DRZ400S/SM FUEL INJECTION CONVERSION COMPLETED

[roleyrev]

8 hours ago, fbwdrz400 said:

Let me give you some quick answers now and then follow up with more tonight. The weather is good enough today for a ride and I'm going to try and get some video. Misplaced my GoPro so I may not be able to get a ride video.  

Great questions. The accelerator enrichment is a function included with Ecotrons and I recently started making adjustments to it. My experience with the Wideband O2 was different than what you are describing. I think that the placement of the O2 sensor can effect the reading. With my bike, I think the Wideband O2 sensor reports a little richer AFR than what it actually is. But it is still relative so I found it very useful. My Wideband O2 sensor can actually report how lean or rich the AFR is from the result of a throttle blip. From there I go to the table and adjust the setting. It is based on TPS opening % in a 20ms timeframe. This is similar to the FCR39 accelerator pump but it is accurate. The FCR39 just squirts gas into the air stream when you twist the throttle. It's okay but inefficient and quite a bit of fuel is wasted and performance is hampered. Ecotrons suggests getting the base mapping good before making adjustments to the throttle blips.

I can see how the Stepper motor for the idle air complicates the process and it is just one more component that can slow things down. Now that you mention it, if I rev the motor for the 1st time from idling, the engine revs like my FE501, FAST. If I continue to keep revving it and letting off continually, there is a slight hesitation when revving. Maybe that is the stepper motor trying to re-calibrate. However, that is not normal operation unless you are one of those riders that sits at the stop light continually revving their engine for self pleasure. The engine doesn't die and it will still revs so it is a more-less a non-issue. One thing to add is that Ecotrons added a warmup function. I adjusted a higher idle speed when the engine is cold. It works very good. I push the start button and let the motor warm up without my attention. The idle speed slows down as it warms up to temperature. The Idle Stepper Motor controls this. 

Soon I will show the 2 times that I took my bike to a dyno. Once with the FCR39 carb and once with the Ecotrons EFI. At the time, I thought my tuning was good and I was getting very high fuel economy too. But the dyno AFR showed that my bike was running rich at idle and lean everywhere else. Dangerously lean. The horsepower on the dyno shows this too. Currently, I might be on the rich side of things so I am going to test ride a tank of gas and see where my mpg is. If I have lost much gas economy then I will be lean my Maps a little bit and find the happy medium. Running down the road with a stinking/smoking bike and wasting fuel is not something I want to promote. Let me get a little more test riding in before I say 100% that my tuning is done. And yes we can trade our tuning. Send me your e-mail if I don't have it through TT. My apologies but this post is all the social media that I have every done. My typical work day is filled with screen time so I avoid my phone and computer anytime I can.

In regards to the gains with the EFI over carb, there is no comparison. If I had to go back to a carb'd DRZ400, I would get rid of it. 

 

Ok the O2 sensor.  I have an innovate LM2 wideband permanently connected and the MicroSquirt and has the LM2 calibration that gives me a true AFR reading at all times.  The MicroSquirt logs this and the log is fast enough and with enough resolution to see the effect of the accelerator enrichment settings in the MicroSquirt. The MicroSquirt has the ability to use the wideband reading to trim the fuel table compared to the AFR table (this depends on you having a well-tuned AFR Table.  This does not need to be Stoichiometric). I can make the EFI closed loop. I have chosen, so far, to have wideband do nothing to the tune.  As Ecotrons suggest so does the MegaManual that you have a good tune before you start to tune the acceleration enrichment tuning. I was wondering if you needed to make major adjustments to get the accelerator pump to work as it should.  I found the settings that I used on four cylinder for the acceleration enrichment happened way to fast with way too much fuel for the single in the DRZ.  From what you have said you have similar capabilities yours is % throttle in a 20ms timeframe.  The MS uses change in TPS to dial in extra (TPSdot) the faster that you twist the more the squirt happens.  I got some initial settings by reading the posts about FCR accelerator pump times.  I can blend the change in MAP sensor (MAPdot) into this as well, but currently I have it working sufficiently well as not to need to.

For fast idle the LTZ throttle body has a fast idle knob on it much like a manual choke. It takes the RPMs to about 2500 RPM by letting bypass air around the throttle plate .  I have not found a situation that I need to use this.  The bike seems to start and idle fine right down to about -2 deg Celsius.  The ignition map has some settings slightly to increase the advance should the idle drop below the 1400 RPM mark.  This may help when I do cold starts.

I have a pressure transducer fitted to the fuel system.  This is logged via the MS and lets me keep an eye on fuel system supply – not that this has ever changed.  I would comment through that the out of tank pump system that I used is a pain to bleed for air, which normally happeneds when I clean / replace the filter at service intervals.

So where to from here...  I think I’ll aim for a pump in tank solution with a fuel sender fitted so I can make the fuel gauge work on my speedo and be free from the air bleeding issues that I suffer from at the moment. I have my eye on the Blitalia tank for the DRZ and probably a in tank fuel pump assembly from a V-Stom 650.

In the meantime I’m fine tuning fuel and AFR maps.

I certainly agree, EFI really makes the bike.

[fbwdrz400]

On 3/9/2019 at 11:23 PM, Atolduso said:

To get a quality FCRMX is actually a lot more than that, most MX at $350 will be worn out. I think it's only fair to compare new=new so really it's more like $800. Which makes a FI kit for someone who has the know how even more attractive!

Did you read roleyrev's thread on his FI conversion? 

Yes I did. He did an awesome job. We are discussing some of our installation aches and pains now. Hopefully we can both benefit from what each of us learned along the way.

I agree with you on the cost of an FCRMX39 carb. When I first posted this blog, there were some comments concerned about the cost. I tried to stay on the conservative side because most people buy used carbs off ebay and I did too. My MXFCR39 was in good condition but maybe my jetting wasn't optimal. Who knows. I followed Eddie's recommendations on the jetting and I thought it was good. But now we are back to the same issue as tuning the FI. How to know if you are lean or rich at different rpms and engine loads? There was an earlier post showing an O2 sensor installed just to monitor the AFR with some hardware. Or spend a lot of money at a dyno and a lot of time changing out jets. Then altitude, temperature and barometric pressure vary the results. I don't mean to be so negative on the carburetor but its hard to go back after learning the math and accuracy behind Fuel Injection.

[fbwdrz400]

8 hours ago, Anthon Berg said:

Awesome info. thanks!!

And: I have a Husaberg 570, and I understand exactly what you mean about the 501 and the 400. (I love mine both!)

But when you want to let out a little stress out after listening to company financial projections all day (what am I talking about? I'm getting old!), a ride on the Husky does the trick. That bike is like an urban billy goat!

[Atolduso]

11 minutes ago, fbwdrz400 said:

How to know if you are lean or rich at different rpms and engine loads? There was an earlier post showing an O2 sensor installed just to monitor the AFR with some hardware. Or spend a lot of money at a dyno and a lot of time changing out jets. Then altitude, temperature and barometric pressure vary the results. I don't mean to be so negative on the carburetor but its hard to go back after learning the math and accuracy behind Fuel Injection.

I don't think many will argue this. ? There is a reason 98% of all vehicles sold new in 2019 are FI. They must be onto something with this new fangled fuel injection thing....

[fbwdrz400]

UPDATE: It's been awhile (like 3 years but who' counting?) since I last posted anything about my DRZ400 FI Conversion. During my extended break, I see that rolyrev got another version of the conversion using the OEM LTZ400 parts. Nice job!

My apologies for not staying engaged during this time. Life gets busy and I didn't see that much interest in my post for anyone trying it for themselves. At the time, I didn't have much more to elaborate on. My bike was running good and I was riding it regularly for a couple of years. Somehow my attention got re-directed to the Husquavarna FE501 specs and I saw a bike that had everything done to it. With a 6th gear. Boasting 63 HP. Weighing in at 245 lbs.

[fbwdrz400]

21 minutes ago, fbwdrz400 said:

UPDATE: It's been awhile (like 3 years but who' counting?) since I last posted anything about my DRZ400 FI Conversion. During my extended break, I see that rolyrev got another version of the conversion using the OEM LTZ400 parts. Nice job!

My apologies for not staying engaged during this time. Life gets busy and I didn't see that much interest in my post for anyone trying it for themselves. At the time, I didn't have much more to elaborate on. My bike was running good and I was riding it regularly for a couple of years. Somehow my attention got re-directed to the Husquavarna FE501 specs and I saw a bike that had everything done to it. With a 6th gear. Boasting 63 HP. Weighing in at 245 lbs.

I know that most people want to see dyno data. Twice I ran my DRZ400 on a dyno. Once with the FCR39 carb and once with the Ecotrons FI. However, I will never do it again. It puts a lot of stress on the motor and I got better and lower cost results with the Wideband O2 sensor. But it was a good starting point and I realized that my FI tuning wasn't as good as I thought.

Before concluding that the FCR39 carb mostly yielded more power than the Fuel Injection, look at the AFR data closer. The bike idled rich and was dangerously lean as soon as the throttle opened. At the time, I thought it ran great with extremely good fuel economy. Since this data was taken, my tuning is completely different and much richer. At the time my bike was very easy to stall and the data shows why. As soon as I cracked the throttle, the motor was starving for fuel. It made for a dangerous street ride when the motor stalled pulling out into moving traffic. I don't miss those days.

The best part this data shows the FI continuing to pull at higher RPMs (8200+). Extended power range and this occurred with lean tuning.

[Brick Top]

Thanks for the info I will also convert to FI.

[fbwdrz400]

On 3/11/2019 at 1:24 AM, roleyrev said:

Ok the O2 sensor.  I have an innovate LM2 wideband permanently connected and the MicroSquirt and has the LM2 calibration that gives me a true AFR reading at all times.  The MicroSquirt logs this and the log is fast enough and with enough resolution to see the effect of the accelerator enrichment settings in the MicroSquirt. The MicroSquirt has the ability to use the wideband reading to trim the fuel table compared to the AFR table (this depends on you having a well-tuned AFR Table.  This does not need to be Stoichiometric). I can make the EFI closed loop. I have chosen, so far, to have wideband do nothing to the tune.  As Ecotrons suggest so does the MegaManual that you have a good tune before you start to tune the acceleration enrichment tuning. I was wondering if you needed to make major adjustments to get the accelerator pump to work as it should.  I found the settings that I used on four cylinder for the acceleration enrichment happened way to fast with way too much fuel for the single in the DRZ.  From what you have said you have similar capabilities yours is % throttle in a 20ms timeframe.  The MS uses change in TPS to dial in extra (TPSdot) the faster that you twist the more the squirt happens.  I got some initial settings by reading the posts about FCR accelerator pump times.  I can blend the change in MAP sensor (MAPdot) into this as well, but currently I have it working sufficiently well as not to need to.

For fast idle the LTZ throttle body has a fast idle knob on it much like a manual choke. It takes the RPMs to about 2500 RPM by letting bypass air around the throttle plate .  I have not found a situation that I need to use this.  The bike seems to start and idle fine right down to about -2 deg Celsius.  The ignition map has some settings slightly to increase the advance should the idle drop below the 1400 RPM mark.  This may help when I do cold starts.

I have a pressure transducer fitted to the fuel system.  This is logged via the MS and lets me keep an eye on fuel system supply – not that this has ever changed.  I would comment through that the out of tank pump system that I used is a pain to bleed for air, which normally happeneds when I clean / replace the filter at service intervals.

So where to from here...  I think I’ll aim for a pump in tank solution with a fuel sender fitted so I can make the fuel gauge work on my speedo and be free from the air bleeding issues that I suffer from at the moment. I have my eye on the Blitalia tank for the DRZ and probably a in tank fuel pump assembly from a V-Stom 650.

In the meantime I’m fine tuning fuel and AFR maps.

I certainly agree, EFI really makes the bike.

We are dealing with almost identical issues. Once the base tuning is complete, the rest is trial and error. It sounds like the MS has some detailed ways to control the accelerator enrichment. The Ecotrons is fairly straight forward. The variables for Fuel Enrichment are: Min & Max Enrichment time (milliseconds), %TPS change in 20ms to initiate the fuel enrichment and there Enrichment Factor based on Engine Load. Recently, I feel that I have got some gains from making adjustments with the Fuel Enrichment but they are minor compared to the base tuning. Many of Ecotrons' advanced tuning settings utilize the Base Map as part of the calculation. If the Base Map happens to be lean where the the throttle blip occurs, chances are that it will have minimal to zeo effect.

At some point. I might try to unplug the Idle Air Stepper Motor and see if the bike will run with out it. Once the bike is warmed up and idling well, the position of the Stepper Motor will be in an optimal position. However, even if the bike will run this without the IAC, I think I would have an issue long term. Based on the Ideal Gas Law, variation in temperature and barometric pressure will effect idling. The FE501 has a cold start/high idle setting too. It also has an idle adjustment screw (accessible by finger control) to adjust the throttle plate opening. My Ecotrons throttle body has a throttle plate adjustment screw but the tank has to be removed to access it. I definitely need to adjust that idle screw on the FE501 between late spring and late fall from the temperature changes. On my DRZ when necessary, maybe I can plug in the IAC motor back in to get it to re-calibrate the idle and unplug it again (if it runs better without it).

I agree, out of tank fuel pump is a little cumbersome. This winter I made some minor adjustments on how the fuel pump is mounted and it works much better. If you run out of gas, it can be a big problem if you can't bleed the fuel system. I added a needle valve located between the stator cover and front gear guard that can either drain or vent the fuel loop. So far it has been working very well. But I am interested in seeing the installation of a tank with a Fuel pump incorporated. The FE501 has their fuel pump internal to the tank with a low fuel level sensor to warn of low fuel. 

My last Richer Fuel Map lost fuel economy. Although not horrible, I only got 41 mpg so for me that is too rich. I don't want to be riding a smog machine down the road not to mention the negative effects of carbon build up. The bike almost had too much throttle response. Adding throttle from cruising speed was not smooth and a little jerky. Maybe this map would be better suited for race conditions. So I cut back the fuel to a happy medium and leaned out the cold start fuel enrichment and got about 45-47 mpg. The bike was much smoother to ride and still strong. I took some video and will try to get something up soon. 

Spring is around the corner in the midwest so I'm planning to do some riding. I'm out of money for more R&D but donations are always accepted . Hopefully, some of the other DRZ 400 owners will take the leap and do the FI conversion soon! The more people that do a FI conversion, the better the conversion will become. That was the main purpose for starting this thread.

On 3/14/2019 at 6:30 AM, Brick Top said:

Thanks for the info I will also convert to FI.

What conversion kit are you planning to purchase?

[Brick Top]

@fbwdrz400 Not 100% sure yet but I work a lot in China, will see what I can get there if anything....