Hi,Tate. Thanks for the compliment in your initial post. Being that you are new to the game, it might seem that I know a lot but there are definitely others on the forum that have vastly more knowledge than I do. Hub would be one of those guys, Kruz, Bad in Black, blue06, Rotty a.k.a 1badzx (if you can get him to tell you anything), slowninja, masszx14, dattaway, and many others. I think I've absorbed a lot from all of these people in the last couple years. Many of them seem to have viable opinions that conflict with the general consensus but if you read a lot of the posts, you will have a lot of info to consider before modding.
Matsuke wrote:
can someone tell me what this powercommander thing is
The Power Commander is a small box with a wire that connects to your main wiring harness (cube shaped brown plug connection above the motor, under the airbox, in front of the battery compartment). When the Power Commander is connected to the main wiring harness, the fuel and air ratios that are programmed into the bike are eliminated and the fuel/air ratios are now determined by the Power Commander.
These programs that determine f/a ratios are called maps. The Power Commander may be loaded with a map that suits your modifications much better than the stock map. For example, with flies removed and a sidewinder exhaust, you have much more exhaust flowing out of the bike than the stock pipes and flies in. If a lot more exhaust flows out, a lot more air also comes into the motor for combustion. You need to increase the amount of fuel to create the proper proportion with the increased air intake. A good map in your PC will achieve this for you.
The adjusting of the fuel amount to create a proper mixture with the air intake is called engine tuning. Through tuning, you optimize the power created by the engine and you protect your engine from severe damage. When a motor runs with too much air and not enough fuel, it is said to be running lean and this causes a great deal of heat to build up in the combustion chamber. I have seen pics where pistons actually had holes burned through them from running lean. When a motor runs with too much fuel and not enough air it is said to be running rich. Rich is not dangerous to the motor, but it is a waste of fuel and perhaps lowers performance some too. Rather than using maps in the PC to tune for your mods, the PC may also be used to load a custom map created by an engine tuner. In other words, if you have your motor tuned by a professional, you need to have a PC on there.
The older version of the Power Commander is known as the PC3, the new one is the PC5. Both are still available and both do about the same thing but the PC5 tunes in a bit greater detail. The PC5 also can have an Autotune module connected to it and the PC3 cannot. IMO, you might as well go with the PC5 because it isn't that much more expensive. The PC5 will work on '08 bikes to present year.
I have some pics of my PC install and I plan to post a "how to" one day soon. It really is not very complicated. Just two plugs and one ground wire.
To adress Tate's questions:
#1 Stock bike (for now) If i get this now how will it effect my bike and will it be a hassle when i add my pipes?
The PC is a great first mod, IMO. It will be needed for mods that you will do later on (it will help your pipe rather than being a hassle) but it also improves the performance of the stock bike. My basically stock 08 now has better control on and off the throttle (you may notice this a little choppy with stock mapping) and the annoying surge in power 3-3.5K rpm was smoothed out. This was entirely due to the Fuel Moto map loaded onto the PC. I would recommend you buy the PC from Fuel Moto or some other seller that you heard has a good map to load on your PC before shipping to you.
#2 Why is it you need a pc when you just add slip ons?
I always hear that this is not absolutely necessary because slipons do not increase flow enough to cause your motor to run lean. The stock mapping of the G2 ZX-14 is very rich and this automatically compensates to some degree for mods that effect intake. You might notice a better increase in performance from your slipons if you also run a PC, however. I would make sure that you can get a good PC map for any slipons you might choose.
#3 Do i need slip ons when i just want to change the sound of the bike and not the performance.
Slipons shouldn't change the performance a huge amount but they do drop a lot of weight off the bike and most will give you a more aggressive sound. I have seen dyno charts of bikes with slipons that show a nice increase in midrange. M4 Retrodrags are nice looking, super light and loud slipons. People who have run them seem to feel there is a nice performance increase too. I am uncertain if there is a really precise map available for them or not. I believe scottjkyl runs M4 retrodrags so you might ask him what his setup is if you like those pipes.
* Last updated by: Rook on 9/15/2009 @ 11:47 AM *
'08 MIDNIGHT SAPPHIRE BLUE Now Deceased