Honda CBR 1000RR PCIII USB Custom Map

November 2005

As some of you may remember from my PCIII USB Article, I installed a PCIII USB unit on my CBR 1000RR back in June of this year.  I have spent the past few months trying various downloadable maps as well as other 1000RR owners' custom maps.  For my setup and location, the best downloadable map I have found is the Dynojet U.S. 1000RR Erion Slip On map.  Having used this map for a while, and hearing the rave reviews of custom mapping, I decided to take the plunge and have a custom map created for my bike.

Good "tuners" are becoming increasingly hard to come by.  I hear more and more stories of people paying good money to have custom maps created for their bikes and being being disappointed in the results, or worse, having the results fudged by less than ethic dyno operators.  Be careful who you go to for custom mapping, and try to get referrals from others who have had work done by a particular shop. 

As I mentioned in my the my Dyno Runs Article, I am lucky enough to work very close to a Dynojet Approved Power Commander Tuning Center.  TNT Performance Dyno here in middle Tennessee is owned and operated by Konrad and his wife Melinda who are great people and heavily involved in the motorcycle community.  Konrad is a literal genius with all things mechanical and has been very helpful with suggestions and advice on my bikes over the past few years.  Konrad is extremely meticulous with his work and is one of the best tuners I've had the pleasures of meeting.  I HIGHLY recommend this tuning center if you are within any proximity of their shop.  Konrad has custom fabricated his entire dyno tuning setup into a large box truck making it a mobile dyno tuning center, so check their EVENTS page to see if they may be in your area.  TNT Performance Dyno also stocks performance parts including Power Commanders so give them a call if you're interested in picking up one of these handy gadgets.

I had spoken to Konrad regarding custom mapping my bike and he advised to remove all the body panels from around the front of the bike in order to allow increased cooling as custom mapping tends to generate quite a bit of heat from the motor.  Removing the body panels will help the bike stay around normal operating temperature during the mapping process, will help it cool down faster, and cut down on the time required to create the map.  It will also make the necessary components easier to reach for hooking up the dynamometer connections.

After arriving at TNT Performance Dyno, Konrad double checked everything on the bike to make sure it was in proper order such as the oil level, coolant level, tire pressures, etc.  He then strapped the bike into the dyno, brought the bike up to normal operating temperature, and took 4 base runs to give us an idea of where the bike was currently.  The baseline runs were taken with an Arata titanium slip on, BMC race filters, Flapper Mod, and with the PAIR system blocked.  The PCIII USB was loaded with a zero map for the base line runs as well.  The best of the 4 runs resulted in max numbers of 151.31HP and 78.34 ft/lbs of torque using a standard correction factor and smoothing of 4 in Dynojet's RunViewer software.  I then left the bike with Konrad for a few hours for him to work his magic.

Three hours later I received an e-mail from Melinda telling me my bike was ready and that I had better "bring a trailer to carry home all the extra horses I picked up", haha.  I was like a kid at Christmas and couldn't wait to get over to get the bike.  I picked up the bike along with the dyno run files so that I could analyze the data on my home computer to see exactly what was gained and where.  I highly recommend you get these files from your tuner so that you can see for yourself how the bike is running before and after the map, not to mention it will help you understand how the map changed the way the bike runs.  The ride home was an entirely new experience.  The bike had power everywhere in the RPM range and was EXTREMELY smooth.  There is absolutely NO driveline lash or abrupt off and on of the power during throttle transitions which makes the bike much easier and more enjoyable to ride.  After the custom map, the final numbers were 156.98HP and 81.01 ft/lbs of torque for a gain of 5.64HP and 2.67 ft/lbs of torque from just the custom mapping.  The biggest difference is not the gain in power, but how linear and smooth the power delivery is.  Prior to the custom map I'd feel the bike surge in places in the RPM range almost like it had a power band at different RPMs.  Now the bike just pulls like a rocket straight through to redline.  With the mods I've listed and the custom map I've gained 14.74HP and 7.32 ft/lbs of torque over stock.  That's really something considering I basically just have a slip on and some air filters as far as mods go.

Below are the dyno graphs showing the baseline runs vs. the custom map as well as the A/F ratios.  The red hashed line corresponds to a 13:1 A/F ratio which is what you're shooting for with a custom map.

This page is part of a frame set.  If you reached this page via a search engine please click here to go to the main page.