MCN Fleet: How a laptop makes my ZX-10R even smoother

One of the things I most enjoy about my ZX-10R nowadays is its glassy-smooth power delivery and peachy throttle response. And it keeps on getting better. 

When I fitted my Akrapovic exhaust system earlier in the year I also plugged in a Rapid Bike Evo fuel control unit, both from Performance Parts Ltd. 

It’s a self-learning system that takes readings from the exhaust lambda sensor, so it can tell how rich or lean the engine is running at any given revs and throttle opening, and make adjustments to suit.

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The Rapid Bike tells the ECU to blast the engine with the perfect amount of fuel and air all the time, in all conditions (and adjusts to ambient temperature and whether you’ve got the baffle in or not). It doesn’t need setting up on a dyno, either – it’s just plug and play. And it works superbly.

Within 100 miles of installation the Rapid Bike creates itself a new fuel map and keeps on refining it as the miles tick by. But it can only tweak the fuelling so far until it needs a little helping hand. 

Rapid Bike provides free downloadable software to recalibrate the fuel map. From there, that’s the base for it to start self-learning again. I’ve plugged the ZX-10R into the laptop three times now and the throttle response and thrust from the engine gets ever smoother. It’s just about perfect now.

Performance Parts say they’ve sold lots of units, not only to riders with aftermarket systems, but to those who’ve just got de-cat link pipes – something that’s going to be even more popular as stifling Euro 4 regulations are imposed on even more new bikes next year.

 

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