Cobra’s Fi2000 PowrPro Auto Tuner could make motorcycle EFI tuning a cakewalk!

Cobra PowrPro Fi2000 Auto Tuner

We’re seeing fuel injected motorcycles being launched left, right and center in India. We’ve come a long way from the very first fuel injected Indian motorcycle, the Hero Honda Glamour FI and with the Honda CBR250R arriving and changing the face of Indian performance motorcycles with a delightful mix of affordability and performance, it is only a matter of time before motorcycle enthusiasts wanting to go faster and push the performance envelope further would resort to after market bolt on performance bits like free-er flowing air filters, mufflers and their ilk.

Now, a motorcycle like the Honda CBR250R or even the Hero Honda Karizma ZMR and the Yamaha R15, which all run on fuel injection are designed to run very lean. Why? This, as running lean means burning fuel as completely as possible leaving the least residue like carbon emissions. Also, if you’ve dabbled around with jetting and dyno read outs, you’d be pretty familiar with maximum power of an engine being made while running a little on the leaner side. So, most modern motorcycles are designed to run as lean as possible without engine life going for a toss.

Now, what happens when you add a free flow exhaust and a free-er flowing air filter in your bid to extract a pony or two from your spanking new 2011 Honda CBR250R? The stock ECU can compensate for a given amount of variation in air flow and adjust fuel accordingly. But, since these ECUs are designed to work with a fixed amount of variation in air-fuel ratio, quite often the motorcycle runs leaner than it should in the interests of preserving engine life. Heat, as you all know kills engines.

Since most modern motorcycles in India are finally taking to liquid cooling, this issue is alright to a certain extent as liquid cooling usually helps just enough to ensure that your piston doesn’t say, “Thank you, I’ve had enough!”. But what happens when you add a high lift cam or go big bore? More power means more heat. The fuel mixture continues to act as a cooling system with richer engines still running cooler even with them being liquid cooled for optimum temperature control. It is here where your after market ECU comes into the picture.

Once you modify a fuel injected engine to produce more power than your custom exhaust or air filter change, you need a different map so as to match the air fuel mixture to the new performance parts to make maximum power without causing loss in engine life or worse an ugly engine seizure. Hence, we have after market ECU manufacturers/remappers like Power Commander in the USA, RaceDynamics, RDDreams and RaceConcepts in India and their likes. The latest device from Cobra Performance called the Cobra’s Fi2000 PowrPro Auto Tuner aims to do the tuner’s job without the need for a professional tuner.

What Cobra’s revolutionary device aims to do is, it will sit in between your ECU and your engine and make sure that the air-fuel ratio is constantly adjusted for your engine to make maximum power. Previously, you’d have to head to your Dyno Specialist or your tuner to ensure that your ECU is calibrated or remapped to allow for maximum power and engine life. But, the PowrPro Auto Tuner from Cobra aims to automate the whole process. To do this, the device will continuously read the air fuel ratio at a rate of 80 times per second and make sure that the ratio is optimum for maximum power.

How does the Cobra PowrPro do this?

The Cobra PowrPro Fi2000 uses electronic control technology that calculates the bike’s rate of acceleration by reading crankshaft rotation at the flywheel and changes in load just as a dynamometer measures acceleration at the rear wheel. This happens at a rate of 80 times per second. By this, it optimizes the amount of fuel required to make maximum power while making sure than the engine is running with an air fuel mix that will not cause it to get damaged due to an overly lean mixture. Cobra has already applied for a patent for this latest technology.

So, you’ll never need to bother about jetting anymore. You can virtually make many modifications to your engine and trust the Cobra PowrPro to handle the perfect injection for you. Also, you won’t have to add any additional O2 sensors in your exhausts like you’ll have to with other systems like Power Commander. However, this comes with a rider that many folks may overlook. You must note that the Cobra FI2000 can inject more fuel only up to the level your injector supports and not get too carried away by this seemingly “once size fits all” automatic fuel injection tuning system.

Any which ways, it’s a plug and play device that can be bolted onto you motorcycle in minutes. After scouring many international forums for a reliable review on this product, I found that there isn’t any as yet as the device will ship only from May 2011 at a cost of about $570 which can be bought at discounted prices of up to a $ 100 lesser. While that looks like a bunch of money, if this product indeed works as intended, that’s definitely money well spent as experienced tuners don’t come cheap, especially in a country like India where every mechanic whose opened up a couple of engines or fitted a few performance exhausts claims to be a professional tuner.

So, do watch this space as we track this revolutionary looking product very closely as it releases shortly. All said, Cobra USA has a huge reputation that it definitely wouldn’t want to damage by promising so much and delivering too little. So, the coming days promise to be pretty interesting as many motorcyclists across the world are all set to sample this latest high performance automatic fuel injection tuning device.

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