<div align="left">Hey everyone!
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to share the stuff I learned this weekend. After mounting the Arata system to my 636, I finally got the chance to take it to North Valley Honda (in Phoenix) to have Mark Ledesma do the tuning. Here’s a cool pic of how the exhaust looks after it was burned in. Gotta love those full Ti systems!
My plan was to do cost effective mods to get the best power, without the need to remove the engine from the frame or especially, crack into the cases. Here’s the list of what I’ve done:
Stock 1 & 4 velocity stacks (30mm) in all 4 cylinders
Stock Cams timed at 105 Intake/106 Exhaust
BMC Race air filter
Screen removed from front intake
Arata full exhaust
PCIIIusb
Motul 300V Factory Line 5W40 oil
Emissions removed
On the track, I’ll be using VP Ultimate 4 race gas. At $8 a gal, it is much less than VP MR9 (at $20 a gal!) and is oxygenated, although the word is it makes a little less power than the high dollar MR9. Using the ULT4, Mark made the first map and did a few pulls on the dyno to see what she was making. Needless to say, we were all surprised (more like shocked!) with the results:
(If it’s hard to read- 126.4 SAE hp)
Thanks to good tuning from Mark, some key info from others (Doug Lofgren and Ken Hill), some luck (OK, a bunch of luck!) and the info posted by Dan Kyle
(http://kawiforums.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8833&SearchTerms=development), the results were better than I could have imagined!
We were also able to a test of the KLEEN Mod, which is similar to the PAIR Mod on GSXR’s. A while ago I posted how to do this Mod, did some testing and got results that showed a gain of next to nothing: http://kawiforums.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4088 This testing was done with the stock exhaust system and I felt that maybe there was a chance that a free flowing aftermarket exhaust would gain a few hp as some have claimed.
The KLEEN Mod was disconnected (and blocked off) on my 636 while it was being tuned on the dyno to insure the oil-rich crankcase air wouldn’t get into the exhaust and mess with the O2 sensor readings. While being tuned, the crankcase vent was routed to the airbox through a homemade breather box (oil separating baffles and filter material) in the tail, a trick I learned from Ducati’s. Mark did dyno pulls with both breather arrangements and guess what? There was hardly a difference to mention between the two. The above dyno sheet shows the results (126.44) with the KLEEN Mod adding vacuum to the crankcases and without the vacuum (the crankcase connected to the airbox), the best was 126.33 hp. No noticeable difference, but each of the KLEEN Mod runs were in the 126’s and without, the power dropped quickly to the mid 125’s. Although there’s no real power gain to be had, the KLEEN Mod eliminates hot oil-rich air into the airbox (which will build gunk on the intake valves) and doesn’t hurt the power, so it may be worth doing.
After lunch, the ULT4 was swapped out for Pump gas and another map was made. Good ‘ole 91 octane gas made 124 hp, showing a steady 2 hp less throughout the entire rev range. So that’s what ULT4 does, 2-2.5 hp more and if we had the ability to adjust the ignition timing, maybe a bit more hp could have been had.
Here’s a link to some more pics, info and the dyno results:
http://public.fotki.com/garymilcheck/motorcycles/zx-6r/mods/tuning_stage1/
I’ll be adding a write up for each pic when I get the chance.
And, I’d like to thank Mark Ledesma for being cool (as usual!) and working his butt off for me. NVH has the best dyno facility here in the valley and I came away respecting how well Mark knows his stuff. </div id="left">
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to share the stuff I learned this weekend. After mounting the Arata system to my 636, I finally got the chance to take it to North Valley Honda (in Phoenix) to have Mark Ledesma do the tuning. Here’s a cool pic of how the exhaust looks after it was burned in. Gotta love those full Ti systems!
My plan was to do cost effective mods to get the best power, without the need to remove the engine from the frame or especially, crack into the cases. Here’s the list of what I’ve done:
Stock 1 & 4 velocity stacks (30mm) in all 4 cylinders
Stock Cams timed at 105 Intake/106 Exhaust
BMC Race air filter
Screen removed from front intake
Arata full exhaust
PCIIIusb
Motul 300V Factory Line 5W40 oil
Emissions removed
On the track, I’ll be using VP Ultimate 4 race gas. At $8 a gal, it is much less than VP MR9 (at $20 a gal!) and is oxygenated, although the word is it makes a little less power than the high dollar MR9. Using the ULT4, Mark made the first map and did a few pulls on the dyno to see what she was making. Needless to say, we were all surprised (more like shocked!) with the results:
(If it’s hard to read- 126.4 SAE hp)
Thanks to good tuning from Mark, some key info from others (Doug Lofgren and Ken Hill), some luck (OK, a bunch of luck!) and the info posted by Dan Kyle
(http://kawiforums.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8833&SearchTerms=development), the results were better than I could have imagined!
We were also able to a test of the KLEEN Mod, which is similar to the PAIR Mod on GSXR’s. A while ago I posted how to do this Mod, did some testing and got results that showed a gain of next to nothing: http://kawiforums.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4088 This testing was done with the stock exhaust system and I felt that maybe there was a chance that a free flowing aftermarket exhaust would gain a few hp as some have claimed.
The KLEEN Mod was disconnected (and blocked off) on my 636 while it was being tuned on the dyno to insure the oil-rich crankcase air wouldn’t get into the exhaust and mess with the O2 sensor readings. While being tuned, the crankcase vent was routed to the airbox through a homemade breather box (oil separating baffles and filter material) in the tail, a trick I learned from Ducati’s. Mark did dyno pulls with both breather arrangements and guess what? There was hardly a difference to mention between the two. The above dyno sheet shows the results (126.44) with the KLEEN Mod adding vacuum to the crankcases and without the vacuum (the crankcase connected to the airbox), the best was 126.33 hp. No noticeable difference, but each of the KLEEN Mod runs were in the 126’s and without, the power dropped quickly to the mid 125’s. Although there’s no real power gain to be had, the KLEEN Mod eliminates hot oil-rich air into the airbox (which will build gunk on the intake valves) and doesn’t hurt the power, so it may be worth doing.
After lunch, the ULT4 was swapped out for Pump gas and another map was made. Good ‘ole 91 octane gas made 124 hp, showing a steady 2 hp less throughout the entire rev range. So that’s what ULT4 does, 2-2.5 hp more and if we had the ability to adjust the ignition timing, maybe a bit more hp could have been had.
Here’s a link to some more pics, info and the dyno results:
http://public.fotki.com/garymilcheck/motorcycles/zx-6r/mods/tuning_stage1/
I’ll be adding a write up for each pic when I get the chance.
And, I’d like to thank Mark Ledesma for being cool (as usual!) and working his butt off for me. NVH has the best dyno facility here in the valley and I came away respecting how well Mark knows his stuff. </div id="left">