Fitted a Bazzaz Z-Fi fuel controller to my ST1300

[CallMeSteve]

Background:

One of the few things I have disliked about STrudel has been the rough fueling at minimal throttle openings, aparrently a common issue with injected bikes and also apparently a result of manufacturer settings intended to appease the emmissions testers.

The rough throttle made crawling in slow traffic less than ideal, and when taking corners and twisties I needed to allow for the uneasiness in the power delivery coming off idle. I added a G2 throttle tamer which helped and made it manageable. All the while, though, I still felt this was a characteristic that I really rather not live with as it was a stain on an otherwise highly enjoyable motorcycle. I even found myself pondering a test ride on a K1600 :-(

Note that I'm talking in past tense. I decided to put STrudel forward as a guinea-pig in the name of medical science and I thought you guys might be interested.

The general concensus from the forum was that you can waste a lot of money trying unsuccessfully to tune an ST, and that this was something that everyone had just learned to live with. Also, the service dept at teammoto just shrugged their shoulders and said "that is just the way they are", but I didn't think much of the teammoto guys and I decided to hunt out a 'real mechanic' for my next service.

I came across a forum recommendation for Motorcycle Mad at Brendale, and I noticed plenty of good facebook reviews so I thought I'd give Mick a go. I popped around to book in for a minor service, and being rather impressed by his dyno rig I popped the question about the throttle response.

"Yeah you can fix it. You'll need a Power Commander."
"What's a Power Commander?" 
"I'll show you ... <hits the computer> .... Oh @#!@#. looks like they dont make them for the ST any more. Hang on .... <a few more minutes of googling and a few phone calls> ... Here you go. Bazzaz makes one for your bike. I can get one up in a couple of days".

This is the device, and yep, they list the ST1300 up to 2012. Mine's a 2014 but that sounded close enough.
http://www.bazzaz.net/index.php/fuel-control/z-fi-fuel-controller

There was not much on the web about fitting one to ST1300 but I did find one encouraging report from a guy in the US who took the plunge and installed one himself:
http://www.st1300.us.com/showthread.php?p=42756

So I got back to Mick and asked him to get one up for me at $550 delivered. When it arrived the box was labelled "ST1300 2002-2014" which was encouraging.

Mick quoted $250 to install the Z-Fi, including a throttle body sync ("may as well do it while I'm in there").  That sounded like pretty good value.

I could have spent just the $800 and been done with it, but I decided to go all out and I got Mick to fit a high-flow air filter and put Mr. STrudel on the dyno.

The result ??? Haha.  Not telling 

[CallMeSteve]

OK, OK. I'll tell you.   

STrudel feels like a different bike.

- The dyno tune added about 10% power and torque at the top end, from about 5500rpm upwards, but that's not really a big deal for me except when doing a roll-on to get past a Sunday driver.
- The rough throttle coming off idle is totally gone. Just like many reported after fitting the now obsolete Ivan FCE, the throttle acts like a rheostat, smooth as silk. Not sure I even need the G2 any more.
- The engine feels much smoother across the entire rev range, but especially below 3000. Previously, pulling hard at anything below 3000 used to feel like the engine was struggling, but it is now very comfortable through the 2000-3000 range which is just wonderful. It's even more of a Jetson's bike than it was before.
- It will pull quite smoothly from 1500rpm if I'm not in a hurry.

Of course I can't say how much of this comes from just the Z-Fi alone because of the extra stuff Mick did, but the first thread that I linked to above suggests that even just fitting the Z-Fi with its standard map probably would have fixed the original problem.

I'm still an ST newbie, so if any locals want to pop around and take STrudel for a run to guage the result for themselves I'd be happy to oblige.

[CallMeSteve]

As an aside, I'm totally impressed by Mick at Motorcycle Mad. I found him very knowledgeable, his workshop is clean and he is meticulous in his work.  He's my new mechanic.

[Biggles]

OK, OK. I'll tell you.   

STrudel feels like a different bike.

Will you do some fuel monitoring to see how it affects consumption?

[CallMeSteve]

I don’t think it’s made much difference to fuel consumption Bill.  At least not based on highway measurements.  Before the mod I was averaging 5.0 l/100k on the highway, and after the mod I’m averaging ..... 5.0.

I was expecting a difference since the dyno graphs show the AFR to be about 12 before the mod and about 13 after, but it seems not.

[Shiney]

Thanks for sharing your results Steve, it's always good to read about new mods that people install on the ST

Cheers
Shiney

[STroppy]

Thanks Steve, very interesting and worth considering putting on ones bike.

Where are you and where is Motorcycle Mad?

[CallMeSteve]

Brisbane  . Sorry - probably the wrong answer.

[STroppy]

Correct answer, just a long way from me!