Brammo Owners Forum

Some have wondered where to get 12 volt power from the Bike.  In the case of the Victory Empulse (as I had mentioned before) there is a "Hella" plug located under the "tank" cover.  It is more commonly referred to as a Powerlet receptacle and is used extensively on BMW motorcycles.  It's location is inconvenient to get to and almost impossible to use.  The receptacle has a spring loaded cover on it to keep out dirt when not in use.  The problem is the cover cannot be opened with the tank cover in place.  In addition the Powerlet plug makes the fit problem even worse.  If you are going to use this plug for power, you need to remove the receptacle from it's mounting, remove the spring loaded cover, and then replace the receptacle.  You can then use a 90 degree angle Powerlet plug to make your connection.  You can buy the plug on the internet in various places as just a plug or with some sort of wiring attached.  I used the plug with an 18" wire terminating with a SAE two pole connector.  I let it hang out in the slot where the clutch cable goes under the frame on the left side.

The circuit is protected by a 10 amp fuse located in the fuse box.  The power supply for 12 volts is a DC-DC converter located in front of the rear tire just above the transmission.  It is made by Sevcon (the same people that make the motor controller).  It is rated at 300 watts, 12 VDC and 25 amps.  The bike itself uses about 1/2 of the converter output for running lighting and the cooling water pump.  If you need more than the approx. 10 amps remaining, Sevcon makes a 500 watt model of the converter that is a bolt in plug and play fit that will give you a lot more power--over 40 amps.  They also build the converter in 12, 13.5 and 14 volt output.  I would have thought Brammo would have provided the Empulse with the 13.5 volt converter as that replicates the normal battery voltage of motor vehicles when the alternator is operating.  That little 1.5 volts is really noticeable with incandescent lights like the headlight.  If I needed the power it would be the 500 watt 13.5 volt unit.  BTW--if you could find a used converter, they can be run in parallel for additional power.

Just fooling around with the bike and found a couple of things.

Under the top cover on the left side of the bike there is a "Hella plug".  It is wired for 12 volts and looks liked it is fused for 10 amps.  If you don't what it is, BMW and some others use them for tapping power in their vehicles instead of a cigarette lighter style plug.  You can buy the mating  connector at various places on the internet.  Why the plug is located where it is, why it exists and why there is no mention of it in the owners manual beats me.

I Also found a connector that looks like it could be "jumped" with a piece of wire.  It's marked "Low Battery Override" and goes to the BMS controller.  No mention of what it is for but if you completely kill your battery I think jumping this connector would give you power long enough to wake up the electronics when connected to a charging source so the bike can begin to charge.  Just a guess so try it at your own risk. 

One other question---under the clutch lever is a switch.  Two wires lead out of the switch and disappear behind the headlight.  Problem is (on my bike) the wires aren't connected to anything.  There are just two male bullet connectors and that's it.  According to my service manual there should be two orange wires connected to the bullet connectors.  One goes to chassis ground and the other to a digital input #6 in the motor controller.  Must have a purpose or possibly Victory eliminated the function and just left the switch.  If it was connected, the switch would ground digital input #6---possibly to limit RPM, torque or such with the clutch pulled in.  On my bike, the wire just came out from behind the headlight with no effort.  If anyone out there wants to look at their Victory and see where that wire goes (if anywhere) I would like to know---thanks.

I found a couple of other screens on the display you can access during charging by holding down the "mode" and "trip" button together.

The first screen shows 3 lines of information along with the normal battery %, time, odometer, etc.  The first line is the highest and lowest cell voltage readout along with which cell pair number it is in the pack.  The second line reads out the pack voltage, charging current and state of charge in %.  The third line marked "Bal" followed by 14 dots shows the operation of the balancers.  If the battery is balanced just the dots are shown.  If the battery is actively balancing there will be a letter "A" shown.  When I first got the bike, there were a lot of "A"'s turned on during the first full charge, now not so many.

If you hold the trip button in for a few seconds, you will toggle to a second screen.  The first line of this screen reads the battery voltage and current just like in the prior screen.  The next line has three numbers proceeded by Tp, Ts, and Js.  These numbers change during the charging session but I have know idea what they mean.  The final line reads Err: and then (in my case) 00 00 00 followed by S:2.  Again know idea but could be a error log of some sort.  Pushing the trip button will toggle you back to the first screen so there are only two total.

Kind of neat to find this sort of stuff.  Fun to look at but not useful for most people but good to know if you want a little more detail about your battery health.  BTW--the amount of voltage change between the highest and lowest cell can really affect the range of the bike.  Balancing only occurs during the final segment of the charge cycle when the charge current is low.  That's why it is important to fully charge the bike once in a while so the balancers can do their job.

Well, I've owned an Empluse TT for a Month and a half but never saw it until today.  I finally had a friend bring it down from the dealer in Michigan.  I'm pretty pleased with it but only have had time to put 10 miles on today.  While I was waiting for the bike to arrive, I loaded up on parts for it.  I had a Competition Werkes fender eliminator kit on the shelf and installed it this afternoon.  Real easy, no harnesses to cut.  I just needed to buy four bullet connectors at the auto parts store to terminate the ends of the turn signals that were provided in the kit.  I also replaced the license plate lamp with LED while the tail light was sitting there.  I think its a real improvement over the original bracket.  I also bought the upgraded Marzocchi on E-bay so they are going on along with frame sliders and the short Victory windshield.  I think I hit the jackpot today on E-bay as I scored a complete, new in the box Brammo carbon fiber kit which includes the front and rear fenders, upper cover, headlight housing and tail light cover (which is useless with the relocated tail light.  Total price was $200 plus $40 shipping! 

Two concerns.  First, if you own one of these you might want to check the cooling hose that runs from the motor up to the radiator on the left side of the bike.  You can see it coming out of the motor.  Just follow it toward the front and look where it passes behind the metal shield that forms the radiator and motor controller support.  On my bike, a sharp edge on the shield had already started to cut into the hose.  I took the lower cowl off, removed the shield, blended the sharp edge with a Dremel tool and touched up the paint.  When I put the fender eliminator kit on, there was a piece of split wire loom that wasn't needed any longer and the diameter and length was just right to put over the hose to protect it from further abrasion.  It's worth a look.

The other concern is the transmission.  I know there is a lot of backlash---but I was surprised at just how much there is along with noise from the transmission.  I checked the oil level and the oil that came out of the level plug was almost black.  I am going to change it tomorrow and keep an eye on it.  It looks like clutch material ( I didn't see any shiny bits).  The bike had about 15 miles on it when I got it so I am sure someone "demo" rode it--so much for the 600 mile break-in.

Other a couple of loose fasteners and the above two items, the bike is going to be fun to fool around with.  BTW--I would also be interested to know how many of these were made by Polaris.  Vin #'s would shed some light on it.  My bike was built in September, 2015 and the last three numbers on the VIN are 094.  The other bike the dealer had was in the 70's so maybe some other owners could chime in and start to fill in some blanks.