Bad Dyno Tune - Timing Question

Speedy, thanks for pointing out I don't read worth a crap anymore. I stand corrected and humbled. Please understand I'm not trying to contradict or do anything other than try and figure out if, by adding an octane booster, I will do any damage on top of that which I'm sure I've already done by driving a pinging bike 5K miles. I want to know if it can be a decent stop gap until I can get 700+ miles to a dyno tuner who knows his stuff. My curiouser former-chemist self simply wants to know why, but I can't see it as being really important to the task at hand.

It''s not about economy as much as it is about getting rid of the pinging. On the home brew thing. As I look at the shelf of my local auto parts store, I see eight versions of booster ranging in price from $2.59 to $14. I picked one in the middle. I have no idea which brand has what in it or in what ratios. According to the link above, formulations have major components ranging from kerosene/Jet A to what I assume is toluene or xylenes with a little naptha thrown in. The one I picked had a strong diesel/kerosene smell and looked like diluted diesel. I figured that in a homebrew mix I would at least have an idea of what it actually is. The homebrew recipe calls for what calculates to be an insignificant amount of diesel/Jet A (0.25oz in 100 oz, then diluted into 16 gallons). Picking it off the shelf seems like a crap shoot. What I do know is that an addition of approximately 1 oz/gal of 91 octane gasoline, of the brand I chose, got rid of a bunch of pinging.I wonder if I add enough to get rid of all the pinging am I asking for serious trouble. I'm wondering if I'm out to lunch on this and if anyone here has experience with this sort of thing or any particular brand of booster.

You're right about toluene eating some stuff. The articles warn about it eating paint and I have used it as a glue remover for patching inflatable boats made of neoprene/hypalon (it softens the rubber so the glue sticks better). I figured that since toluene is already in gasoline, adding a little more - enough to raise the octane of pump premium a couple of points - wouldn't hurt. Still, it makes me wonder how it affects fuel system parts. From what I understand, ethanol is the major cause of the damage we see. Makes me scratch my head.

Adding toluene is your cheapest and probably most reliable method. Ask Warp 9.9 how much he has added without melting his Falcon. Do you have and can you use TuneECU? If so, that will allow you to change the timing and negate the issue. Load Watcher's tune and see if the problem goes away. If you are concerned about being lean, just change your tune's ignition tables to match either Watcher's tune or a stock tune. Neither should cause knock if you are using 89 or better fuel. Good luck.

Thanks, Speedy. Warp is an old friend of mine from my days on the .com site as gorgerider. I still don't even want to try and pronounce his last name, though. I can barely handle the "Scott" part. It's about time I gave him a shout - if for no other reason than to see if he's still making killer smoked kielbasa back in the bowels of his barn.

Yeah, I'm loaded with TuneECU. Scott runs with Tuneboy and translations are probably still nearly impossible. I think that limits my access to a lot of tunes out there that would mimic my setup. As to me fiddling with the timing pages on the computer? It's all I can do to just get the thing turned on and swap a tune. I fear (I'm terrified, actually), that if I start monkeying around on the F tables or the timing tables, I'd end up with the bike being eligible for boat-anchor status. It really scares the hell out of me. Especially after watching an experienced tuner of other bike programs try for almost three days to figure out how to use it.

I don't know of an instruction primer for adjusting the timing tables or if you can adjust timing without having to mess with the rest of the tune. Is it "all or nothing" or can I pick and choose?

You can edit just the timing tables and leave all the rest alone. You can edit any cell, row or column of cells together, combinations of rows and/or columns, or the entire table all at once. Make a copy first and then modifiy the copy. If you screw up you still have the original.

Keith this is the mixture I used
http://vanilla47.com/PDFs/Toluene/BESTCHEM Racing Fuel additive - Toluene (114 octane).pdf

But as Blaine said you have to worry about eating the fuel lines between the filter and the pump although I never did. I also used 108 octane boost which you can buy by the quart and use 1 to 2 OZ per gallon at 1 oz per gallon its about the same price as the toluene mixture I found it worked fine. If your worried about pulling the timing out send the map to me and I will pull it out in the rpm areas you mentioned in the beginning of this thread. Say about 3 degrees and you can load it and see how it runs. Personally I would load Watchers tune in if his bike did not have ABS which I think it did not. It was done by Wayne and should run fine.

Stop putting band-aids on a dangerous tune lol.

Just go into the timing table and pull 2 degrees in the areas you can hear pinging. Go ride it. If its not gone, repeat until it is.

I've been out of the area and have not been able to deal with things motorcycle since shortly after I started this thread. Sick family and legal crap have a tendency to simply suck the life out of you.

Watcher, I'd like to take you up on your offer to send me a couple of tunes for Ol' Blue. I've sent you a PM, but in case you missed it, my contact information is: 541-300-0600 or kbarndt@gorge.net.

Thanks to all for your help on this.

G'day MountainMan. I didn't realise you were GR until I just read this thread. I was wondering what happened to you.

Hey, Ian. Good to hear from you. PM sent.

You too, Scott.

I notice you are in OR (?), maybe?

If so, why don't you let Nels up in the Seattle area have a go at tuning it for you. I know he has done several R3s, including 2 tourings and a roadster that I know of. No complaints from any of those riders following the dyno. In fact, it was quite the opposite, nothing but happy customers.

http://2wheeldynoworks.com/
bob