ECU from Guhls/Dyno ready

[mec_imp]

I haven't been on the forum in quite a while. I didn't take out my bike from storage last year, but I'm starting to get the itch again. I thought I'd check in on the forum, and came across this thread.

A couple of years ago, my buddy and I brought my 2014 CB1100 EX to Don Guhl's place. The intention was to have it tuned and dyno'd. Just before that visit, I installed the TSR air funnel and inlet kits found on Samurider.com. To that, I added a K&N air filter. I'm told the air funnel kit is no longer available, so I'm glad that I was able to get one. The year before I installed Moriwaki exhaust, which provided a small but noticeable improvement in performance. My hope was the two mods along with proper tuning would yield a significant improvement.

The day I visited Guhl's, the electronics on his motorcycle dyno were not working due to a lightning strike the night before. Don spent quite a bit of time trying to resurrect it, without success. Thankfully, he was able to perform the tuning process on my bike by using the oxygen sensor and system on his midget car dyno, which survived the lightning.

He started with the CB1100 tune he had already developed, which I understand is available for purchase by sending in your ECU. Don told me not to expect the mods I made to have much, if any effect on performance, but after running the bike, he ended up making some significant changes to his normal tune. He also removed the speed limiter and increased the rev limiter to 9,500 RPM. Because his motorcycle dyno was fried from a lightning strike, fine-tuning with empirical data could not be done, and he couldn't offer any test results.

I took the bike for a test ride around his shop, but there was a lot of traffic, and I couldn't really notice much of a performance difference at the time. I never got past 3rd gear, but I did get a bit of a hint when high revving in 2nd. When I got home, things became much more apparent.

I can't really offer hard observations about the torque curve and how much more power the bike has under normal riding, but I believe it to be peppier. What I can say, is that when I go WOT, the power is significantly greater in the high RPMs now. The power used to flatten starting around 7,500 RPMs. Now it pulls hard almost all the way up to the new red line, which is 9,500 RPMs. Now that the speed limiter is removed, the bike will exceed 112.5 mph. I've taken it up to 130 mph a few times, which is easily achievable in 4th gear.

The process of buying and installing the mods, along with the trip to visit Don was not cheap, and most folks might say not worth it, particularly since I was unable to get any dyno results, but I'm very pleased and have no regrets.