Yeah yeah yeah ....
Trouble is .... it's been a while now, and I've sort of got used to it and forgotten what 'standard' is like! What I really need to do is to go out with mine and another unmapped bike and jump between the two ... (and have the rider of the standard bike benefit too from the feel of a mapped bike ..).
It's definitely much smoother and richer (literally) than standard, and errrr ... ummmm ... more, not aggressive, that's the wrong word, but it fuels more instantly, more ferociously - you sort of feel that instant burn in the chamber in yer right hand. So whilst, of course, it goes like stink, has more BHP, feels like it's just finished a course of anabolic steroids, and has that mega rush of rocket fuel to it, it's so much smoother with it.
In the past when I've described this, I've banged on about Gordon Ramsay and cutting tomatoes with a razor blade knife (v a blunt one ..)
I'm trying to think of life's little analogies that best describe the difference!
Fitness! Ever been really fit, then had a lay off for 6 months or so? (Ever been fit? That's a bloody dumb question to ask on the GS forum ...
). That un-fitness sort of creeps up on you, you don't really notice it until you get fit again, and then when you do you realise how unfit you were before. I suppose what's right about this analogy is the order of feeling the benefit. You don't notice it, when it's not quite 'fit'. Any body on their standard 1190 will (rightly) say 'I don't need it - it fuels fine'.
I've dropped my fitness over the winter, after the clocks went back. It was all an effort to get in from work and go for a run with the nights now drawing in and the fire / gin calling! So for the last four months or so, I haven't really done much. Now I don't really feel 'unfit', I'm not getting out of breath running up the stairs, bringing in the logs, walking the dog ... but I know ... I KNOW ... that within two weeks of getting back into it come the spring, I'll be saying to her indoors ... 'Bloody hell ... I feel sooo much better .. '.
That's how this bike is. It feels better! It's fit compared to your 'winter lay off' bike. When I'm on the motorway in fifth, doing about 60, if I open the taps it bolts out the starting block like Jessica Ennis. (Coooor ... now she is fit ... !!). It seems to have that spring summer autumn energy levels where it has a natural spring in its step. Nothing is fluffy, it's crisp and punchy. Turn off the main road into the side road and pick the bike up from it's lean angle on the gas ... no feathering the clutch, just precision fuelling that works on a fag papers worth of throttle movement. That's the sharpness of the Ramsay Knife, the core strength of Jessica Ennis's stomach!
Compression seems better too. (* Geoff showed me this on the dyno - compression figures better now than before). Don't ask me why, I have no mechanical know how, but for whatever reason the bike is responding to a shut throttle or a down shift much more than it used to. Yes, there's an element of me knowing the bike now, and that my acceleration sense is now dialled in to this still quite new to me make / model, but it definitely just looses it's speed a bit better. That's good on those back lanes. Drive hard out the corner then ... off the gas ..... float into the next one .... pick it up on that fag paper of gas just as you start to turn it in .... then wind it on into the nuclear burner rush of hedge row ... off the gas .... float into the next one .... Beautiful man. And it is .... when you get it right, in the groove, it's that man and machine working in perfect harmony thing. It's poetry... it's just the best feeling. Yep ..... it's better than sex
I also feel very sort of errr ... ummmmm .... mentally happier that it's not running lean. Like the GS (like pretty much any factory bike these days), my fuelling was up in the 1:14 a/f whatsy thingies, and now its down to a much safer 1:12 a/f whatsy thingies. I've blown up a bike at work before! No fault from me at all - yes riding it hard (chasing a nicked motor!), but doing it sensibly, not red lining it. Bang ... right hand cylinder gave up. That's a standard factory a/f mix bike. Imagine if that was yer own bike?? You'd be gutted. So if yer going to play exhausts, maybe de-cats, you really need to think about improving the fuelling to balance all that 'escape' that you're now giving the engine.
Any down sides? Bloody hell .... it doesn't half pop on the over-run now! I like, quiet efficiency, grey man, under the radar ...
This bike aint that when you shut the gas ... It had flames coming out the exhaust when it was being caned on the dyno ...
A very worth while investment. But it should be the last thing you do. Never re-map it and
then play cans and de-cat ...
I'm sure SPG will be a very happy chappy
