Just saw this thread and certainly want to comment, perhaps clarify some things. Sorry to anyone who has been bitten by the range remaining estimator although anything less than 10 miles, or even 15 miles, as per the instructions, is very risky anyway. That said, the range remaining indicator (estimator, not an exact measurement) is far more accurate than running out of fuel while showing 25 miles remaining.... unless the bike is being or very recently been used in stop- and- go traffic (full stops with a lot of accelerating and shifting).
The range function works best when an entire tank of fuel is used at steady speeds and loads, and especially highway speeds; this is exactly why I conjured it up in the first place- riding long distances on the highway and wondering if I had 15 or 45 miles of fuel left- that makes a BIG difference in Wyomigtannadaho at 2:00 AM as there are a LOT of miles between fuel stations.
The range indicator basically takes what it has calculated is left in the tank for fuel and uses the instantaneous fuel consumption (the fuel economy reading in Miles Per Gallon or metric equivalent) to calculate the range left. That works well on the highway at steady speeds but not so well in stop- and- go riding. For example: let's say there is 1/2 gallon of fuel left in the tank. From a stop, you accelerate in first gear: the range calculator sees that you are currently getting 10 miles per gallon (remember, in first gear and accelerating: the mileage would be awful) and shows a range remaining of 5 miles. Then you close the throttle and pull in the clutch to shift to second and at that exact moment, the fuel consumption estimator would hit the upper 'hard limit' of 70 MPH (hey, closed throttle and doing, say, 15 MPH so the fuel economy would be phenomenal) and the range indicator would show 35 miles remaining (1/2 gallon at 70 miles to the gallon). Which reading should you believe..... neither one, they are both wrong and by a pretty large amount. The way to use the range remaining indicator under these circumstances is to do two things: 1) bring the bike up to a steady speed in the gear you would use at that speed and let the bike stabilize, neither accelerating or decelerating (and not going uphill (more load) or downhill (less load). Then the range remaining reading should stay pretty stable but always glance down at least three times to make sure it IS stable and not bouncing around. Once you have done that 2) do not trust the range remaining indicator below about 10 or better yet, 15 miles given the stop- and- go nature of the riding.
I am not aware of the circumstances that caused the bike to run out of fuel with 25 miles remaining but I would think it could be attributed to a few things: the first is glancing at an unstable set of readings (stop- and- go riding) at a particularly high (and very wrong) estimation, or radically changing the way the bike was ridden, especially toward the end of the tank of fuel; for example, riding for 250 miles on the highway and then a lot of stop- and- go riding to bias the calculation of the range remaining.
Kawasaki choose an extremely conservative way to give the rider tools for managing mileage: at approx. 50 miles remaining, they flash a pretty impressive warning, withhold the range remaining indicator (and instead threaten the rider with a dire warning) and basically leave the rider on his / her own. By overriding that warning and restoring the range remaining reading (remember, and estimate always), the low fuel warning eliminator gives the rider of a C-14 much better information and control, at least IMO, but at the same times, transfers some responsibility onto the rider to manage his / her own fuel.
And just to state some facts, my hardware takes no part in the computation or display of range remaining; that is all up to Kawasaki's ECU. My device merely interrupts the warning itself; it is beyond my humble abilities to tinker with the inner workins' of the ECU and certainly not with a plug 'n play piece of hardware; to tinker with the actual calculations, I would have to alter the code in the dash display computer which, of course, I do not have access to when I sell a Low fuel warning eliminator.
As always, I would be happy to discuss this further with anyone (or everyone), either publicly on this forum or privately via e-mail, whichever way a customer or potential customer chooses (gee, I guess that would be the whole world, right?......
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Brian
I really like the product... But I ran out of gas with 25 miles still showing. That doesn't change the fact that I still really like the product.
I ran out with 8 miles showing in range. But I discussed this with Brian and we think the problem was that I shut the bike off with less gas than could be registered on the sensor. Then when I start it up again, now it really doesn't have a clue how much gas is left. Therefor the theory is that if you ride it continuously down as it approaches zero it will be more accurate than riding it until very low and shut off. I don't know if Brian was ever able to verify that.