Well, their thinking is going to be somewhat hampered, or at least influenced by Keihin, the people that make Honda's ECU's. It takes effort & time to create a perfect ECU for the corresponding engine it's going to run. This is why you see 'ECU Improvements' listed as a contributing factor in increased performance in successive CBR600RR models even though not much else has changed. Yet the bike is faster. What happened?
The Keihin engineer spent more time on the ECU perfecting the program/software that runs the bike. They spent more time on it and they squeezed more power from the engine as a result. So there may not be any other real changes between last year's model vs. this years other then that the ECU has been better tailored.
It costs a lot of money for a Keihin engineer to sit down and improve on an existing bike's performance. In the case of the CBR125 - not much time is going to be spent on extracting power from it. It's an entry-level bike. The goal is going to be reliability and driveability and that's it. So there is probably a considerable amount of improvement that can be done on the software in the ECU.
The rationale behind Honda's engineers, with respect to end-user's altering the ECU is going to be warranty-related and also related to detracting from their image. Honda has spent decades perfecting their bikes - they are a Honda, nothing else is quite like them. Legendary reliability, smooth running performance, a comfortable bike - these are all hallmarks that Honda engineers have worked very hard to create as their own brand.
If the end user is allowed to go in and change the timing curve, lean the engine out to the point of detonation, and all sorts of other things - these are going to come back on the company as a customer-induced warranty claim costing Honda money. The end user can do a lot of damage if he goes monkeying around in the there. Personally, I think this is a secondary concern when weighed out against Honda's
reputation. I think the potential hit to their reputation is much more important to them. Imagine if someone went in, monkeyed with the software, and made the bike run like crap. That bike was then ridden by others and their impression is that Honda's aren't very smooth. I suspect this is their real fear.
There's also the cost factor. I'm certain that Keihin, as a 3rd party supplied to Honda, is going to charge considerably more for a more/less open ECU then for their locked down ECU. This impacts the cost of the bike. Then you get into the real nuts and bolts - how many end users are actually qualified to go in and monkey with the way their engine operates? Not many that I know of. A truly open ECU means you could do things like cause the ignition to fire well before the piston is at top dead center, something like 120 degrees of advance. No engine will last under that scenario....
But, it's not all bad news. Our prototype camshaft is working very well under the stock ECU. It's not 100% perfect, but that's to be expected as it is a racing camshaft. The engine is a little bit on the lean side however a forthcoming injector change may well be a 'magic bullet'. I came to the conclusion a while back that a larger injector may also be a 'magic bullet' when it comes to a bore kit. Mike reported to me that another rider did just that with a bore kit and that it works perfectly!! So this is really good news as it means that a rider could stave off the whole ECU issue - even at the camshaft and bore kit level....
I'll have an injector in short order. At that point I will be able to determine from direct experience whether the camshaft & injector is truly a magic bullet. I'm thinking it probably will be given that even without the larger injector the bike is awesome (Camshaft & Performance Pack alone).
In my particular development path I'm intentionally taking limited steps to determine suitability for other riders. So in my case it's looking like this;
-Stock ECU
-Performance Pack (awesome - biggest bang for the buck period and a required foundation for other power increases)
-Prototype Camshaft (incredible but costly but amortized over the life of the bike - not a lot of money in that respect)
-Larger Injector (unknown to date, may open the door to other mods without ECU change)
-Exhaust (required in my case due to increased breathing all the way around)
-ECU replacement (last on the list)
-Nitrous (because the ECU will support it and I always wanted a jet pack)
So it's not like every rider needs a new ECU. I'm intentionally charting a path that will hopefully keep everyone away from that. The ECU is rocket science. The only Keihin engineers who will truly understand it would be the people who work on the MotoGP ECU's for Honda. These are going to be the very cream of the crop. For me personally, these are engineering exercises. It's
motorcycle re-engineering. This is normally not done. The costs are way, way too high and the skill sets required are extremely rare. That is what intrigues me - it's beating decades of Honda engineers at their own game and coming out with a bike that the western world writes off due to it's small size and using that very instrument to clean their clocks
Along the way, if I can chart a cost-effective path for others to reap similar benefits, without encountering bank-breaking costs, this is a great thing. It allows others to piggy-back off of my development and benefit from it. This is where the Performance Pack came from. For those who avail themselves of it, they get a very large increase for little money. Much more then they will ever get from something like exhaust which costs 3-4x more. This extends the life of the bike, makes it a LOT more fun to ride (and race) and if they want to stop there they can. While doing that they are actually improving every weak link in the original design. So if they keep the bike they don't even have to give it a tune-up. I'm quite certain all the ignition components from the Performance Pack will last 50,000 kilometers. Same with the clutch springs. SO the idea has always been to offer up an inexpensive kit for riders with a stock bike, that want to make it faster, that is economical and improves the design of the bike by leaps and bounds. On the flip side, a rider with an older bike, that needs a tune-up or some significant maintenance, can accomplish the same thing with an easy to install kit. Once done, you can say good by to annual tune-ups, semi-annual tune-ups, or even, depending on how many miles you put on the bike, decade tune-ups.
I don't foresee anyone
ever wearing out the plug or the wire or the clutch springs that are included with the Performance Pack. All of those items are representative of extreme over-engineering for our bike. They all increase the performance, but at the same time, they will, in all likelihood, put an end to ever having to do a tune-up on the bike ever again.
There are two areas where the bike can be easily & cheaply re-designed with a very high impact. The first is tires & suspension. The second is the Performance Pack. Between those two changes a rider will have a whole new bike at a very low cost. You can out-handle anything on the road and the Performance Pack, certainly in my case, has negated a 75cc advantage over larger bikes. Now that's what I call a bore kit - and then some!
Typical bore kit price = $500
Performance Pack Price = $149.95
Another name for the Performance Pack could be '
Never Need A Tune-Up Again' Pack