First of all, I want to introduce myself as I'm new here. My name is Mike and I picked up a clean 2006 ZX14 about a month ago. This was the first big, open class sportbike I've owned. I'm in my 40s and have been street riding since 16 and dirt riding before that so I've had many bikes.
At first, I loved the ZX14 as I'd never been on a bike that so effortlessly built speed like the 14. It couldn't have been more different than my 2008 Ducati Hypermotard S that I also ride. As I got used to the power and when riding with a friend who also rides a Ducati I noticed how soft/flat the 14 felt in low rpm acceleration. It didn't feel like a 1400 with it's lack of low end torque. It didn't take long to poke around here and learn about the stock electronic restrictions this bike had. Nevertheless, I was still happy with the bike and put about 1500 miles on it in a couple weeks.
Eventually, I missed the sound of a bike Four. My 14 had stock exhaust. Eventually, through a forum member I picked up a Sato full titanium exhaust system. I knew I would need a tune but I decided to see how it ran without the tune and with the full exhaust. It sucked! It was even lazier down low and seemed to take more throttle to make it go, like I was dragging the bike along compared to stock. Because I've used Ivan's Performance in the past with some carbureted bikes, I gave him a call. He very bluntly stated that he didn't have anything for my bike. This is when I did a google search and realized that Guhl Motors was only 15 minutes from my house.
Called Don Guhl up and he said come over and he'd flash my ecu while I waited. At Guhl, Don asked if I had a powercommander and what exhuast I had and then said he would give me the whole nine yards as far as tuning for my bike. 15 minutes later I was out the door and headed home to test it.
WOW, the change was stunning. I know the gen 1's don't gain much if any total power from a tune, but everywhere else is more responsive. Low rpm restriction is gone and I was surprised when I rolled on the throttle and the bike growled and lunged forward. The butterflies open much earlier and it just accelerated so crisply and strongly at any rpm. On and off throttle is perfect, no hiccups anywhere. Also, low rpm cruising through town is not affected at all which is something I didn't want to change over stock. I realized I have no other tunes to compared this to but I'm very happy and would recommend this tune to any gen 1 owners. A side benefit is the exhaust now sounds more aggressive and deeper and highway cruising at legal speeds are yielding better mpg numbers!
Mike
* Last updated by: bikeman on 8/8/2018 @ 6:07 AM *
