Zard exhaust V4

I like and order A LOT from Bellissimoto, but you can save $1k from Motostorm.it... Zard Kit Racing Titanium Dm5 Ducati Panigale V4s

I have ordered from them multiple times and never had issues.


As to Zard, I like their exhaust, but I'm not buying anything other than the Ducati supported exhaust until there is a proper way to access the ECU by a dyno tuner.

DucatiKev said:

BINGO

thanks for the link. r u setup as a dealer?

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Nah, just an ordinary customer.

Any of the under tail exhausts for the V4 (with the exception of the unobtanium Akrapovic that is a mimic of the 1299FE exhaust) wreck the clean look of the tail and tail light. And there is a proper way to tune a V4 now, Tuneboy has released its software.

Yes, you can eliminate the servo code. Any tune no matter what software it is done with runs the risk voiding your factory warranty. Tunes may be diagnostically invisible to the "dealers" tools, (essentially marketing jargon for you to think you are not compromising your warranty) but if a full read of the ECU is done, it is easy to tell the ECU has been flashed in the past. If you ever have an engine failure, Ducati is likely to look in-depth into the ECU and will be able to tell that the ECU has been tuned.

I have downloaded the tuneboy software and have taken a look at it. It has some nice features, like logging rpm, throttle position and front and rear wideband. It will take the wideband readings, and create a table that shows you all of the fuel cells hit during your logging session and any fuel cells that did not hit their commanded air fuel ratio. You can then have the program integrate those adjustments into the tune file. This is a handy feature.

I do have a whole bunch of questions and will not purchase the tuning key until they respond to me. There are individual fuel and ignition tables for each cylinder. But then there are 4 tables labeled L1 to L4 that do not state what they are, although they also appear to be fuel tables. There is also a 5th and 6th ignition table that does not state what they are. There are Air/Fuel tables for each cylinder but in the supplied maps they are set to zero. There is an Air/Fuel count table (not sure what this is) but is all zero as well. Also a Target A/F table, which I take to be commanded AFR, but it is set to 13:1 for all rpm and load. This is not typically what you would target for low load, small throttle openings. 13:00 to 13.2:1 is typically optimal for high loads. They also do not state how the front and rear O2's are used to create the adjustment table. Since there are fuel tables for each cylinder, but the O2 reads the combined front and combined rear cylinders, are the adjustments equally applied to cylinders 1 & 2 from the readings of the front O2 sensor? I would want to make sure any factory fuelling differences between the front two cylinders and also the rear two cylinders is maintained.

It includes six V4 maps, but does not state what the differences are between 5 of the maps. One map is labeled Akra. When comparing what I assume is a stock map to the supplied akra map it is interesting. Fuelling is changed, but no timing changes. I would have expected timing changes.

Also some interesting features like: It appears you can program the dash message to whatever you want, like "Brent's V4S" you can correct the speedo and turn off any error flag (not reset, turn off). You can also reset the TPS. Changing the rev limit and fan cut in are currently greyed out.

I hate to see misinformation like this. If you truly understand how ecu's work , you would know this is only partially correct. Here is key relevant info:

ECU runs in closed loop at low rpm, low load, open loop at high rpm or high load. What are these? Closed loop means it has a closed loop feedback cycle. What makes it closed loop, is that ECU commands fuelling via its tables, the O2's measure the actual result of that and feed the results back to the ECU. The ECU then has fuel trims (these are adjustments that get applied universally on top of whatever fuel value is in the fuel table). So, the ECU commands a fuelling of say 70. The O2 reads lean. The fuel trim starts to grow 1,2,3, etc until the O2 sensor reads correct. Lets say the fuel trim grew to 7 in order for this to happen. So now effective fuelling is 70+7 = 77. The fuel table still reads 70, but there is now a universal correction that is applied on top of it. In this case 7. This is the adjustment he is talking about in the video, so yes, there is some learning in the ECU.

However there are issues with this. #1 fuel trims get applied universally to the fuel table. So this may result in some areas being leaner and some areas being richer than required. It gets you close on average. Fast acting short term fuel trims help with this, but that is a whole other explanation.

#2. The ECU limits how much the fuel trims can adjust fuel. Typically this is a very low value. Why? Because the fuel trims are there to adjust for engine wear, some elevation change, etc, NOT for modifications from stock. Imagine if you had an O2 sensor fail or something like a huge air leak happen in your exhaust, and fuel trims were not restricted to how much they could adjust. They would continue to grow lean or rich until you blew your engine. Therefore, they are restricted. This means that they may not be able to compensate for a larger change that occurs with aftermarket modifications. They were never designed for that.

When you are tuning, you would go make the fuel cell value 77, which would then drop the fuel trim to zero. Why would you do this? Let's say they limit the fuel trim to 10. If it is sitting at 7 due to the exhaust modification, it can then only increase fuel another 3 as the engine wears or to adapt to the environment. Ideally, you want the full range of learning available, so you adjust the fuel table appropriately for the modification to the bike, get the fuel trim to 0 so the ECU has full learning available to it again.

#3. All of this is fine and good for low rpm, low load (closed loop) because closed loop has a learning function (but again, unlikely to be adequate). In open loop, there is no feedback from the O2 sensors. This means there is no learning function. It is straight fuelling as dictated by the fuelling table. Therefore the learning defined above does nothing for you at WOT (wide open throttle). Guess what? Those are the conditions where you are most likely to get detonation and do engine damage if the AFR is too far out. The only way to adjust fuelling for WOT conditions is with a tune. (again, this is not the whole story as some bikes have widebands, and run closed loop under all conditions, but this is not the norm and a person could write a novel on all exceptions to general statements).

Therefore in my opinion the video is very misleading and demonstrates a lack of understanding of what the person is actually talking about. It is more "some tech just told me".

Interesting. Give it a try and see.

I wonder if the 2020 is Euro 5 compliant. If so, it requires the O2 sensors to run closed loop full time. Which, if I understand correctly, the ECU should correct itself for any setup. It may not be correct it to the 13:1 ratio, but may keep it in the range specified by Ducati.

Google answered

I like those gains on the Dyno Chart!!!! Good luck my friend.

DucatiKev said:

Spoke with Zard directly:
“yes, our slip-on is projected and tested to use original tune, so you don't need to remap”

Here’s a link to their Dyno sheet on factory tune with their slipon installed...

https://shop.officineitalianezard.it/contents/imgs/cms/ZARD_V4_SLIPON_POWERCURVE.pdf

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stan1 said:

I like those gains on the Dyno Chart!!!! Good luck my friend.

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Agreed, for a 3rd of the cost and not needing a tune, it is within a couple HP of the full Akra... kinda unbelievable. I'll be interested to see true dyno numbers at the wheel, both before and after the Zard is installed

A chart from ZARD amounts to a hill of beans, there is no way a ZARD slip on with no mapping adjustments gets you in the ballpark of a Akra which has been engineered with Ducati Corse all through the development of the bike. I agree Akra is an insane cost. But everyone always chases a cheaper exhaust solution in which case 80% look like bolt on trash (highly subjective I know) and then spend time and money to get it to work right... ?