Flashed CB1100 Review

[flynrider]

Bike #12

The dyno operator wondered the same thing. I had forgotten to tell him about the rear wheel top speed limit at around 112 mph. If he had done the WOT run in 5th gear, the cutoff would have happened at a lower RPM, which makes me wonder just now if 3rd gear is actually a better choice for doing the WOT run on a stock CB1100. I mean "better" in that the bike will rev higher and show higher peak HP. Anecdotal evidence suggests RPM limit is not reached in 3rd gear before the speed limiter kicks in. Which would further suggest that RPM limits are redundant in all except 1st and 2nd gears, but that's just dumb speculation.

Speed and RPM limits have been debated at length ever since the CB1100 was released in the US. The posts make for interesting reading if you care to drill down on it.

Third gear is the best choice for a dyno run on a speed limited CB11. Others have posted their charts and it is possible to hit redline in 3rd just before hitting the speed limiter. If your run had been done in 3rd, I'd expect that you would have seen a few more HP, as the peak HP on runs in 3rd gear has been shown to be around 7300-7400 rpm. You didn't quite get there.

From a performance point of view you should make dyno runs in the gear that comes closest to a 1 : 1 ratio. That minimizes gear reduction losses in the transmission. On the CB11, that would be 5th gear. Unfortunately, with the limiter in place, we have to be content with the highest gear that will allow a full run to redline.

I agree that the rev limiter is pretty much only useful in 1st and 2nd gear. In 3rd, you'll be reaching the rev limit and the speed limit at about the same time.