Performance Bikes — March 2018

96 PERFORMANCEBIKES.CO.UK|MARCH2018

2017 YAMAHA MT-09MARK WHITE

MONTH

FIVE

Best Moment:

Contacts:

Good gain,

good gain

Re-flashing Whitey’s MT-09 nets him the

Brucey bonus of a 10% peak power hike

Photography Jamie Morris

‘Thepowergainispartly

because the bike is now

allowedtokeeprevving

from9kto11kintopgear’

ECU reprogramming

tools of the trade

HAVING JUST got back from the sunny

launch of Yamaha’s new MT-09SP (it’s

great. So is Portugal – see page 34),

I’m revved up for the next stage of

transforming my base model MT-09

intoPB’sownSP.WhileI’vebeenaway,mybikehas

beeninthecareofDaveWoodatDWRMotorcyclesin

Aylesbur y, who has been treating it to his considerable

expertiseandacustomECUreprogram.

As I’m sure everyone knows by now, emissions and

noise regs don’t exactly liberate manufacturers and

designerstogiveusexactlywhattheyintendwhenthey

setaboutamodernmotorcycle,butthankfullywe’ve

optionswhenitcomestogettingaroundthefunpolice.

I’vealreadyfittedafullexhaustsystemfromSP

EngineeringandI’mverypleasedwithit.Itsounds

fantastic, is well made, looks good, and at just over

£400isgreatvalue.Importantly,itdoesawaywiththe

power-sapping catalytic converter embedded within

thestandardsystem.Itcanberunwithoutanyfuelling

changes,buttoreallygetthemostfromtheexhaust,

andmaximisepowerdeliveryandthrottleresponse

fromstandard,thebikeneedstohaveitsfuellingand

other ones-and-zeros looked at. It used to be common

to add a piggy-back fuelling module, but it’s now

increasingly popular to go straight to source and

reprogramtheECU,whichinvariablyallowsmore

controlandotherfunctionstobeexplored/tweaked.

Onesuchfunctionistherpmlimiterwhichcutsin

progressivelylowerinthetoptwogearsontheMT-09

asstandard.I’mnotentirelysurewhyYamahadecided

todothatbutthegigglesarehaltedat10kinfifthgear

andjustunder9kinsixth.Thisequatestothesametop

THE SPECS

£8199

RRP

125.00bhp

69.50lb.ft

Measured

193kg

Wet, claimed

BEST MOMENT

Staying one step ahead

of Yamaha in the

MT-09SP game. Not

that it’s a competition

(but it is).

CONTACTS

davewoodracing.com

speed (131mph indicated) in both gears. ECU

reprogramming can turn that off, which has been done

onmybike.Anotherfunfactisthatthekilltimescanbe

alteredonthestandardquickshifterbutinterestingly

there’sfunctiontoenableanup-and-downshifter,or

‘autoblip’ if that’s turned on and a two-way sensor

added. That’s something for us to have a play with

furtherdownourMT-09’sevolution,nodoubt.

OfcoursethemainreasonDavehasbeenswapping

numbersintheECUfasterthanaCarillionaccountant

is to optimise and maximise the fuelling and other

factorstodeliverthebestpossiblethrottleresponse,

deliveryandpower.Onesuchfactoristheride-by-wire

throttle translation. When the MT-09 first came out in

2013 it was criticised for its snatchy throttle response.

Yamaha have improved that immensely as the models

have rolled on, but of course it’s still not as good as it

could be. This is due, of course, to the need to run

The team at DWR got busy

with the 0s and 1s to boost

the MT-09’s output to 125bhp