the stock ECU with an EFI muffler and K&N filter was pretty well tuned. the mixture was pretty much between 12 and 13:1 thoughout the entire range. It could've been tweaked a little closer to 13:1, but in the the real world it works pretty well!
Bare

[ace.cafe]

On a dyno test on my bike the stock ECU with an EFI muffler and K&N filter was pretty well tuned. the mixture was pretty much between 12 and 13:1 thoughout the entire range. It could've been tweaked a little closer to 13:1, but in the the real world it works pretty well!
Bare

Yeah, I sort of expected it would be pretty good.
That really just reinforces that the PC would have very little effect without the other modifications listed in that advertising copy. But doing the free flow modifications, and having the PC add fuel in the proper ratio to work with the increased air supply can give a good boost as a combined package.

[ace.cafe]

Our prototype programmable ECU is ready, and I'm being billed for it today, and it will be on its way to us for testing very soon.

[gremlin]

what brand/make/model of ECU are you using ?

[ace.cafe]

what brand/make/model of ECU are you using ?

This particular one is coming from RaceDynamics. I expect that it will have the modifications to it which we requested, along with the programming cable.
We like this one because it plugs into the harness just like the stock ECU, and uses the stock injector and all the stock sensors, etc.
We(supposedly) can program it the way we desire. And we will need to develop the program on a dyno with all of our new performance kit stuff on the engine. So, this is basically just an easy to plug-in platform, which we will need to program specifically for our needs. Our goal in the future would be to provide the unit with our program already in it, for purchasers of our kits. It wouldn't be of any use to us in a standard configuration. This just allows us to get into it and modify it the way we need to.
And of course, we need to test it to be sure that it is going to do what we want, including being stable and reliable.

[Ducati Scotty]

Any idea what the CU will retail for?

Scott

[ace.cafe]

Any idea what the CU will retail for?

Scott

Well, it's costing me about $400 to get this one landed here in the US, including the programming cable link, and the shipping costs, etc. I had to pay retail price, plus shipping.
I will have to try to negotiate something with them on the price for some quantities in the future.

Right now I'm just wanting to get this package working and sorted. Then I can work on getting costs down. First things first.

[Ducati Scotty]

$400 retail with a programming cable is a good price IMO.

Scott