When I arrived at "Road and Track Dyno", Chris greeted me with a cheery hello Molly, fancy a cuppa?". He made a cup of Earl Grey with a touch of sugar, " you can spit it out if you like" he said. Actually it was quite delicious. Chris put the bike on the dyno and started to tie huge straps to it to hold it in place. I couldn't believe how much preparation work he did before he fired the bike up. The first few runs got the base line figures sorted out and, as Chris expected, it was running lean. He then set about producing a new map and fitting a TRE (timing retard eliminator). I toddled off for a cup of coffee. I had told Chris that I would love to get the mid range beefed up a bit since the ultimate HP was really academic. When I got back from coffee Chris had already completed the mods and was into producing a new map. To recollect what I've done to the bike: Pair of Micron Race cans Power Commander III USB K+N Air Filter. Chris came out with a look of disbelief on his face, "It's ridiculous" he said, "all that power from a road bike" he continued "it would be winning GPs not too long ago." "It's ridiculous". He told me that he had found useful gains throughout the rev range and some really decent torque and HP increases especially around 7,500 to 9,000 rpm. Almost four hours later the peak power is up to nearly 165bhp from 160bhp at the back wheel and torque up by 3ft-lbs at 81 ft-lbs. See the graph: [URL]http://sportsbike.org/10r/dyno_run.jpg[/URL] So, did it make any difference to the bike? The figures on the graph don't get close to telling the full story; it felt like a different bike. No doubt the TRE helped a lot in the lower gears because it's now quite a handful and want to stick it's front wheel skywards a lot more than it did before. The power delivery is very smooth and controlled whereas before it was a little fluffy in the lower rev range. Chris spent a lot of time on ironing out the lower fuelling and it certainly paid off. He told me I could expect further gains as the engine loosens up. It's only done 1,300 miles, so I might be back later in the year and look at some airbox mods. It's not so much how much power you have but it's the way it's delivered that's important. And does it deliver.
