Most modern motorcycles have some kind of restrictions in the ECU as a consequence of ever more strict emissions and noise regulations.
Typically, theses ECU restrictions translate in your motorcycle having a softer throttle response in some or all gears while also making less power and torque at peak and throughout the entire rpm range.
In some circumstances the top speed of your motorcycle is also being capped by restrictions from the ECU. It is not always clear which motorcycles have these top speed restrictions without actually testing each motorcycle with GPS on a long enough piece of tarmac.
Alternatively, we actually do not need a runway to test top speed in each gear as we can actually test theoretical top speed in each gear on the dyno.
Gear ratios multiplied by rpm will provide us with a theoretical top speed in each gear of the motorcycle.
When a dyno measures the top speed of a motorcycle it does not take into consideration wind resistance, instead rather testing the theoretical top speed of each gear by taking the gear to the rpm limiter.
As you can see in the below video, on a stock MT-09 Dave tries to take fifth and sixth gear to its rpm limit applying 100% throttle but you can clearly see that even on the dyno (and minus wind resistance) fifth ans sixth gear clearly can’t rev out to the limiter.
Any motorcycle that does not have top speed restrictions should always reach their respective rpm limiters in all gears when tested on the dyno.
Once Dave does his magic and flashes the ECU on the MT-09 and reattempts you can clearly see that fifth and sixth gear can easily hit the rpm limiter and thus reach their theoretical max speed.
If you want to remove the top speed limit as well as other ECU throttle restrictions for your MT-09/Tracer check the below ECU flash and Custom Tune options.
