19mpg?

Hey everyone it's me... Again... I've been through 3 tanks of gas with my new SD and I've consistently gotten 19-20mpg on this thing. I basically only do city street riding so I expect bad mileage. The bike has lots of mods so could this be about right for this bike? It seems like I should be getting further than 58.2 miles before my low fuel light turns on.

Dude - go get that thing tuned, seriously. That's terrible mileage even by modified SuperDuke standards.

Search feature would have revealed all kinds of mileage information ...

If you're unwilling to do it yourself (with TuneECU), at the very least take it to a KTM shop, and have them put on some map that might be close - 'casue what you're runnin' now - ain't.

Yeah it is bad. I got frustrated because the dyno shop near me said 395 bucks just to put the bike on the dyno. No tuning... I'll have to travel further to get it done I guess.

Oh and what baffles me is that I've tried a few maps for the pc3 already. Ones that are less fuel and more fuel... No fuel is leaking, even though with that gas mileage it would seem like it.

I'm sure the akra map is loaded in the ECU lean that out you have to have almost all negative values in the PC3. Impossible to do without a dyno.
You cheapest option is borrow a tuneecu cable from a good soul in your area. Load a standard map or a map that suits your bike in and set the PC3 to all zeros.
See what happens after that.
BTW do your clothes stink of fuel after a ride? $100 says I'm right!

That was totally what I tried. Lol. I zeroed out the entire map last night before I went out riding. The akra map (everything was adjusted to minus on this akra map) I did have on before definitely made all my clothes smell like gas. Lol. I was like... Wow... I got a job interview smelling like this... But anyway, once I zeroed it all out it didn't smell like gas as much. This doesn't make sense to me... Going from negatives to zeroes would seem to increase fuel. Anyway, I'm gonna see how she runs with a "no map" for a day or two until I can get it to a dyno that's legit.

Hmmmm.... That's something to check. I'll look into just buying a tuneecu cable so I can do that part. I'm pretty darn good with stuff like that. For all the money spent on this bike it sure is tuned poorly.

Keep an eye on engine temps, to make sure things aren't too lean ...

I don't know where you are - did you give Factory Pro (in Marin) a call?

I'm in San Francisco. I plan calling them today. First though (with asking you all questions) I'm trying to narrow down the possibilities and isolate the problem before I spend that money.
Before I take it in, I want to get my hands on a tunecu cable (anyone near me with one? ) and see what's going on with my ecu map. Thanks again for all of your guys' valuable inp

OK one last question about this if you guys don't mind. You've definitely talked me into taking it to get tuned on the dyno. So... Assuming I do that..should I leave the ecu as is? I'm pretty sure that the PO threw the dreaded akra map on it with tuneecu. Will the dyno tech be able to correct that map using just the power commander?

yo quentin, Mammoth Motorsports in Rohnert was recommended to me by another infamous member here, though I still have yet to have mine tuned. Damon Podolny is your guy.

2 yrs ago, the quote was $375 for dyno AND tune using power commander. Damon was not a fan of my t-ecu setup because it was more time consuming for them to tweak things about (i don't know the specifics of why) but he quoted me ~$1k for tune using ecu only. So...if you already have a PCIII, the tune/dyno with them would be a good deal IMO.

I shot ya a message.

58 miles per tank is ridiculously horrible. You should be getting at least 100 miles per tank. There might be a fuel leak somewhere. I had my throttle bodies balanced last year and the mechanic said that the valves were grossly dirty as well. I told him I run only premium unleaded and he said stop using premium because it just sits at the gas station collecting soot since no one is buying it due to high cost. You should also consider using some kind of fuel treatment like startron because of the ethanol they are mixing into gas these days. Or if you are rich run 100 octane race fuel, its only $8 a gallon at T-hill.

I ride mostly urban, around sacramento and get over 100 miles per tank. Full akra setup with akra map. O2 sensors eliminated, but no power commander/tune ecu. Rottweiler intake with SAS block offs. I can slab to SF on one tank from sacramento. Ktm dealer setup the akra map when I got the akra pipes installed. They recommended not to use premium anymore after seeing how dirty my valves were, and use an additive instead. It's probably a theory on his part that today's fuel at the stations is full of soot from sitting too long in the tanks. He said he heard the same thing from his wife's BMW mechanic because her car was running like crap. So, now I run regular in both my BMW and my SD. The SD is running smoother than ever after switching to regular unleaded plus additive. I've used both startron and B-12 chemtool. I think the startron is a little better. Sometimes there is a little blowback on cold mornings using B-12, but that isn't really intended to compensate for crap sooty ethanol fuel. The startron additive seems to work best so far, maybe it helps boost octane a little so it all burns off before getting into the exhaust pipes even with the rich akra map. One little bottle will last 4-5 tanks. I haven't had any knocking from both the BMW and SD. Save a couple dollars at the gas station. Maybe you rich bay area folks can afford premium to keep it fresh in the gas station for those special days you're not driving the prius, but hardly anyone uses it up here in cow town. Just sit and watch which pumps the cars pull up to, even the geezers with the 750il and Mercedes 55 AMG won't buy premium today.

My record bad mileage from my 05 SD was..... wait for it....... 37 MPT (Miles Per tank).

From full to dry in 37 miles FFS. To be fair the original SD had a smaller tank but even so it was shocking (literally) to run dry so soon.

hahah yeah that's horrible mileage. So I've been calling around the bay area to see prices and time frames for dyno tuning. This is the most interesting/frustrating thing ever. A typical conversation is something like this:

"I wanted to check (very generally) how much it'd be to have my bike dyno tuned with my PC3".

"Ok dyno tuning and Power Commanders are for off road use only. So I'm assuming you will be bringing your bike here in a truck right?"

"Ummm..Sure? I guess..."

"Ok so since it's for off road use only, the bike will be in race only trim right?"

"Ummm..."

"Ok now the price ranges somewhere between 900-1200 dollars, and we can probably get it done within a few days but no promises. Then we need to get you new injectors that have been sprayed and blah blah blah."

"Thanks anyways...have a good day."

Please state what company(s) you spoke with, where you had this conversation. Why? So others can avoid them in future. A little contribution here would be nice.

You do not need new injectors.

That was a company in the south bay area. I forgot the name but it's in Fremont. On the topic of horrible fuel mileage...since I got this bike (about 2 weeks ago) I have meant to check my tyre pressure because the front end slightly pulls when cornering. I kicked the tyres and they felt okay so I deemed it low priority and kept forgetting. Today I pulled out the pump to put some air in the tyres. Holy crap... Both tyres were sitting at 18psi. I thought I would have felt them that low in the handling but I guess not.
After filling the tyres I filled my tank up, reset the trip and rode exactly 81 miles and filled up again. It took 2.2 gallons that fuel up. It's a crude way to calculate but it came out to 36mpg this time. Now part of that was because I was riding on the freeway instead of city streets and part was the tyre pressure. Last time I rode freeways (with low tyre pressure) I was still getting low 20s mpg.
Seems like I've found one of the causes of the poor mileage. I'll still need to get it tuned though. The interesting thing is that when I got this bike, I kept thinking how amazingly awesome it's handling is compared to my ZX6R. You can probably imagine how excited I am now that it handles with the tyre pressure set properly lol. Can't believe I didn't check that sooner.

Don't know what min pressure keeps tyres on the bead, but good thing they didn't roll off mid turn what did you inflate your tyre pressures to afterwards?

Mate, no offence, but I can't believe you've been riding about for two weeks with flat tyres! It must have handled like a jelly. How do you gauge tyre pressure by kicking them? I'd never trust a dealer, or any seller, for that matter with tyre pressures, first thing I'd check.

Having some air in your tyres will make more difference to your performance than Akrapovic headers.

Mines a thirsty bastard , had 40 miles to light on

40 miles before the light is terrible. Lol. I'm pretty happy now. I'm getting about 26-28mpg mixed highway and city streets. Still... I'll get it tuned.