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Booster Plug installed on my 2016 Stelvio NTX

Glenn Yingst

Glenn Yingst

Tuned and Synch'ed
GT Contributor
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
60
Location
Strathmore AB Canada
I few years back I owned a 2003 BMW R1200CL. I nick named it the BLUE WHALE ( Guess why) anyway after fighting with an off idle stumble and stall problem I heard about the BOOSTER PLUG. A relatively in expensive fix to a lean fuel issue. Fast forward to my present Moto Guzzi which also has a lean off idle hesitation. I ordered the Booster Plug. it took less than 2 weeks to arrive and 2 min to install , no tools and sorted out my Guzzi.
 
If I remember correctly, that unit only changes the reading from the air temperature sensor.
 
Won't really do too much except richen up the mixture, as John says. The bigger danger is a stinking hot day, it will still try to richen the mixture, when it doesn't need to. These things are way too lean on closed loop (the bit you are playing with) and way too rich in open loop. The only real way is to get a properly designed map that delivers correct fuelling across the board in all temperatures and altitudes.

You may find you use more gas than you need to just to fix the leanness off idle. Just saying...
 
Looks like these ones take it one step further with a variable resitor for the temperature compensator to eliminate the over fueling at hotter temperatures. Like a mini Autotune for cold idle only (I know that is a stretch but best example I could come up with). Better than just a constant resistor which increases the fuel (temperature) across the board.

That being said just be careful with them. I don't have any experience with these but I do know there have been cases of these foolers (not this particular one) malfunctioning and dumping excessive fuel which washed down a cylinder. End result was not a good one.

Sounds like you have had some experience with this one. Perhaps someone has finally improved the design.
 
canuck1969 said:
Looks like these ones take it one step further with a variable resitor for the temperature compensator to eliminate the over fueling at hotter temperatures. Like a mini Autotune for cold idle only (I know that is a stretch but best example I could come up with). Better than just a constant resistor which increases the fuel (temperature) across the board.

That being said just be careful with them. I don't have any experience with these but I do know there have been cases of these foolers (not this particular one) malfunctioning and dumping excessive fuel which washed down a cylinder. End result was not a good one.

Sounds like you have had some experience with this one. Perhaps someone has finally improved the design.
Click to expand...
Thanks guys, This all good information and I will keep an I on fuel consumption. The Booster Plug worked well on my BMW , it had 80+km on it when I sold it and had no issues( that I was aware of)
 
I believe the Booster Plug was developed specifically for BMWs. If you go to their website there are all sorts of accolades from BMW owners. I really don't like ECU foolers. However, this goes after intake temperature and is probably a safer bet than the FatDuc O2 sensor signal modifiers (those are the ones that seem to get people in trouble). Good luck!
 
Tons of info here on this... Sensor offset foolers are band-aids at best, and while they do seem to make you feel as though it makes a difference, when you look at the actual science of air/fuel ratios, the differences are minimal. As Tony says, it's in the areas and ranges when fooling a sensor that it will impact things in a very negative way. Caveat emptor. I'm nearing 15 years of fueling corrections with Guzzis, I'll stick with data backed dynamic fueling corrections via PC-V/AutoTune.
 
I agree it may be a band aid and not be as 'perfect' a solution as an ECU reflash or PC-V module but if it significantly improves the rideability of the bike (which in my experience it does) and does not significantly worsen the fuel economy (I have measured no statisticly significant difference) then I cant see a problem with using it or a similar solution.
My experience is that at higher temperatures it works fine but when the ambient drops below about 12C it is less effective.
(I don't have 15 years experience in guzzi fueling just 45 years of riding everything from BSA Bantams through to R1's)
 
I have to Agree its likely a short cut, band aid solution to a less than perfect fuel map that is Guzzi installed. As I get more km on the Stelvio and I feel more confident I will likely look for more power. So then a better Map that will add some power and cure the lean problem. but for now the booster is working for me. i don't have enough ride time since the install to notice any change in fuel consumption. Plus the first service was just done,with 2000km the motor is hardly broken in. Will update later.
 
Glenn, more power is unlikely - they are what they are. However, a correctly fuelled bike with have its best torque and power available at all throttle positions and speeds, makes it smooth, and will improve economy - regardless of how hard you thrash it.
 
Update. 700km on the Stelvio with the booster plug installed. No change in power, it just runs Nicer, Smoother. Don't know how to explain it any better than that. No change in Fuel consumption that I can tell.
 
Glenn Yingst said:
Update. 700km on the Stelvio with the booster plug installed. No change in power, it just runs Nicer, Smoother. Don't know how to explain it any better than that. No change in Fuel consumption that I can tell.
Click to expand...
Just to give yourself a warm and fuzzy, pull the plugs and see what they look like.
 
That booster plug will be the same as the finebau unit made in the UK. They interfere with the air temp sensor output. But they must be a fairly complex unit when you consider that the temp sensor has an exponential output, very high resistance at low temperatures, very low at high temps. So you can't just add a series resistor.
 
Hello people,
I'm new around here and just spotted this thread.
I've had an R1150R for 4 yrs and have worked through most of their issues including the surge prob.
The process has eroded any belief I may have had
in BMW - I'm here looking for something that makes more sense : )

Anyway this post raises a point that may be worth
mentioning for reference. In my search for an answer
To the surging I first heard about booster plugs, then I started hearing about them working at first and then
Inexplicably stopping having an effect so looked deeper and found a thread on Adv by Roger 04 RT that explained it all, to me at least and might be of interest here.

Part of Rogers background is flying piston eng aircraft with manual control of the fuel ratio which
led him to starting with a different point of view.

At first he started running a heap of tests logging data with a 911 analyser to see what was actually happening. He later moved to a Innovative Motorsports LC-1 with a wideband sensor, narrowband emulator and an analog output that he could hook up to a laptop and take data in real time while riding. He's the only one I've found who actually did the tests - a LOT of tests, logged the data and openly published it. He had nothing to sell,
He just want to know WTF was going on.

One thing he found was that the ECU was much more advanced than anyone had thought and that
it has an Adaptive circuit that adjusts open loop and also closed loop.

Roger tested air temp foolers, higher pressure fuel pumps among other things and found that the adaptive circuit adjusted them out after around two
tanks of fuel making them void. The ECU sees any changes as a faulty what ever it is and adapts to adjust it out and return the fueling to 14.7 and your back where you started. He documented and provided readouts showing it happening.

He found the only way to attack the problem was from the 02 sensor itself. The LC - 1 if I remember it right is made to use in dyno tuning and you can set
your own A/F ratio with it and he found that using and testing with this it wasn't adapted out.

The only permanent fix was to get the 02 sensor to
"Adjust" the ECU and let the ECU do it's thing.

Sorry for the long post - I'll just finish by saying that
Roger gave the info to Nightrider and convinced them to make the AX-FieD piggyback to solve the prob for R1150's and numerous other models.

Cheers Maurie.
 
RANDM said:
Hello people. I'm new around here and just spotted this thread. I've had an R1150R for 4 yrs
Click to expand...
Welcome to the Forum. While this is great info, BMW uses a more complex Bosch system. All of the Marelli units up to the current 7SM used on the California 1400 (shared with the Aprilia RSV-4 & Fiat 500!), are quite crude. Fooling the ECU via the sensors (sensor offset) has proven a bad idea in the end, regardless of brand.
 
Thanks for the welcome Todd.
As I said - just mentioning it for reference/general knowledge as I notice a few here have BMWobbleyous too. BMW are secretive to point of self destruction, they seem to think deflecting all questions and denying all faults even exhist is smart. They wouldn't even admit to the adaptive circuitry until Roger dug up some of their own documentation - a couple of paragraphs buried in a mountain of tech docs from years ago.

There are some expensive band aids out there that only work for week or so and the real, permanent fix can be had for a little over $200 and transforms the bike so I thought it worth a heads up. I know their system is different to most others - I take it in an Apple/Microsoft way : )

Any way, I don't need a rich man's temporary plaything that you have to re - new when the
Designed Obsolescance kicks in.

Liking what I'm learning about Guzzi's.

Maurie.
 
At the end of the day, our Guzzis are simple machines that are simple to maintain, repair and ride, whilst giving enormous pleasure to the riders. I work with some people who own them BMWWWWW things and they are less than impressed that I can change my map in a matter of minutes, should I so desire - no tom fuelery on mine, just a decent map that is awesome! They do not love the closed shop that their machine come from.

Guzzi >>>>>> Nirvana for me.
 
Can do without the superior attitude from the Co.
through to the mechs as well, wears very thin very
quickly when it's easy to see the goods aren't actually that good any more.
What was arrogant pride in a good product is more or less lots of flashing lights, knobs and things to play with bolted to mechanicals made to fail in a timed sequence - at least it feels that way when you crack open a FD to replace bearings that should have lasted twice as long only to find on checking the preload for the Tapered Roller Bearing that the
Fuquetery had set the preload to TWICE their OWN
MAXIMUM recommended setting which caused the
early failure.
Or when you take the bike to a well established BMW car injection specialist to clean injectors while searching for answers to the surge, and he comes out to look at the bike to make sure they fit his equip.
and he gets a puzzled look, starts looking closer, looks even more puzzled and then looks real close saying WTF is this - this system has NO CHANCE of working properly, why would you even put shit like this on in the first place when the car systems are so good and you know better.

Pride in ownership is a lovely warm feeling.

I'm really cold - anyone got a Jumper?

Maurie.
 
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