Euro 5 shuts down engine tuners

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Emission standards are getting tighter by the year, and motorcycle manufacturers are struggling more than the car industry to meet even leaner mixture requirements. Modern motorcycle engines have a very low rotating mass (flywheel weight), so making a bike easy, pleasant, and safe to ride at low speeds has become a major challenge for bike manufacturers.

There are different names for emission standards around the world, but today they are virtually the same, and most motorcycle manufacturers are now producing “world models”, i.e. the same setup for all markets. Just 5 or 6 years ago, you could still see “California models”, “Switzerland models”, “Australia models” etc. with a different software/hardware setup than other bikes, but the vast majority of all bikes today are “World models”.

The European EURO regulation is one of the leading emission standards, and the new EURO5 standard that is enforced from 2021 includes a demand for all sensors on the bike to be monitored. This is done partly to ensure that the fuel injection is in working order, but also to prevent the you from modifying your bike.

This means an end to all tuning devices that are modifying or disabling the Lambda sensor signal (e.g. Power Commander and the primitive Lambda sensor eliminators), because most fuel injection tuning products are disabling or modifying the Lambda sensor signal.

It was expected that IAT Sensor modifiers would slip under the radar, because they do not interfere with the operation of the Lambda sensor, but is forcing the ECU to make the air/fuel ratio slightly richer by changing the air temperature sensor signal. 

Unfortunately, the assumption was wrong, because from 2021, all sensors including the air temperature sensor signal are being monitored by the motorcycle ECU, so any device modifying new 2021 and future bike models will activate a warning light or/and send the engine to limp mode.

If you install any of these devices on a 2021 motorcycle model, you would see a permanent warning flashing in the dashboard, and some models will go into “limp” mode with restricted power until the device is removed and sensor restored.

Models before 2021 will remain unaffected.
 
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