Introducing Motorcycle.com's 2022 Yamaha MT-10 SP Semi Long Term Bike

If the OEM's army of best and brightest engineers can't optimize the darned thing, why should I believe some guy tinkering in his garage can?

Amen

And speaking of calling out folk, whatever happened to Spaceman Spiff in Vegas?

Experience tells me otherwise . Just like suspension, tires, and many other things . Optimised for very broad parameters both legal and environmental.
Either way ; I am sure Troy will give us an honest appraisal ..
Let these cards fall where they may.

If the OEM's army of best and brightest engineers can't optimize the darned thing, why should I believe some guy tinkering in his garage can? I know people swear by aftermarket tuning, but it just doesn't make sense.

Oof. I think you might be on to a whole separate story all its own, but the I'm not going to type that out in the comments section. The short version is that...you're kinda right and you're kinda wrong.

Yes, the OEMs build good bikes. But they're also beholden to global regulations (and even regional). Sometimes they're even beholden to a kind of fuel (I remember visiting a major European OEM's factory where they were tuning their engines specifically for the crummy fuel they have in Brazil.) What's the easiest way to make one bike compliant in many different places? Tweak the ECU.

Pretty much this. Jumping ahead – I've already done the ECU flash and the difference is very much noticeable.

Theoretically you're right and I agree. Yet my 2017 FZ 09 throttle response is much better after ECU flash. Still not perfect but way better than stock.

Thanks, Trizzle. The regional effect is important. Even if the factory can optimize a bike for one region, it may not be able to optimize it for all regions. I would expect the region with the biggest number of consumers to get the optimized bike. Or maybe the region with the most influential press corps! :-)

It's not about optimization. It's about pandering to insane environmental regulations that restrict motorcycles more than some companies.

this was the experience i had last summer: my 2018 Z900 had annoyingly jerky on-off throttle response, due to Kawasaki having the injectors go full off when throttled down in order to help meet requirements, (supposedly). I drove my ECU down from Canada to Nate at 2WheelDynoWorks in Seattle. He was both knowledgeable and helpful. (Plus, he owns a fuel-modded 890 Duke which was handy for me since i have the same bike.) After the flash the throttle action is smoothed and the bike has more power thru the midrange. No difference up top is detectable, at least by me. All of this was done without alterations to the cat or exhaust.

Yep. Nate really is a wizard. From what I understand, the 890 will be a tougher problem. Nate told me KTM uses some kind of closed loop system that can't be modified unless you have the specific software from KTM. The next best thing is a Power Commander. My Kramer is the same way. The PCV is the best solution for now.

Closed loop?

Think he could flash my RZ? There's often an annoying jerk on the throttle.

I remember visiting a major European OEM's factory where they were tuning their engines specifically for the crummy fuel they have in Brazil.

So, what I'm reading is that they wrote code to make the bike run well, then wrote code for Brazil. So that's two sets of software they have, with probably very little change (ignition advance). Software is cheap as chips and before a bike even starts on the line, they know where it is going so how hard is it to inject region/country/market specific code? The RZ500 wasn't even sold in america and you wouldn't believe the variations in the bike between Japan, UK, Canada, Africa, and South America. And that was different chassis and engine components!

These guys write to match emissions, noise, and mileage requirements (remember the California RZ350 with cats?). I'm not too arsed about mileage, but defeating emissions and noise compliance is pointless and really gets up my nose.

The regional effect is important if you bought a bike built for (say) Brazil and you plan on riding it here. Otherwise, it's a moot point.. a US bike is sold in a state of tune that is US compliant. I am open to hearing from anyone that can come up with a ECU flash that meets legal requirements and improves performance in a meaningful way. I am sure Yamaha would hire that person on the spot.

The regional effect is important if you bought a bike built for (say) Brazil

See, this is where I have questions. In 1986 ('87 model) I purchased a Buick Regal Grand National (it was actually three; I used to be rich). These had a closed loop FI system, mass airflow sensor, and knock sensors that would handle any petrol or atmospheric conditions. That was thirty-five years back.

Now, in this comment Troy mentions a "closed loop" system. I've asked about this but he has not yet had opportunity to respond. As the owner of an older bike, I am often surprised at the level of technical sophistication of modern bikes and therefore do not know if they are to the level of closed loop systems of cars of thirty-five years ago.

If they are, then I fail to see where the problem is. If they are not, then I am confused as to why bikes don't have modern FI systems.

Hipsabad mentioned his 900's off-throttle behaviour. A plug-chop behaviour. I would imagine that was an emissions defeat for NOX values in one market or another. As VW taught us, that is no big problem to body swerve ...

I agree. Improve performance and meet emission standards, no.

What I meant by the regional effect is something like this:
I can imagine a factory engineering a new bike for (say) Brazil. All the engineers, designers, ECU programmers, etc. work together from the start. They have a feedback loop through the entire project, and in the end they produce a bike that's brilliant in Brazil. Then the Marketing group says, "Hey, we can sell something like this in the US." They can't change the engine, but they can fiddle with mapping and peripherals. The bike in the US is not as good, but maybe some aftermarket tuner can flash the ECU and make it more like the one used in Brazil. For sure it won't meet US emission standards, but the user experience might be improved.

It is definitely emissions/regulations that F up the stock bike. Some engines can be tuned easier to deal with the regs, others not as much, that’s why some bikes work quite well stock, and others don’t. I’ve done the “stage one” (air filter, exhaust, ECU) to a half-dozen of Harley and jap Harley-style v-twins, and one jap inline-4 (FZ1) and they ALL ran way, way better afterwards - more power everywhere, smoother throttle response, and they even ran cooler. And I’m no genius, but it’s not hard for a dedicated shop with a good tuner/dyno guy to see how to fix what the regs messed up. In my experience, practically every stock bike can benefit from that sort of work.

ha-ha! An RZ350? You could add another YPVS to smooth out that jerky throttle.

Loved my RZs! In my case the annoying jerk is never not at the throttle ;-)

When i talked about it with him, Nate told me the issue with the 890 could be gotten around by getting my KTM dealer to modify the ECU to the Akrapovic setting, at which point it is 'opened' and Nate is then able to flash his settings onto it

Funny thing is I was never "an annoying jerk on the throttle." when on a four stroke. But those deux temps ...

Chris over at Rottweiler Performance explains the closed loop system on KTMs better than I ever could. https://www.rottweilerperfo...

Thank you! I am just wondering if we are talking about the same thing. I'll check that out now.

OK ... we're talking about the same thing. I don't see how a closed loop system is a problem. The fine people at Hypertech provided a chip that made my Grand National more ignoranter 35 years back. Perhaps your buddy has problems with the specific coding language of that brand?

I'm not going to pretend I know coding, but it stands to reason that there's more to a motorcycle's ECU than just some lines of code to control ignition timing and when some plates open or close. While a tuner might be able to see certain lines of code, maybe there's some kind of encryption technology – that's more advanced than whatever was around 35 years ago – that makes it difficult (or impossible) for a third party to actually access and/or modify said code.

Again, it's all conjecture at this point because we're getting beyond my knowledge base. What I DO know is that I've already flashed the ECU on this Yamaha and the results on the butt dyno are positive. Time on a real dyno will come after the holidays.

Watching brocks videos on the h2's it took them a year or so to crack the ecu.

I had Ivan flash mine for the same reason with the same results. Then I may or may not have replaced the header and axed the cat. Holy cr@p what a "possible" difference.

Product development is a bitch that way. Very often, engineering for outright performance is hindered by any variety of reasons. Internal customers pull design teams in different directions, and with a global product, compliance to all regions with optimal tuning for each emission standard becomes a tangled web of R&D. If you put a team of mechanical engineers together to reconfigure the hardware for USA vs EURO vs 3rd world, with the hope of maximizing performance and driveability in all regions, that would probably blow out the budget and time to market on these 2-3 year refresh cycles substantially. This bike, like all superbikes, is designed first and foremost with track performance in mind. They want to win races, so rich dudes or rich racing teams buy the bike for a competitive edge(or a perceived one in the case of squidly-dumb). They don't really care if the thing runs like dogshit on pump gas so long as it moves units, meets all regulations, and the development cycle is within budget. Sometimes these supernakeds aren't really capable of being detuned to the point where the engine is happy about being neutered. So to your point, yes, the mechanical engineers that drew, tested, analyzed, and tuned the engine for maximum badass. Then another team of engineers were responsible for designing the exhaust system with the specs given to them by the engine team and the regional emissions requirements. Then some unfortunate team of system engineers had to marry the mess together so that the bike runs in every region where it is sold, taking into account all manufacturing tolerances and regional fuel and air quality differences.

Yeah. What he said.

Thanks, Mate. I didn't want to believe that OEM would develop things in silos, but the priority placed on racing has far-reaching consequences.

And yet some bikes, like the Tuono and the R1000R come off the showroom floor running like a dream. Oh well, this was a fun discussion. It even helps to explain why some OEM may not bother with an official racing effort. It pulls the entire development process away from the average consumer.

Yeah, unfortunately that is the case. I almost landed a test engineer position at Kawasaki USA in Lake Forest, and they stressed that I had to be available during certain office hours so that I could collaborate and support the Japanese design engineering team. So imagine that communication between teams can be on a one day delay just due to time zones, and holidays can be a real bitch working with European engineering teams as they basically are off work for half the damn year. It’s not as well oiled a machine as you think it is probably, which is why strict quality systems are so important. Not just for manufacturing, but also in controlled document discipline and decision making command trees. When I was working in Aerospace for two years, we had manufacturing and test ops in one facility, design and analysis in the facility an hour away, and we still ran into bottlenecks. Daily dumpster fire is what product development is. It’s a goddamn miracle that we can have nice things at all. Haha