PC V with Auto Tune = Holy Grail. for the 2008 & 2009 Husqvarna EFI bikes

Getting close to the end of a long journey that started in mid July.


Preliminary conclusion based on testing a 2008 TE250 with early ecu software: the PC V with Auto Tune eliminates the need for having an iBeat tune up, of the FB settings, in open loop (competition) configuration. IBeat will still however be needed for diagnostic work. But the long term changes that occur when the bikes are broken in will be accounted for just fine.

Summary - for competition mode (power up kit installed):

1. No need for an ibeat tune up - that should help the huge number of people that find it painful to get to the dealer, and the only other alternative is to buy an ibeat, which is fairly expensive.
2. FB2 and FB3 do nothing in this bike
3. Special information for dealers - if the bikes are running so badly that the FBs cannot be set then you can use the PC V to get the bike to run smooth enough for that to happen. I've been told by a few dealers that this has been a problem in the past.
4. It is far quicker to develop a map while riding off road than it is on the street.
5. Both the ibeat and the PC V software could run at the same time, that was pretty cool.
6. FB changes AFR in a similar way as CO changes AFR - going up 10 on either makes the AFR go 1.0 (ish) richer e.g. 13.7 -> 12.7.
7. ALSO - PC map changes also alter the AFR in the same fashion - going -10% on a map value will make the AFR 1.0 (ish) leaner e.g. 12.7 -> 13.7
8. Because I did extensive testing at Dynojet on the CO values I will also say those will be accounted for as well as the FB values and other things.
9. FB1 DOES affect open loop mode on this bike.
10. There are more, this list will be updated as I think of them... and I'm sure the wording will be polished up as well in this long thread.

And now for the rest of the story…

Power Commander V and Auto Tune on a 2008 TE250

2008 TE250
Power up muffler without cat but with spark arrester, Stock Lambda sensor removed and plugged, more open air cage, backfire screen removed.

Detailed installation instructions are available for download or when the products are purchased so those will not be repeated, but: found a taillight that comes on whenever the key is on. Traced that back down the wire harness and connected power to the Auto Tune module using a displacement connector. Then connected up the rest of the wires as directed.

Installed the CD that was sent – that went smother and was more logical than anticipated. It asked whether to install PC III or PC V for instance.

When the PC V was connected to the laptop via standard micro usb cable, communication occurred automatically and informed that the afr was 600 with the bike off. Clicking on “Device Info” yielded:
Model B23-005 – which is for a 2009 TE/SM510 (last map that was loaded into it)
SN: 090802003555 (of the PC V)
Map type: 306

Connecting the iBeat the following information was obtained:
ZKH ECE CA78V 00____ (a low vin number indicating early ecu)
Eeprom: H8B800556
Ecu version: E010R103
EEPROM: 1, for 38 hours

The FB numbers were: FB1 = 111, FB2 = 107, FB3 = 100. Because the stock lambda sensor was not installed they could be read, but not adjusted (also needs to be warmed up to 85C).

Using ibeat II it was confirmed that the O2 / long-term adaptation was not enabled on this early ecu. In addition the CO open loop adjustments were also disabled – “can not use this function to this years model” was the exact phrase.

The map was then set to all 0’s (null map) in the PC V. I was told that effectively disabled the power commander – a test ride by the owner confirmed that. I rode the bike and the power seemed “explosive”… but it certainly not smooth…. And it occasionally stalled, but not bad.

Installed the map that should have been close to perfect for the bike and the bike ran really smooth and still had much power, to quote the owner: it ran “GREAT”. But when I rode it I thought it was not as explosive as before. But… when decelerating it stalled frequently. WHY was my first question…

Background: The 2008 efi bikes, as per Dynojet, run incredibly rich. Much fuel needs to be removed to make the bikes run at the correct AFR. My personal theory is that richness when coupled with the rapid opening of throttle, produces a good combination of rich but powerful mixture which produces much more explosive power – ergo the 2008 bikes seem to have more power than the 2009 bikes. The 2009 bikes run much closer to a good AFR from the factory. But that is only an untested theory at the moment.

So why the stalling upon deceleration with the map that should have worked? There were no values (0) in cells for 0%, 2%, 5% throttle positions above 3000 rpms, as shown in this picture, notice the large negative numbers that take fuel away:

View attachment 1909

To test that theory we put in –10 in those cells that had 0 in them so there would not be such a discrepancy and indeed the stalling was alleviated if not eliminated.

Basically the bike had a huge increase in fuel, when the throttle was closed, at the higher rpms and acted exactly the opposite of an Accelerator Pump (AP) and flooded out the engine. At least that is by our observations what was happening.

Next up – Auto Tune.

The Auto Tune module was then enabled and the original map was re-loaded.

The empty cells were quickly populated with reasonable numbers and the stalling stopped. Nice. For example here are the changes in the first few minutes:
Rpms throttle position
................5%............10%
5000..........0->-19.......+2->-20
5250..........0-> -20........0->-24
5500..........0->-5.........+2->-23

Then there was much riding on the street, accepting trim values (merges the trim map into the base map values, which leaves the trim map to zero), and playing with max values that the Auto Tune could adjust – we left that at +-40%, a decision that we would later regret.

To quote the owner of the bike: “Auto Tune made it that much better AGAIN” when he rode it on the street.

Next up – riding off road, what really counts.

So we met up on a ‘warm’ Sunday morning at the local OHV park. Not a spectacular riding area but it would serve for testing purposes. Carnegie was the name of the place.

The owner had been riding for 40 minutes prior to me getting there and he was extremely happy!

Checking the trim map reveled that there were HUGE changes especially going downhill, in gear, with the throttle closed completely – in the 3-6k rpm ranges. So we accepted the map and we both rode it around a couple of more minutes and confirmed it’s awesomeness. That map was saved as the new ‘base map’, which will from now on be referred to as the Carnegie Map, onto the laptop, forever to be archived as a reference point.

By now one thing was crystal clear - it was far easier to develop a map off road than it was riding around a residential neighborhood.

I then nulled the map so it did nothing, and also disabled the Auto Tune. It ran like it did before the PC was installed. The owner upon further reflection on another day said something to the effect “you don’t know how bad they are running until you ride it when it is running correctly!”.

Then we put the new base map that was saved back into the PC V and re-enabled Auto Tune still leaving it to +-40% max values it could control…

There were several attempts to change the FB settings as an experiment, eventually I figured out the bike needed to be at 85C and far more importantly the Husqvarna Lambda sensor needed to be installed and connected or the ibeat could not change those values. That sensor was at the owners home so they could not be changed on that day.

Then the owner took the bike on a much longer ride, too long. Eventually he came back and said he made a mistake and the bike went off the trail for a while down a steepish hill but eventually someone helped him back onto the trail which came by on the trail. He then tried to start the bike, which he eventually did, but the bike ran terrible…

When he came back the bike barely ran and the trim map had incredibly weird values in it. I cleared those and the bike seemed to run fine at least on a 30 second ride I did. Had the max trim values for the Auto Tune been left at the much more reasonable +-20% instead of the +-40% we had them set to, there would not have been a problem. At least that is my current theory.

Next up – ibeat FB experiments.,

So on Monday evening…

We installed the Husqvarna stock Lambda sensor and connected it to the bike while leaving the wires that went to the Power Commander wide band sensor that was previously screwed into the pipe dangling. PC V had a zero map and Auto Tune turned off.

The FB numbers could then indeed be changed. Caveat: the bike needs to be running well enough to change the numbers i.e. there was a message on the FB change screen stating either “Activity” or not “Activity”. Rapidly opening the throttle or a poorly running bike indicating there was not “Activity” and the FB values could not be adjusted.

This link documenting the open loop CO numbers
http://www.cafehusky.com/forums/showthread.php?p=46277#post46277

clearly shows that the higher those are, the richer the bike runs.

We found out that was also true for the FB parameters, but not before some mistakes were made. We set each of the FB numbers to –20 and instantly the bike ran terrible. At the time we were thinking the bike was super rich, but in fact the opposite occurred and it was running super lean.. After re-installing the wide band PC lambda sensor and re-enabling the Auto Tune – the Auto Tune did not correct at all. I believe there must be hard limits in the Auto Tune code and if the AFR is too far out of range then it will not try to go there.

But that is while the PC lambda sensor was in after it had been ridden a couple of minutes I noticed the AFR was indicating a lean condition.

That was confirmed when reinstalling the Husqvarna stock lambda sensor – the sensor and pipe got very very warm. This is when we got into trouble trying to change the FB values to more reasonable numbers. The bike would not run well enough, so it was stable enough, to change the numbers. The display was showing no “Activity” which disabled that because at idle it would stall and opening up the throttle would cause the no “activity”… not good. Eventually the FB numbers got changed, and we set them to +20 to cause the bike to run super rich, which was the original intent.

Next up – will the Auto Tune correct for bad FB numbers? Can people with a PC V and Auto Tune use their bikes if they are far away from dealers that otherwise would need to have the ibeat settings changed?


With the FB numbers set super rich, and the PC wide band sensor installed and connected, and of course a null map and Auto Tune turned on – it did nothing. It seems there are hard limits on what the Auto Tune can do in the rich condition as well.

Perplexed, while the bike was running with an AFR near 10-11, I highlighted the entire map of the PC V and put in –10. The AFR then jumped to more reasonable numbers! Eventually filling the entire map with –20 go the bike running close enough to where the Auto Tune started working.... but that also means that no matter what the FB settings are the PC could make the bike run well enough so they could be changed.

So we need to ride it enough to create a full map, but it was getting dark and cold…

Wednesday evening….
Continued to ride on street but it was clear that would not create a proper map with the limited amount of time there was – it was quite clear that the AT was working well and accommodating the weird FB numbers.


To test what an average customer would do:
We set all FBs to 100 and re-loaded the 2008 TE250 PC V map, enabled Auto Tune – and it definitely tried to adjust the to those new FB numbers - just like someone buying a new bike and installing the PC V with Auto Tune would expect ergo ibeat adjustments are no longer needed with PC V & Auto Tune in the powered up mode.


Then to test what FB2 & FB3 do:
Then set FB1 back to the original tuned up value that it was before all the experiments began, but set FB2 and FB3 +30 (richer). Re-loaded the base map that was developed at the OHV park (Carnegie map), and with Auto Tune disabled took a test ride – the bike ran great. Conclusion: on this bike FB2 & FB3 do nothing at all in this bike.


Preliminary conclusion regarding FB changes vs AFR changes:
After much experimentation – going up +10 on FB appears to change afr 1.0 eg from 13.7 -> 12.7. This is a very rough observation but it is ball park.

Video. It was not running well at this time because of some configuration issues but it does show ibeat running at the same time as PC V in 2 different windows, and the 'activity' and no 'activity' - FB only can be adjusted when it shows 'activity'.

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I've got no idea about the new 250 coming out as far as the physical layout of the wiring. My educated guess would be it would work just fine. There really is only 1 PC V, the various models differ only as to the length of cables, and maps inside them. We discussed that extensively and the conclusion was things would have to be done 'extremely weird' for there to be an issue, and even then splicing a wire to make it longer would probably be the largest change needed.

The maps for the PC III and PC V are 'in compatible' (sort of). There is an addition 15% throttle adjustment for the PC V whereas there is none on the PC III. The file extensions of the 2 different maps are different and are not interchangeable however.

The maps however can be manually updated (copied and pasted) and the numbers are transferable and applicable i.e. -20 at 5% throttle setting is still -20 at 5% throttle setting either on PC III or PC V.

I'll make a formal announcement at some point but I've changed the forum software so maps can be attached to posts - both PC III and PC V... but with auto tune sharing maps should, for the most part, be a thing of the past...

I'm an extremely jaded person, and I was quite impressed. There is no way to create the maps on a dyno that apply to real world off road conditions customized to a riding style, which just like jetting, this is all about. What works for one person may not work as well for another person.

If you buy the PC V with auto tune you should be happy for a long long time regardless of what efi bike you may use it on. But it works similar to steering dampers, there is no assurances of that for future bikes, at least I cannot predict the future what may happen. The most likely scenario in my opinion is the some connectors may need changing - if anything.

Welcome to the forum

Awesome effort, thanks.

Details here:
http://www.cafehusky.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4827

The map you are referencing is the map attached for the 2008 TE250.

ibeat II. Yes there were all sorts of adjustments made, we were testing. Again, during the video the bike was running terrible for a variety of reasons - we were testing.

You need to re-read the first post, I put some caveats in there - the underlined part. I cannot guarantee what will happen in the future... if I could that would indeed be incredibly awesome.