Xied...Anyone tried one?

[MotoGoosy]

http://sales.nightrider.com/California_c_107.html

[oldbike54]

 Heavens no . Another fooler that isn't fooling me .

  Dusty

[Vasco DG]

Same dangerous, worthless site. A resistor between the crude O2 sensor and the ECU. Same as 'FatDuc' or 'Optimiser' or any of the other crap spruiked by charlatans.

Use at your peril.

Pete

[Kev m]

I've had a pair on my Sportster for 6-7 years now at least.

I can't say for sure that they help, but they don't hurt the Harley system with narrow-band O2 sensors.

That said, I suspect Harley has taken great pains to prevent their owners from screwing things up too badly as they KNOW most of their owners are going to open the exhausts and put free flowing ACs on their bikes.

In contrast, after reports from Pete (whom I trust implicitly) I abandoned the idea of testing a pair of Fat-Duc O2 sensor foolers on the V7, instead giving them away to someone on this board with a slew of warnings to be careful.

I wonder how he is making out. We've not heard neck after the initial test.

[Vasco DG]

Kev, I have no knowledge and understanding of how the system used on Harleys works. What I would say is that of it responds well and accurately to such a crude device it must be very unusual and, sorry, primitive.

As I've said before I have customers with 15M-RC equipped bikes who have similar kludges fitted and are happy with them. That's good, but when they come into my workshop I refuse to deal with their FI. Why? Because if a bike with some piece of shit I don't trust comes in and I play with stuff and the a week later it shits the bed who"s fault will it be? Sod that.

These sorts of devices interfere with ONE signal. What many people fail to realise is that those signals have an interactive 'Trickle Down' effect of a whole bunch of other parameters in the ECU. Some of those may be adjustable. Some may not. Certainly though if you rely on a single input to act as a 'Magic Bullet' cure all is foolish and, at least with the Marelli systems, potentially dangerous.

I do hope Mark does write a detailed and wordy reply on this subject as his understanding is much deeper and comprehensive than mine but if he doesn't and just sticks it in the 'Too Hard' basket I can understand that too. The Internet is a fine place for poisonous head-kickers to ply their trolling trade. If every time you stick your head up you get an ignoramus taking a pot-shot it's essentially pretty difficult to give a shit.

Pete

PS Also remember this thread was started by the current resident troll and semi-skilled half wit so don't take it too seriously.

[beetle]

I was writing my response on the Booster Plug, and while I was doing that the thread was deleted. I have no idea why.


This Xied thing is just your typical O2 fooler - the worst kind of kludge.

[Kev m]

Couple of thoughts:

Harleys EFI - one man's "crude" is another man's elegant. I've not worked with maps from either, so I won't venture to say if one is "more better" (as papa used to say) than the other. The difference could be as simple as a protective limit placed on self-trim or some other safety feature to prevent washing of cylinders.

Either way, I will simply observe that every EFI Harley I've owned or ridden was fantastically trouble-free and I've never had any complaint with the fueling. But maybe I'm a bad meter in that I've found that to be generally true on most of my EFI bikes, the Breva 1100 not-with-standing.

02 Foolers - SOUND like a nice theory. I mean, IF the theory was (and we all know it's not always true) that modern fuel systems are just plain lean, then just plain fattening it up a little, across the map, would SOUND like a good idea. I think that theoretical simplicity and cost is what leads so many people to try them. And, thinking about it more, IF it only worked in closed-loop, then again, in-theory that would be the part of the map which was going to be lean in the first place no?

I realize it's not all black and white. That many (most) OEM maps are rich at WOT and places out of closed-loop, so if you just blanket add fuel, there too, you are hurting performance (or at least efficiency) at BEST and possibly damaging your motor at WORST. So again, it comes down to fuel trim AND the original map (how rich was it).

I trust your word on your experience with Guzzis, which is why I did not try the Fat Ducs out on the V7. And my own experience showed it didn't really seem to help anything (at least my pinging problem) on the Breva. Based on that along I wouldn't use them or recommend them on a Guzzi.

But my response to this thread was, like most of my responses, an attempt NOT to paint with too broad a brush and give out some general knowledge (as many here don't limit their exploits to only Guzzi).

So in the interest of general info I must acknowledge that Harleys are specifically tuned from the factory leaving some performance on the table to sell exhausts/air-cleaners etc. Harley even admits the system will self-trim for something like 10% power gains with nothing more than some of their accessory (STREET LEGAL in 50 states) exhausts. So maybe they've set the trim at a limit that will allow a simple device like this to fatten up mixture just a bit where it is needed and maybe the open-loop mapping isn't as rich in the first place that it doesn't cause problems. I can't say except that my own experience and my observation of the community in general leads me to believe a lot of people either have success with these ON HARLEYS or at least cause no harm.

I think that probably makes Harley more the exception than the rule, but that shouldn't surprise anyone here right?

[beetle]

Don't some HD's use Marelli ECU's?

Anyhoo, at the end of the day, it's not the ECU, but the map and the correction tables and how the OEM specifies the application of the tables and trimming functions. HD tell Marelli what they want and Marelli obliges. Guzzi probably just tell Marelli "che cosa mai".

[Kev m]

The early Harley, non-feedback (open-loop only) systems were Marelli so 1995-?? Not sure when they changed (maybe around 99-01 when they moved from the EVO to the TC), but it was before the debut of the 06/07 current feedback system.

[oldbike54]

 In the famous words of Pete Townshend

                                                                 "We won't get fooled again"
 
 Although many folks seem to enjoy having said act performed on them 

  Dusty

[MotoGoosy]

Some on the Harley forum swear by them, but the price raises red flags to me.  Can't be all that great for $100.

[Kev m]

Some on the Harley forum swear by them, but the price raises red flags to me.  Can't be all that great for $100.

Like I explained - that's likely because of differences in Harley and Guzzi EFI systems.

I'm actually surprised they've expanded their business into other brands (guess it's been a while since I've been to that website).

But yes, generally speaking you do get what you pay for in this world, and no, I don't generally think these are the best options for tuning for obvious reasons.

[NWrider]

I can't speak for their use on a MG but I have one installed on a Husky Terra that was abruptly stalling at the most inopportune moments pulling out from stop signs, etc.   That all went away after installing the AF-XIED.   I had previously used a temp spoofer, but the ECU trimmed it's effect out.    From what I understand, the Fat Duc and the AF-XIED are not the same.

"Altering the O2 sensor voltage (reducing it) works on some Harley Davidson motorcycles with Delphi ECU, if done in a specific way. Nightrider.com has a patent on that technique.

AF-XIED
Most ecus ignore a simple voltage scaling because most O2 sensors normally change voltage with time and exhaust temperature. The AF-XIED for BMW (which is the model sold for terra 650) works on an entirely different principal. It monitors all voltages, recalculated the transit to point from lambda=1 to e.g. Lambda =0.95, then it outputs a full voltage signal."

Me, I don't know diddly about the details.   However, there's a lot of info on Cafe Husky with AFR graphs before and after and long term reports from Cafe Husky riders who've tested with data loggers for long periods of time.   For now, it seems to be working for me.

[Vasco DG]

I wondered what happened to the Booster Plug thread? I assume it was pulled by the OP. Odd?

As I said in, (I think?) that thread though I know of and have customers who use O2 sensor foolers on 15M-RC equipped bikes and are happy with the results. At the end of the day I still don't trust them and their use with the W5AM controller is fraught with danger. I've seen the results of the overfuelling they cause and it wasn't pretty and it was very expensive in one recent case that passed through the shop and even now there are ongoing problems with that machine due to damage to the throttle bodies caused as a side effect of the O2 sensor fooler's inputs.

Whether an air temperature sensor fooler would be better or worse I have no idea but expecting it to just *work* without understanding how it's inputs are going to impact on the other tables in the map is fraught with danger. That is why I am so wary of them and strongly advise against their use.

Pete

[tiger_one]

Some of the guys on the Tiger 1050 forum debunked a similar device, and even went so far to check the output values with a digital ohm meter and duplicate with appropriate size resister in parallel with the temp sensor in the airbox.

Later it was modified to use a potentiometer so one could vary the effect when wx changes or altitude dictated.

The simple resister once the size was determined cost like $3 total.  Now, if you ordered the correct plugin connections to make it fit up plug and play style, it cost a little more.

Also once you discover the style and output range of the thermister used in the sensor, you can also just buy the one up or down from that range to replace OE and change the output.

P.S.  They found that after a certain value (making the sensor think its colder out than what the temp actually is) the ECU ignores it or has no greater changes.

[NWrider]

Dually noted.   It is a concern that the lean condition you're trying to overcome at certain rpm/throttle openings may result in an over rich condition elsewhere which VD has found evidence of in some MG's.   

[oldbike54]

 Noted twice ? Sorry , simply could not help myself  Apology forthcoming .

  Dusty

[beetle]

  I had previously used a temp spoofer, but the ECU trimmed it's effect out. 

That what I concluded when de-bunking the 'Booster Plug'. That device is classic wallet-raping of the highest order. Seems to work on BMW's, however I don't know how the BMW FI works, and don't care to. All I can say is that any Guzzi owner who buys a Booster plug may as well just donate $150 to the seller, because after a couple hundred miles, it won't work anymore and your mileage will drop.