This has been a fun read so far. I take delivery of a "new to me" 14 today. Hopefully I can ride it a bit today although there is snow in the forecast. I hope to ride it at least a little before sendin the ECU off to Steve!
Oh, you absolutely want to ride it quite a bit before having a Steve or Ghul ECU flash. Otherwise, you will have no appreciation for how nice the changes are.
Engine braking isn't lost, but the perception of it does change a bit.
In stock form, the throttle is very twitchy, and a small amount of rolling off the throttle leads to a pretty hard feeling of decelleration. This is because the secondaries restrict intake airflow, and they have more impact than the primary throttles in a throttle roll-off.
Post flash, there is a considerable increase of lower rpm torque, and the natural reaction is to use it, primarily by riding at lower rpm in a higher gear. Couple that with no more throttle twitchiness on roll off, and the "feeling" is a loss of decelleration braking. As others have said, you will kind of "relearn" how to ride the bike. You don't have to manage the twitchy throttle, and the bike is easier to ride. After a few days everything is right in the c-14 world... and better than pre-flash. Steve
Agreed. I have a 2010 c-14 in the shop that a friend just purchased. He hasn't even ridden it, he had me do the test ride. It has the flies out, a power commander, and an area P slipon. It exhibits a flat spot / lag when the throttle is applied briskly. My flash has none of that. He wants me to put the flies back in and pull the PCV, but I told him he should ride it as delivered for a bit first - then he'd really appreciate what the flash does Steve
The problem is that our riding season in North Dakota is over. It is too short to be sending the ecu away to be flashed even with a fast turn around.
Wayne
I have one more question for Steve. I apologize if it has been asked already and I haven't seen it.
Does your flash lift the 155 mph limiter off of the 2010+ models? Not a real big deal, but artificial govenors have always bugged me.
Wouldn't now be the best time to do it, when you can't ride anyway? I did mine when I couldn't ride for a week or so. Then got to experience it for the last 3 weeks of the season in MN. I was going to wait and have it done over the winter otherwise.
Oh, you absolutely want to ride it quite a bit before having a Steve or Ghul ECU flash. Otherwise, you will have no appreciation for how nice the changes are.
I wish I had done so before the Guhl reflash I had done. I went riding after the reflash and was thinking about that story of the emperor's clothes. With all of the rave reviews at the time I didn't think it would be necessary to run rollon response tests before the reflash. I did some back to back roll-ons at the same place using eco mode and then Guhls reflash mode and yes the Guhl reflash did better but after reaching say 3500-3700 rpm not much if any difference on my seat of the pants dyno. I had no real sense that anything had been done to my ecu other than a sticker and an etched number. I'm going to hold off on getting this one a bit. I'm kinda worried that I might be one of those folks that Steve mentioned in another thread that don't notice anything (insensitive ass like my wife says),
anyway if or when I get Steve's reflash of my Guhl reflash I'm going to be more interested in the roll off response (smooth baby smooth) than I am in the roll on response. Even I should be able to notice a controlled reduction of power as compared to the off switch I seem to have now.
I'll be sending mine to you in a few weeks...
2) The Shoodaben flash is sharper to respond at light to part throttle, and there isn't even a hint of hesitation to throttle input.
I can confirm that although the Ghul flash did wonders, there are a few places that have a little hesitation. It is a LOT less than stock, but not perfect.