BEEJ SUZUKI GSX-R1000R
THIS MONTH I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN… “Stroking the Rotobox wheels...”
Let’s kick things off with a bit more on the ECU recall for the Gixer. I’m still awaiting my turn, but since the last issue quite a few folk have contacted me. All say they were told, by reputable sources apparently, that it’s more than a new rev-limit in neutral, and that it does indeed somehow alter the shifter-blipper.
We’ve had this kind of thing before, once with a motorcycle with a horrific throttle response. The manufacturer in question released an update that cured the issue, which by proxy made the chassis behave better, win-win, right? Not quite. Allegedly dealers were telling owners if they applied the update their bike would lose power. But it didn’t (we dyno’d it to check), it was just now the throttle response was smooth, rather than emulating a half broken twostroke! But the story spread and soon it was ‘gospel’, as tends to happen. So, I’ll speak with them again and let’s see.
Meanwhile, I’ve been getting the bike ready for its first track day of the year, mostly to see how the Bridgestone T31s behave and blow off a few winter cobwebs. Their predecessors (T30s) were decent enough, but at the end of the day they remain sports-touring hoops so I won’t be getting too giddy. Just the usual maintenance stuff really, allied to all the bloody cleaning because of the continually shite weather. The other day we ended up about 3ft deep in muddy water slopping with cow-crap, after coming around a blind corner and finding a flooded road. The Gixer powered on through, it just meant yet another sodding cleaning session.
I’m also livid as some little scrotes were sat on my bike while in a shop. They gave it toes when I came out, but had somehow nadged a small scratch on the tank. I’m hoping it will buff out; the only upside (I suppose) is they weren’t stealing it, just being typical kids and were I to say I’d never sat on a bike that wasn’t mine when I was very young (and stupid), I’d be lying.
Good news this month is the arrival of the Rotobox carbon-fibre wheels from Velox Racing. I’ve used BSTs for so long that it’s about time I tried something different. They’re made using resin-transfer moulding, rather than the vacuum-bag autoclave method, and weigh 2.5kg and 4.11kg front and back, respectively. Give me another issue or so before we try them out though.
We did try and get the Rapid Bike fuelling unit mapped at JHS, doing a base run on the new Dynojet software (WinPep8) after zero-mapping it, and the bike made just over 181bhp in hotter conditions than when we hit 184bhp with the Yoshi can. We then discovered that there were already two pre-installed maps in the RB unit, one of which had been running since we fitted it. This does explain why I thought it felt a little off, or different at any rate.
But Wills quickly discovered a problem – the throttle-position reading was backwards on the RB software application! As in, fully open it read 0%, and fully closed read 100%, hmm... Both Will and James then spent a great deal of time trying to figure out why, reinstalling software, updating things, then took the entire RB unit off and refitted it, then tested all the voltage readings from all the connections (because it's a voltage issue).
They could find nothing wrong with the bike, or the RB fitment, or voltages, so we’re guessing a glitch of some sort is responsible, either in the software or the RB unit itself. With mass-produced items, this can happen, as it can with software, so the UK distributors have gotten in touch with RB’s Italian HQ to see if this has happened before. When I know, you’ll know.