Power Commander Autotune Reviewed
Even though Auto-tune has been out for a few years, we still get a lot of questions about it. Hopefully this blog post can answer those questions for you.
So let us start by knowing what is a power commander and why do I need one?
What Is A Power Commander?
A Dynojet Power Commander is a fuel management device used to adjust the fuel mapping of a fuel injected motorcycle, and as such can be useful in certain situations, but is not a one size fits all!
The power commander is also a device that allows you to change and customize the air to fuel mixture that is going into your bike to make sure you’re getting peak performance out of your machine.
Why Do I Need One?
The main reason why you need a power commander is mainly to adjust and accommodate for any changes in that air to fuel mixture.
What Is Auto Tune? What Does It Do?
Auto tune is an accessory for a Power Commander V that uses wideband technology to not only monitor your air fuel but also make changes in real time. Now this is a key point as our set up is a true closed-loop system. They will adjust your fuel curve while you are riding to compensate for different weather and altitude conditions. There is no need to use a computer that accepts the changes before you can actually feel them.
Which Auto Tune Do I Need?
There are two versions of auto tune.
1. A single channel
2. A dual channel
A single channel auto tune comes with a single wideband sensor and can be utilized on any application that has a Power Commander V and a 12 volt power source. This unit will build a fuel map based on the air fuel reading of a single cylinder application or the average air fuel of all cylinders on a multi cylinder application.
A dual channel auto tune comes with two wideband sensors and is only used for twin cylinder applications that allows the power commander to build a map for one cylinder independently of the other cylinder. This is a great benefit on Harley-Davidsons and other Italian Manufacturers.
Do I Need To Have Custom Map Developed If I Am Using The Auto Tune?
There are a lot of other variables to consider if you are simply adding an air filter or an exhaust and we have a base map that is fairly close. The auto tune will do a great job of getting the map to where it needs to be. If you are installing an aggressive camshaft of the equation the auto tune may take a long time to make the proper adjustments so dyno power commander auto tune may be the best option.
Another thing to consider is, that unless you ride the bike at all rpm and throttle ranges so on a sportbike this could be up to 15,000 rpm at wide open throttle, then the auto tune cannot make any adjustments. All I know is you needed to be sure you hit all the areas of the map to make sure you have a proper tune when you are done.
The ideal set up is to have a custom tune done at your local tuning center. If you set up outside the normal and then add the auto tune to make sure that no matter where you are when you ride, your map is out of optimal that it can be.
Once you have a good base map this does a great job to further correct your tune as you ride. After a few rides you have been able to accept the trims and narrow the range of correction to where you are now down to 5% on the auto tune and it is consistently staying in this range for a perfect tune. This saved you the time and money of a trip to the dyno and will keep the tune maintained going forward.
Is A Power Cmmander V Autotune Worth It?
If you have got a Power Commander for your bike, there is going to be an auto tune kit that could be coupled up and stacked on top of that to help that tuner work even better.
Well, in the traditional tuning process after you modify your bike typically it gets strapped up to a dynamometer. The problem with the dynamometer is a kind of a few reasons. Firstly, they were expensive. Do not go cheap, they charge by the hour. The hourly rate is really high. If your bike is a little cloudy to tune to, your price is going to go up.
Lastly, It is also kind of hard on the bike that you are running from zero to redline several times to make those dyno poles and that can be to run a bike hard, hot and fast in a very short period of time.
The auto tune kit steps in and takes care of a lot of those things for you simply by having a stand-alone system that is able to easily interpret and analyze your exhaust gases and feed that information to the computer. So the computer is more quickly able to figure out what it is that your bike wants.
This device is worth it because the system grows with you as you modify your bike. It is expensive up front but you don’t have to keep buying stuff down the road. It is going to work with whatever you wind up putting on there. Auto tune is able to figure out what your bike wants and needs. It is like having a dyno guy working on your bike as you are riding. Make it easy to tune, to change things up. This sort of cuts down the time you are going to be spending doing test runs and test poles trying to figure out if your bike is running quite right.
The Power Commander V Autotune kit does a great job of taking a tedious task and making it easy. It also is something that pays-off.Overall a bit pricey (for both parts), but for the amount of control in my hands and the demonstrated performance, It is worth it. A Dynojet Power Commander Auto tune could be just the missing gap your bike needs.