Who's running Raze Wingman ECU and Nitrous Ninja Backup kits

jumpingjack

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Thought I would start a new thread to talk about the Raze Wingman and Nitrous kits.
Raze has spent lots of time developing these kits and now that they have sold a lot of kits this year real world testing is in full swing. Unfortunately just like every other new product the true results don't show up until full production and public testing happens. So far it sounds like lots of mixed reviews on there perforance and lots of troubleshooting going on to try to resolve issues.
The single biggest issue showing up so far seems to be with the lack of ethanol in BC fuel. These kits were calibrated with minimum 8% ethanol and so far I have not had any luck finding ethanol in the premium fuels in Revelstoke. When running non ethanol fuel the bike doesn't run properly. It tends to stall easily and has pops and misses. Some have reported less performance than stock ecu's. Chris and the guys at Raze are working on this issue but every bike model and manufacture seems to be showing different symptoms and performance which making it difficult to come up with a proper solution.
I am interested in hearing what others are having for performance and running issues or results.
 
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Yamaha 450fx. Runs good on any type of fuel. I've done a lot of tuning on everything from cars, big bore quads to turbo dune quads. I have never seen 10% ethanol content or premium vs regular affect the tune enough to be noticeable on a stock bike. Not sure I buy that explanation.

I AM having two issues:
1. raze wiring modifications on the bike result in the factory fan not working. I am not happy about this as I like not having to worry about overheating.

2. Nitrous not working. Armed or disarmed (instructions don't even tell you what switch position is armed) I can't tell a difference in power. Solenoid is plug and play wiring so either it is a faulty solenoid, faulty arm switch, plugged like or jet, or the ecu is not commanding it. Not easy to trouble shoot some of it due to it only arming at greater than 4000ft. I don't want to do trouble shooting in the mountains. Again not happy about this.

All of this is after I worked with Chris to identify the install instructions were wrong.

To summarize: ecu works great. I'm returning the nitrous if I can't get it to work.
 

jumpingjack

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Season number 2 with the raze setup. No top end so hopefully it will perform as expected. Is anyone else in Canada having good performance with the raze ninja setup??
 
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Here is my update. Last ride of the season they got my nitrous working. It was a blown output on the ecu which resulted from some issue in the wiring harness. They put a new ecu in and the output blew again. A new ecu and new harness fixed the problem.

Everything now works well with the kit. The ecu always ran well for me. No issues there. I would say no extra noticeable power from the ecu but it runs perfect at all elevations and no worry about fuel in the oil. Is that worth the cost of the ecu? Not if there are cheaper alternatives out there in my opinion.

As for the nitrous, now that it is working I was disappointed with it. It is a very small shot. Noticeable, but barely. It should be more in your face and not "I think I can feel the difference". If I had to guess, it is like a 10hp increase. I say this because I had a 20 shot of nitrous on my last bike and it was way more of a noticeable hit than this. I'm my last bike, when I was climbing and hit the nitrous, instantly the bike went from slowing down running out of power to speeding up and sometimes even into a wheelie. With this kit, you can tell something is happening but it is no where near as noticeable. Just a slight increase in acceleration. So all in all, for $2k you get a good running bike and probably a 10hp increase from the nitrous. Not really worth the high dollars in my opinion.

If they were to double the shot of nitrous (increase the jet size and retune) this kit would be well worth it to me and I would be singing its praises.

There are two things that I think have happened. They originally advertised the kit as having a larger fuel injector. When they actually shipped, the price didnt change but they removed the larger injector and just use the stock injector. The answer I got is that the larger injector wasnt required and they were having issues with the larger injector (idle and starting). The issue of using the stock injector is that it drastically limits how much nitrous you can inject. My guess is the stock injector cant flow more than 10 to 15hp extra fuel.

The other issue is I think they went with a small shot of nitrous as their setup is such that you ride around with the nitrous armed and it injects it when you need the power (crank not accelerating fast enough or losing speed). In order to have the nitrous last any decent length of time in this scenario you have to have a pretty small shot. I would much rather have a larger shot and only arm it when I have a big climb or think i need the power.

It is funny. Despite all of the kits they sold, I see very few comments on the kits.
 
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Oh and I had to spend yet another $200 to install a trail tech fan kit to get a working fan. I had to remove the yamaha fan kit because it is controlled by the ecu and does not work with the raze ecu.
 

jumpingjack

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What bike did you have this on? Are you in Canada or US?
Thanks for the info. I wish more would reply because you are correct. They have sold a lot of kits but I'm seeing very little feedback on how they are working. So far they are a disappointment but I'm still hoping they are working to improve the programming.
 

jasonaa

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450 xcf with wingman, had to update to a second , new flash, runs fantastic ....ordered second kit for my second bike. Ride in BC
 

etecheaven

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im going to keep an eye on this thread and future thoughts. im going to ride stock this year but will be looking for a power increase next year. Hopefully its gets sorted out.
 

jumpingjack

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450 xcf with wingman, had to update to a second , new flash, runs fantastic ....ordered second kit for my second bike. Ride in BC

What did you get for un update? Is it the rec fuel program they have? When did you get the update that works?
I'm on a 2014 ktm xcf 450 too
 

jasonaa

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I had one of the first released, I sent it back and Chris ( Raze) did an update beginning of last year and bike could hold a extra gear with increased power it had. I will see if a description of what flash is available
 

jumpingjack

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Here is my update. Last ride of the season they got my nitrous working. It was a blown output on the ecu which resulted from some issue in the wiring harness. They put a new ecu in and the output blew again. A new ecu and new harness fixed the problem.

Everything now works well with the kit. The ecu always ran well for me. No issues there. I would say no extra noticeable power from the ecu but it runs perfect at all elevations and no worry about fuel in the oil. Is that worth the cost of the ecu? Not if there are cheaper alternatives out there in my opinion.

As for the nitrous, now that it is working I was disappointed with it. It is a very small shot. Noticeable, but barely. It should be more in your face and not "I think I can feel the difference". If I had to guess, it is like a 10hp increase. I say this because I had a 20 shot of nitrous on my last bike and it was way more of a noticeable hit than this. I'm my last bike, when I was climbing and hit the nitrous, instantly the bike went from slowing down running out of power to speeding up and sometimes even into a wheelie. With this kit, you can tell something is happening but it is no where near as noticeable. Just a slight increase in acceleration. So all in all, for $2k you get a good running bike and probably a 10hp increase from the nitrous. Not really worth the high dollars in my opinion.

If they were to double the shot of nitrous (increase the jet size and retune) this kit would be well worth it to me and I would be singing its praises.

There are two things that I think have happened. They originally advertised the kit as having a larger fuel injector. When they actually shipped, the price didnt change but they removed the larger injector and just use the stock injector. The answer I got is that the larger injector wasnt required and they were having issues with the larger injector (idle and starting). The issue of using the stock injector is that it drastically limits how much nitrous you can inject. My guess is the stock injector cant flow more than 10 to 15hp extra fuel.

The other issue is I think they went with a small shot of nitrous as their setup is such that you ride around with the nitrous armed and it injects it when you need the power (crank not accelerating fast enough or losing speed). In order to have the nitrous last any decent length of time in this scenario you have to have a pretty small shot. I would much rather have a larger shot and only arm it when I have a big climb or think i need the power.

It is funny. Despite all of the kits they sold, I see very few comments on the kits.

When I first got my kit it was very noticeable when the nos was working. Two other kits in our group didn't seem to notice any added performance. We worked through Raze and they did some reprogramming and still no real improvement.
Since than some of the things we have learned is that you need to test your nitrous spray if you are not seeing the performance when running with the nos armed as you may not accurately be getting much if any nos because of a plugged solenoid valve port or jet.
One of the kits had a small piece of plastic stuck in the solenoid valve not allowing it to operate properly. In that case the valve was stuck partly open and nos could be heard hissing when the bottle was opened and the bike wasn't running. Was easy to pull apart and clean.
Another kit had a small piece of plastic get caught in the nitrous jet restricting the flow of nitrous.
According to Raze these small pieces of plastic are from the manufacturing process and unfortunately didn't get cleaned out prior to shipping.The small ports in the valve and jet are small enough that the small plastic pieces can't get through.
Long story short is I believe a lot of the performance issues are related to nitrous not getting into the motor as designed. When your system is armed for nitrous the ecu adds fuel when nitrous is called to spray but if the nitrous doesn't get to the motor the fuel mixture will be too rich.
To test your nitrous spray system you can use a 9 volt battery to cycle the solenoid valve. Simply removed intake from the throttle body with the nitrous line still connected. I unplugged the small connector going to the nitrous solenoid valve. Take some small 22ga wire (speaker wire) and cut 1 end flush. Take the other end of the wire and strip 1/4 of the shielding back. Place one wire ends on each of the battery terminals and tape with electrical tape to hold them in place.
Now with the nitrous bottle turned on you should not hear or see any nitrous coming out of the jet in the intake tube. If you do than the solenoid valve is not seated properly which means you likely have something stuck in it. Remove the valve and disassemble it to clean.
If no nitrous is seen or heard use the wires from the 9v battery and push them into the plug of the solenoid valve to open the valve. Be careful the 2 wires do not touch each other. Having the wire ends cut flush prevents this. The power from the 9v battery should open the solenoid and you should get a good shot of nitrous coming out of the jet. If you don't you likely have a plugged or partial plugged nozzle jet. This is also a good time to ensure your jet is aligned properly and spraying directly into the throttle body.
Hopefully this helps and makes sense.
 
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I'm pretty sure I'm getting the power I am supposed to get, it is just not what I expected.

Raze programmed in a nitrous test for me. If my bike is off, in 2nd gear, with the clutch pulled in, if I snap the throttle wide open it injects nitrous. I can always test and see the flow I am getting through the nozzle without the bike running any time I want. It's a great feature.
 

jumpingjack

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I'm pretty sure I'm getting the power I am supposed to get, it is just not what I expected.

Raze programmed in a nitrous test for me. If my bike is off, in 2nd gear, with the clutch pulled in, if I snap the throttle wide open it injects nitrous. I can always test and see the flow I am getting through the nozzle without the bike running any time I want. It's a great feature.

Ya that's a great feature. Too back Raze didn't make that a standard feature on all ninja kits. I think it would have saved them lots of complaints and frustration for buyers.
I will have to get them to add that option on my ecu next time I get in contact with them.
 

jumpingjack

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I know there is lots of negative posts on the Raze ecu and Ninja backup kits but I can tell you that they do work. I was like others and was disappointed at first but now I couldn't be happier.
The bike starts great, runs strong and never flames out. The nitrous system is awesome for adding that extra power when you need it. You can definitely notice the power when it comes on. If you can't notice a difference you have something wrong and based on what I have seen personal you likely are not getting the nitrous volume you think you are. Test your system manually to confirm.
 
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After spending more time on mine, I am more impressed with the kit. It integrates so well, just turn it on and ride. I can pull one full extra gear and it makes second gear rev instantly which helps in some situations as well. Its noticeable once you get used to riding with it and then turn it off. It does what I wanted it to do. It makes the wide ratio transmission on my 450fx a non issue, making the fx as good or better than a stock 450 F on the snow, and I get to enjoy the wide ratio as a great trail bike in the dirt. Cheaper than having two separate bikes.
 

moonbeam1719

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Have a look at your bottle pressure on the hill in the cold, that's the reason your not getting what's expected. Your shot volume decreases as bottle pressure decreases. Some days you'll be down to 250psi and the ecu is calibrated for a 1000psi shot. Find a way to warm up the bottle and your golden!
 

NoBrakes!

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Would the ECU smarten up a WR450 to YZF power? Or a KTM road legal to SX?
 

jumpingjack

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After going out on my last trip I noticed that the nos didn't seem to be coming on the second day. When I got home I removed the nozzle jet and sure enough the nozzle was plugged with something again. Not a big deal and easy to get at. Just remove the nozzle and use a small pin to clean the plug out of the hole. This nozzle is very small seems to get plugged easy. This is the second time this has happened. Not sure if it is a small piece from the manufacturing process of the hoses or if it is impurities in the nitrous itself.
After I clean the nozzle I put everything back together and turn the nitrous on. I use a 12v battery and a small piece of wire and apply power to the leads going to the solenoid valve to trigger it and ensure noxious is spraying into the intake.
I will be doing this test every time I fill a new bottle. Hopefully the nozzle doesn't continue to get plugged.
Anyone else running into this issue?
 
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