Powercommander on a F650GS

[Whele]

About six months ago I fitted a K&N filter to my Dakar along with an Adventure (Supertrapp) pipe. The effect was to make the bike breath much better, the acceleration is now much improved.

However, I have noticed that under heavy loads i.e uphill or with touring gear onboard) or accelerating hard between 50 and 70mph in 5th gear can cause some engine knock (pinking). It only demonstrates this behavior using 95octane fuel. If I mix 95 and 97 it doesn’t do it. I had BMW check the lambda sensor, the map and the mixtre – all was fine.

In November I have plans to ride to India and expect to encounter some pretty low octane fuel. Since I will be carrying a small notebook computer I have started to consider fitting a Powercommander so that I can easily reprogram the map for different fuel quality.

Does anybody have experience of fitting a Powercommander to a F650? or have experience using a Powercommander with low octane fuel?

Finally, does slight engine knock (pinking) cause any damage to an engine?

 

[Trevor George]

Finally, does slight engine knock (pinking) cause any damage to an engine?

It does if you carry on letting the engine do it for long periods, but the occasional series of 'pings' does no harm, just ease off the throttle or cog down a gear (or two), then wind it on again.

BTW don't lug the engine and cause the pinking in the first place. If you are "accelerating hard between 50 and 70mph in 5th gear" you're in too high a gear. Knock it down into 4th gear and let the engine rev freely. Same with uphills ... lower gear please

Cheers ... Trevor, Bristol, UK. My original UK & Ireland F650 website

 

[Whele]

Thanks for the response Trevor

I have had the bike for some time but only really noticed the problem recently, maybe I'm just getting more confident and 'ragging' it more

 

[Trevor George]

On re-thinking about your question, I recall reading somewhere about a 'upgrade' to the chip being available for some of the fuel-injected F650 bikes, which would permit it to run on lower-octane fuels specifically on RTW trips.

I have a feeling it was only for the single-spark F650 bikes though, as the newer twin-sparkers are able to cope.

If you wanted to find out, you'd need to contact your BMW Dealer and ask them to find out by calling BMW Customer Services, as it's highly unlikely that they would know the answer themslves, unless they done the 'upgrade' for other customers. (I think rather than a general upgrade, it's more of a sideways-grade)

 

[Nostromo]

Here is a US Service Bulletin apparantly giving details of Injector and fuel map combinations for fuels down to RON 91 .Any UK dealer should be able to find the parts and maps to do a similar conversion.

http://faq.f650.com/GSFAQs/Photos/MiscPhotos/1300303-BMS-C-Injector-combinations-F-Series.pdf

 

[Micky]

Hi Whele...

We (single spark Sue and twin spark Micky) had Techlusion units given to us by Wunderlich for our trip 'The Long Way Home'... Techlusion being the for-runners of the Power Commander I believe. Gave extra performance certainly, and we ran with total sh*t fuel in Russia, Mongolia etc. with no other mods. No probs. We both encountered misfires and rough running on our way back home though that might have been put down to the Techlusion units... no proof. Sue needed a new 'brain box' (?) on return, couldn't be re programmed. Mine was, no probs.

I'd leave everything standard, just get rid of the Kat, which you've already done

Hope this helps...



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