Precis wrote:
If there is a way to do similar with Honda's ECUs, it will negate the need for a lot of mechanical experimentation!
There isn't. The ECU used in the 125, and all Honda's that I am aware of, is made by Keihin. It's not made by Honda. It's a 3rd party device that has
no re-programmable ability. It's
hard-coded to do what it does. This means, to all intents & purposes, it's locked. It cannot be re-written. The programming is burned into it.
This is why people are making 'piggy-back' 'controllers' for it. Power Commander makes one, Dobrek makes one, other people make them. Each one of these controllers really only allows the user to do
one thing and that's alter the air/fuel ratio. These 'piggy-back' units just intercept the commands generated by the OEM Keihin ECU and
alter them. So they work but they are extremely limited and they are really more of a bit of a band-aid. So don't hold your breath for a miracle cure because it's not going to happen based on what's currently available...on the other hand, if adjusting your AFR is all you need to do then look no further.
What I spent a lot of time & money on last year was developing a
replacement Plug 'N Play ECU that allows full control over everything. You remove the Keihin ECU and you replace it. This means literally
creating a new computer for the bike. This isn't a hack or an 'adjuster' - it's a complete replacement.
For me, this is more of a personal goal. I needed clutch springs because the stock clutch slips. So, I manufactured them and addressed the issue. I needed a camshaft because I needed more power. Same thing, I had one manufactured. That's two of the design goals that I started off with done and completed. The third in the trifecta is the ECU...
I
require a replacement ECU. Literally. The faster I make my bike the more I'm bouncing off the rev-limiter. Everything I've done to the bike has increased the acceleration rate dramatically, even to the point that the tach can no longer keep up, but it has not increased the top speed. In the case of the Performance Pack, it actually allows the bike to reach it's top speed but every serious modification after that (such as the camshaft) just puts you into a place where you hit the rev limiter on a regular basis and it cuts off the generation of power. Yuk!
In order for me to reach my particular design goals I
require the ECU. I have to have full control over the entire bike from soup to nuts. Nitrous is very firmly fixed in my design criteria. For that alone - you have to full-blown control over the entire bike. AFR, Timing, activation RPM, throttle position sensor - the whole gamut.
But this is all very far from a game boy cartridge thing or adjusting an existing ECU
that was designed to allow adjustment - albeit through a somewhat convoluted process. In both cases that you guys are citing, these ECU's were clearly created with the ability to be adjusted. This is NOT the case with any of the Keihin controllers I have seen to date. This is why people are manufacturing 'piggy-back' adjustment boxes that only alter the signals coming from the ECU. This is easy to do. It's also why you can only control the AFR. The hard thing is to make a new computer to operate the bike.