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Booster Plug - The cure for surging?

happy wanderer

happy wanderer

Day Dreaming ...
I have partially purged the surge on my 96 R1100RT but at light throttle it is still there despite installing a Techlusion box.

I heard about the "Booster Plug" recently. The website information here: http://www.boosterplug.com/ certainly indicates the maker of this product has in depth knowledge of the problem.

I am intrigued because his solution works by fooling the air temp input to the ECU and I have noticed that my bike runs great when it is cold. Beyond two bars on the RID surging starts and gets worse as it gets up to five bars. There is no question the air temp input has a dramatic effect on surging. Well, on my bike anyway.

Has anyone tried the Booster Plug? I would be interested to hear any feedback from you. Thanks!
 
I've ordered a similar unit (Accelerator - NTC resistor) last Moday, it is to ship tomorrow. Once I receive it I can let you know how it works.
 
Let us know how it works, please.
in theory, it sounds about correct (internal combustion engines require a richer mixture at colder air temps, as colder air holds more O2), but i've yet to hear anything good about this product. i believe the phrase i heard previuosly was "snake oil".
 
worth the trade-off?

Installed the booster plug a month or so ago and what little surging I had was eliminated! However, my gas milage dropped, considerably. IMHO not worth the added drivablility.
 
I added the Accelerator and like what it has done with the bike. smoother acceleration and no pinging . surging seems to be there in 1st gear mostly . for the cost its worth it just to get rid of the ping when under heavy acceleration in a tall gear
 
And this is why you have a 2004 RT cuz it has dual plugs and does not ping under load. Its not a downshift issue. There are way too many posts asking why pinging happens on single spark bike. The answer is not adding premium fuel b/c we all do it anyway and its not a downshift issue.
 
rgilroy said:
And this is why you have a 2004 RT cuz it has dual plugs and does not ping under load. Its not a downshift issue. There are way too many posts asking why pinging happens on single spark bike. The answer is not adding premium fuel b/c we all do it anyway and its not a downshift issue.
Click to expand...
Any piston engine will ping under a given set of conditions. Assuming an adequate octane rating of the fuel, those conditions are usually too much load for the RPM. The surging problem was drastically reduced when BMW added a second spark plug. My '02 single spark RT pinged no more than my '04.
 
rgilroy said:
And this is why you have a 2004 RT cuz it has dual plugs and does not ping under load. Its not a downshift issue. There are way too many posts asking why pinging happens on single spark bike. The answer is not adding premium fuel b/c we all do it anyway and its not a downshift issue.
Click to expand...

so in your esteemed consideration, what DOES cause pinging, and what IS the solution?

btw- BMW's only stated reason for going to dual spark ignitions was to meet emission standards. that it pretty well solved the surge condition was not a stated consideration, as BMWs position was that there never was a lean surge problem to resolve (in spite of all evidence to the contrary).
 
Why spend all this money on a resistor? Why not simply measure the resistance of the on board negative temperature coefficient resistor at a temperature of say 40F and install a fixed resistor in its place? The ECU would think the outside air temp is 40F and richen the mixture accordingly. Seems simple to me.:clap
 
Red100RT said:
Why spend all this money on a resistor? Why not simply measure the resistance of the on board negative temperature coefficient resistor at a temperature of say 40F and install a fixed resistor in its place? The ECU would think the outside air temp is 40F and richen the mixture accordingly. Seems simple to me.:clap
Click to expand...

The problem and solution is not quite that simple. If you just add serial resistance to the circuit you are going to get a certain percentage of fuel added throughout the entire operating temperature range of your bike. What the ECU does is add more when it is cold and less when it is hot so tricking the ECU has to take that into account.

If you read the booster plug website, this guy has given the problem a lot of thought and I think the solution he proposes and has designed is pretty clever.
His site is here: http://www.boosterplug.com.
Read "The Problem" and "The Solution" tabs. It's interesting.
 
156327 said:
The problem and solution is not quite that simple. If you just add serial resistance to the circuit you are going to get a certain percentage of fuel added throughout the entire operating temperature range of your bike. What the ECU does is add more when it is cold and less when it is hot so tricking the ECU has to take that into account.

If you read the booster plug website, this guy has given the problem a lot of thought and I think the solution he proposes and has designed is pretty clever.
His site is here: http://www.boosterplug.com.
Read "The Problem" and "The Solution" tabs. It's interesting.
Click to expand...

Yup, I looked at boosterplug.com and the guy states that simply adding a resistor in series with the AIT sensor is not the way to go and I agree. The way I would propose is to replace the NTC resistor with a fixed resistor. For grins I removed the top cover with the AIT sensor attached and measured its resistance at 57F and at 40F. At 57F R=3.1K and at 40F R=4.1K Well, if you like the way your beast runs when outside air is say 50F then replace the NTC resistor with a fixed carbon resistor of about 3.5K and go for a ride. Other sensors like oil temp sensor and O2 sensor will act the same. I can't see why this won't accomplish the same thing as spending bucks on these devices. Again, I propose disconnecting the on board OEM sensor and substituting a fixed carbon resistor to simulate a low constant not changing outside temp.
 
And then the other potential problem with fooling around with the temp sensor is how would trying to make the ECU think the air temp is cold affect open/closed loop operation?
And then there is the oxygen sensor forever monitoring exhaust oxygen content which the ECU uses to adjust the mixture to the lean side. I can't really see how modifying the air sensor output will gain much in the way of smoother performance at constant throttle.

Two things that helped smooth out my 1150RT were gaping intake and exhaust valves a couple thousandths wider and removing pink code plug and installing a jumper in the configuration of a "green" code plug which cut my fuel economy from 46 mpg to about 43 mpg.
 
Red100RT said:
And then the other potential problem with fooling around with the temp sensor is how would trying to make the ECU think the air temp is cold affect open/closed loop operation?
And then there is the oxygen sensor forever monitoring exhaust oxygen content which the ECU uses to adjust the mixture to the lean side. I can't really see how modifying the air sensor output will gain much in the way of smoother performance at constant throttle.

Two things that helped smooth out my 1150RT were gaping intake and exhaust valves a couple thousandths wider and removing pink code plug and installing a jumper in the configuration of a "green" code plug which cut my fuel economy from 46 mpg to about 43 mpg.
Click to expand...

I re-read Rob Lentini's super tuning article recently and I adjusted my valves a little on the loose side last week before a long ride. Seems to have helped a slight bit. With regard to inputs though, as I said in my first post, on my particular bike, a Canadian '96 R1100RT which is identical to a Euro model, I notice a huge change in the way it runs cold to when it is fully warmed up. At 3 bars of temp on the RID things begin to change and at 5 bars of RID temp the increase in surging is very noticeable.

The model I have has no CAT plug and no O2 sensor from the factory. On the BMW micro fiche these two items are listed as optional for the CDN bikes of that year. O2 sensors were introduced in 1997 in Canada along with the throttle cable splitter box under the battery. Mine has that one long single cable for both throttle bodies and is harder to adjust properly. You get the hang of it after fifteen or so attempts...:banghead

I had a good chuckle when I read dozens of threads saying "Just throw your CAT code plug in the garbage and disconnect your O2 sensor!" Well, mine shipped like that brand new so I don't think that is the solution. Maybe on US bikes with a different base (closed loop) fuel map it works but somehow I doubt it.

Since there is no O2 sensor and CAT code plug I have to assume the fuel map for my bike is fixed in the firmware of the ECU therefore it makes sense to me that the booster plug solution might work better than the Techlusion R259 I have installed right now. I was hoping this post would maybe find someone who tried it on a bike like mine before I spend more money on this thing. Most days I think I should sell the bike and get a 2000 model RT. I hear they run great! Probably by the end of the model year they got a lot of the early bugs out and improved the ECU firmware is my guess. Since BMW has consistently denied any problem existed it is hard to know other than from forums like this one.

I am currently getting about 42 miles per US Gallon (17.7 km per liter) with my Techlusion box and the plugs look pretty good. Not white any more. :)
 
...they got a lot of the early bugs out...156327
Click to expand...

They didn't really get the bugs out until the twin sparkers came out. I had an '02 RS that would buck so bad you could feel it in fifth gear. My local shop could tune it out and it would be good for a few months and then come back with a vengeance. I finally ended up trading it.

I understand that there were a few oilers out there that were not tunable, and I think I had one of them.
 
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