Why are TuneECU maps country specific?

RazMan · Aug 22, 2023

Not wishing to hijack any other threads, I thought I would start a new one asking a simple question - why are maps country specific? I ask this because I often see maps on TuneECU with warnings like ' USA and Canada markets only' and even....
'Caution!! Warning!! !! CANNOT BE USED for the following markets!!:
USA and Canada, Brazilian, Thailand, Chinese, Argentina, Indonesia and South Africa markets.'
Of course I understand that there are sometimes different emission regs to deal with but surely when you tune any bike, your prime objective is power delivery more than anything else, and a bike which is registered in the US is surely built the same as one from the UK, so why is a US map any different to a UK map?

sunny · Aug 22, 2023

RazMan said:
Not wishing to hijack any other threads, I thought I would start a new one asking a simple question - why are maps country specific? I ask this because I often see maps on TuneECU with warnings like ' USA and Canada markets only' and even....
'Caution!! Warning!! !! CANNOT BE USED for the following markets!!:
USA and Canada, Brazilian, Thailand, Chinese, Argentina, Indonesia and South Africa markets.'
Of course I understand that there are sometimes different emission regs to deal with but surely when you tune any bike, your prime objective is power delivery more than anything else, and a bike which is registered in the US is surely built the same as one from the UK, so why is a US map any different to a UK map?

mostly, because of elevation and different types of octanes in different countries/region. Elevation screws up air fuel ratio so o2 sensor is needed so a different tune is needed for that region.

Mongler07 · Aug 22, 2023

Na..its.. liability.
Elevation is covered by the adaptation or 12minute tune unless you do a O2 delete.

sunny · Aug 22, 2023

Mongler07 said:
Na..its.. liability.
Elevation is covered by the adaptation or 12minute tune unless you do a O2 delete.

liability as in? please explain i would like to know more

Mongler07 · Aug 22, 2023

sunny said:
liability as in? please explain i would like to know more

Well I would love to know why a Brazilian tune... lol.... cant work in the USA... elevation has nothing to do with it. Otherwise it would be state specific. My MD tune vs Colorado ect...
MD has epa vs colorado is C.A.R.B.
it is a felony to sell or install anything that goes on a tagged vehicle that is not compliant with regulations.
A entity like TuneEcu jm sure does not want to be involved with any issues pertaining to this. So it's just a disclaimer. That's all it is. A disclaimer to absolve liability.
EDIT: looks like also fuel differences and hardware but not elevation

Tune at your own risk" says it all

Claviger · Aug 22, 2023

It's not elevation. All modern fuel injected engines I'm aware of have an ambient barometric sensor which (in theory) should correct for elevation. RIIIs had it under the seat attached to the airbox, no idea where it is on the R3s.

RIIIs are somewhat finicky as their ambient temp/altitude correction is not great. I'd expect Triumph have refined that on the newer bikes, otherwise for every 1000 feet of elevation you'll be running 3% richer than tune targets. Meaning, people at Denver altitude will be running 2 full afr points off target, Triumph would never in any way get away with that in the US as Hydrocarbon emissions would skyrocket.

The reason is threefold:
1: Emissions/Safety Standards (noise and emissions limits/speed limits/power output limits)
2: Fuel Quality
3: Hardware differences. Not sure if triumph still do it, but there was a time they sold bikes models with and without the evap and SAI systems. On evap/sai equipped bikes the solenoid required an ECU output to activate. A bike without the systems will run fine with a tune that tried to activate them, but a bike with the systems installed wont meet regulatory requirements with a tune that doesn't activate them and in some cases doesn't run properly.

RazMan · Aug 22, 2023

Claviger said:
It's not elevation. All modern fuel injected engines I'm aware of have an ambient barometric sensor which (in theory) should correct for elevation. RIIIs had it under the seat attached to the airbox, no idea where it is on the R3s.

RIIIs are somewhat finicky as their ambient temp/altitude correction is not great. I'd expect Triumph have refined that on the newer bikes, otherwise for every 1000 feet of elevation you'll be running 3% richer than tune targets. Meaning, people at Denver altitude will be running 2 full afr points off target, Triumph would never in any way get away with that in the US as Hydrocarbon emissions would skyrocket.

The reason is threefold:
1: Emissions/Safety Standards (noise and emissions limits/speed limits/power output limits)
2: Fuel Quality
3: Hardware differences. Not sure if triumph still do it, but there was a time they sold bikes models with and without the evap and SAI systems. On evap/sai equipped bikes the solenoid required an ECU output to activate. A bike without the systems will run fine with a tune that tried to activate them, but a bike with the systems installed wont meet regulatory requirements with a tune that doesn't activate them and in some cases doesn't run properly.

Ok then, so taking all of those points on board, I should be able to take the latest US map (in my VIN range) and install it on my UK bike without any issues?
1. Emissions regs MUST be similar if not identical
2. Ditto to the Fuel Quality
3. The evap & SAI systems are going to be deleted in the Winter so they won't affect anything.

Mongler07 · Aug 22, 2023

RazMan said:
Ok then, so taking all of those points on board, I should be able to take the latest US map (in my VIN range) and install it on my UK bike without any issues?
1. Emissions regs MUST be similar if not identical
2. Ditto to the Fuel Quality
3. The evap & SAI systems are going to be deleted in the Winter so they won't affect anything.

yea probably, engines are just air pumps, unless the tune needs to work with some hardware specifically and you are removing it, should be fine. might not be perfect but no tune is, its close enough to not hurt the engine. as long as its not running lean no real damage is possible... within reason.

Claviger · Aug 22, 2023

In theory yes, in reality, who knows... maybe?! Physically the control scheme should work fine between the two, but it may be locked out at the firmware level.

Some US bikes have EVAP/SAI, some don't. It's 50 state vs 49 state legal, CA being the outlier.

On some models, the bike will not work with miss-matched maps, no idea on the R3 if that's the case.

For example, the Roadster had zero changes to hardware from early 2012 to late 2012 and later, but you cannot use a late 2012 tune in an early 2012 or earlier bike. Triumph don't document this publicly very well, only way to find out is try and if it doesn't work, revert to the working map.

My Daytona 955i won't start with a miss-matched SAI tune in a non-SAI bike (doesn't matter if you remove it, only matters if it had the system from factory).

You can simply copy all the tables from the US tune file into the EU tune file and load that and it will work just fine.

Tripps · Aug 22, 2023

Environmental compliance is my guess

Why are TuneECU maps country specific?

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