July 13th, 2025

-Replaced Rear Balancer Shaft seal with Amazon one. Came a day early somehow. You'll never believe the side by side photo. I didn't realize it was missing that much 'meat'

* Last updated by: danmin on 7/13/2025 @ 5:49 PM *

Got the bike running. Looks to be running pretty lean during warmup, but maybe that's just the sensor not reading right while it gets up to temp.

I washed the bike after installing the part. Didn't see any leaks. I checked real close to the seal and it just looked like it had the assembly lube on it, from the install of the seal. No oil weeps.

Got it up to temp to bleed some of the coolant bubbles and also evaporate any moisture from the oil from it sitting and having lots of parts washed in the sink. I saw the slightest amount of foam in the oil. could've been from it being overfilled and revving the engine up, could be from the soap i used to clean the oil pan not being washed out all the way

I saw the slightest amount of foam in the oil. could've been from it being overfilled and revving the engine up, could be from the soap i used to clean the oil pan not being washed out all the way

I would think oil would have a very strong effect on negating soap bubbles even if you soaped up the oil pan without rinsing it which I know you didn't. Oil's the opposite of soap. The oil foam is probably just what oil does when it's stirred up by a crankshaft. Overfilling couldn't help but increase the foam. I have a hunch the slight foam is probably normal but nobody except you ever paid attention to it! Good observation. I think it's likely a nonissue though.

As for running lean during warmup, that could be normal too. Running rich would cause it to warm up slower. The ECU has a warmup phase. It might supposed to run lean on a cold engine. The real question is how does it run at high rpm. I'd just let it do what it wants to do on warmup as long as it keeps turning. What is important is how lean or rich it is when you're on the throttle. You don't want lean at high rpm or that's when you melt stuff.

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Rook: The oil foam is probably just what oil does when it's stirred up by a crankshaft. Overfilling couldn't help but increase the foam. I have a hunch the slight foam is probably normal but nobody except you ever paid attention to it! Good observation. I think it's likely a nonissue though.

Youre probably right.

Rook: As for running lean during warmup, that could be normal too. Running rich would cause it to warm up slower. The ECU has a warmup phase. It might supposed to run lean on a cold engine.

Thats what I was thinking. I know running too lean makes things run pretty hot. When I was trying to adjust the tune on my C3 vette after putting sidepipes on- I had the AFR set too high at idle. Turned the headers cherry red. Makes sense for it to run a little lean. Just makes me queasy imagining dropped valves or melting pistons and all that fun stuff. Just makes me uncomfortable looking at the gauge read 13-16 AFR while warming up. usually after a rev it'll idle at the right AFRs. kinda weird how that works.

Not sure if I mentioned it already- the tuner couldn't flash the factory ECUs. He uses Woolich to tune, but he didnt have a bench flasher tool for the ZX14R, I have that coming in the mail tomorrow. I am hoping he just wants to trade the bench flasher for the base file license from Woolich. Or that the license was included in my payment already.

Oh yeah, Dyno Day #2 is this Wednesday. 10am @ Back Alley Custom Cycles and Dyno Center. Being tuned by the same Chris Huckeby and his son might be up there to help out again.

Just makes me uncomfortable looking at the gauge read 13-16 AFR while warming up. usually after a rev it'll idle at the right AFRs. kinda weird how that works.

I'm not sure what my AFR was at warmup because I set AutoTune to not function for 20 seconds after a startup. That way, Autotune wouldn't be fighting whatever the ECU was doing to warm the engine. Unfortunately, the AFR didn't display while Autotune wasn't functioning. Don't take this as factual info in any way but I seem to recall the number 23. It's possible the AFR was that lean at cold start. I hadn't used Autotune for long before I chose to delay it for 20 seconds upon startup. To my understanding, it's not a big concern to run very lean at very low rpm. High rpm is where things are going to melt. ...although your experience with your vette seems to indicate otherwise. I would be alarmed to see glowing head pipes at idle too.

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Haha. Yeah that was actually the break-in procedure for the side pipe coating. I found out after the fact. Oops. Yeah I'll forget about the lean at idle concern. The motor would've gave if that was such an issue. I took the bike out on a short stretch and it seems to be running strong. Not to beat a dead horse, but the bike feels very smooth. There's a little choppy idle, but at higher RPMs the bike is impressively smooth. It always was a smooth bike- but the new suspension and reset balancer make this thing great. I did a few short pulls on the highway. Got up to 120mph on accident. The back wheel loves to spin. Traction control/progressive boost controller is definitely the next performance upgrade. My tuner said he has a parts list of stuff I can get from the hardware store to make a 2-stage boost controller. Low boost and High boost. Gotta tighten the chain again. It's really stretched. I never checked it after dyno day so maybe from that. Either way the chain maintenance on this bike is going to be pretty intensive. I already had to tighten every 3-4k miles. I'm thinking every 1-2k if I'm hard on it. Could also just be from the chain breaking in. From brand new to dyno pulls. Some stretching is expected.

Here's a video showing the bike out. Quality of the video is low, once again, not sure why.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ZEj4pRW5RuE?si=x1muAquLHipjXoNp

Last note:

Dyno day rescheduled to Thursday July 17th, 2025.

My Woolich bench flash kit was delayed a day. It got held up in Jackson Missouri or something like that for 3 days. Bummer. Gives me another day to go over everything with a fine tooth comb. I think I'll double check the intake runner plate screws. They're drenched in red loctite but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Gold plug arrived. Installed it. Which meant I got to drain a little oil out when I switched it. I had the bike sitting on it's rear stand only. Any chunks or flakes, in theory, settled in the pan closest to the drain plug. So I got to evacuate those. I am still dealing with the 'glitter' of coating everything in Moly. Also looked like a few minor slivers of alum from the clutch basket getting torn up were still getting washed out of the nooks and crannies of the engine. Unsettling. But not much that can be done about that besides oil flushes. Engine is on it's third set of oil since rebuild. It's getting better each time. I think I'll swap the filter and oil out once I'm back from dyno day. I've got one K&N filter left before I start grabbing NAPA Gold filters. Maybe I can set up a business account and fet a deal.

The magnet in this sucker is pretty strong. It'll definitely pick up anything magnetic in the oil. I wasn't worried about much of that, but it is still nice to have.

* Last updated by: danmin on 7/15/2025 @ 12:20 PM *

Traction control/progressive boost controller is definitely the next performance upgrade.

Is the stock TC on the bike not operating?

My tuner said he has a parts list of stuff I can get from the hardware store to make a 2-stage boost controller.

Please share that info if you can.

Either way the chain maintenance on this bike is going to be pretty intensive.

I'll bet...tires too.

I've got one K&N filter left before I start grabbing NAPA Gold filters.

There was a point brought up about aftermarket oil filters possibly not quite matching. One guy damaged the outlet pipe threads on his bike. If the filter doesn't thread on effortlessly right up to its seat, I wouldn't use it. I haven't ever used anything but OEM filters. I even went back to OEM for the air filter from the BMC filter I used a few times.

Gold plug arrived.

I have that. Yes, the magnet is superb and I see they now include a safety wire hole! Being obsessed with weight reduction, I switched to an aluminum plug and it had a much smaller magnet which still seemed to work. I'm sure the Gold Plug was more effective at picking stuff up though. I banged the gearbox really hard a couple times using a quickshifter. The transmission was never the same after that. It worked fine using the clutch but it was unreliable with the quickshifter (kicked back to second gear and almost looped me). The Gold Plug picked up chunks over three oil changes in about a years time. I still might be getting a little chunk now and then if the bike was still running. A foot quickshifter is cool for sport riding but on a turbo bike, I'd have an electric shifter or air. Romans used that along with some special electronic and he said it worked flawlessly. He even had it set up to shift automatically at a certain rpm so there would be no chance of human error.

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Rook: Is the stock TC on the bike not operating?

Factory KTRC is controlled by the secondary throttle blades cutting air. You have to remove them from the bike to run the kit. Aftermarket traction control or boost controller is the only option for controlling burnouts unless youve got a smart right wrist. You lose factory traction control and wheelie control when running a turbo kit.

Rook: I have that. Yes, the magnet is superb and I see they now include a safety wire hole! Being obsessed with weight reduction, I switched to an aluminum plug and it had a much smaller magnet which still seemed to work. I'm sure the Gold Plug was more effective at picking stuff up though. I banged the gearbox really hard a couple times using a quickshifter. The transmission was never the same after that. It worked fine using the clutch but it was unreliable with the quickshifter (kicked back to second gear and almost looped me). The Gold Plug picked up chunks over three oil changes in about a years time. I still might be getting a little chunk now and then if the bike was still running. A foot quickshifter is cool for sport riding but on a turbo bike, I'd have an electric shifter or air. Romans used that along with some special electronic and he said it worked flawlessly. He even had it set up to shift automatically at a certain rpm so there would be no chance of human error.

I had an MPS air shifter kit on the bike. Never worked right. Messed up a lot. Kill time switch was broken so kill time could never be adjusted. Also the air fittings would randomly leak so sometimes no shift would happen, or only half a shift. Other times the electronics wouldnt kill the engine at all so I would just shift while WOT. Not good scenarios any of the times. There is a false neutral inbetween all of the gears on these bikes if you half-shift just perfectly. Ask me how I know.......

Air is cool. My experiences were bad. I could always get a full kit and redo it the 'right' way. But that costs money. and Space. and hacking up the wiring harness. I'll stick to hand clutch for now. I have a brand new HealTech quickshifter I want to use. But not for racing. I am a believer in still slipping the clutch lever when racing. Just because of no bike I have ever had coming with a good quickshifter or one at all. A Pingel electrical shifter would be my ideal shifter. Since they eliminate the air shifter hiccups. But they dont have the auto-shifter functions are far as I know. If they had an autoshifter Pingel kit I would seriously consider that. It would be like having an automatic when WOT. And the auto up or down is cool. But I would just use the upshift feature I think.

My swingarm has a tank on it now. I used to run a bottle. Or no bottle. Just line volume. I just dont think I'll use an airshifter again. Even the fastest half-mile @ 240mph on a gsxr was hand clutch I think.

* Last updated by: danmin on 7/15/2025 @ 4:12 PM *

There is a false neutral inbetween all of the gears on these bikes if you half-shift just perfectly. Ask me how I know.......

Yup, I know too and after banging the gearbox a couple times, it would kick back down to the previous gear after bouncing of the rev limiter for a half second. That's how I almost looped that one time.

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A Pingel electrical shifter would be my ideal shifter. Since they eliminate the air shifter hiccups. But they dont have the auto-shifter functions are far as I know. If they had an autoshifter Pingel kit I would seriously consider that. It would be like having an automatic when WOT. And the auto up or down is cool. But I would just use the upshift feature I think.

That was probably what Romans was using and the electronic box was probably what enabled it to auto shift. I remember him saying it only upshifted. I'm sure I could find some old posts about the setup if I did some digging.

I just dont think I'll use an airshifter again. Even the fastest half-mile @ 240mph on a gsxr was hand clutch I think

I don't think you loose much time shifting with the clutch. My Gen1 didn't like real short kill times anyway. Some shift without the clutch and just back off the throttle a bit to unload the transmission. I don't see how that's much slower than a quickshifter. I never tried it though. Think I did it by accident once. LOL I even downshifted my busa without the clutch by accident once and no ugly noise. It was not high rpm and little or no throttle as I was heading into a corner. Wouldn't try it again, not on purpose.

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I think price-wise a progressive boost controller or MaxxEcu would be the best performance upgrade. The electric shifter would be amazing. But I think it'll just spin if I'm WOT that long. That guy with the turbo zx14 is building a carbon turbo busa that will run "Boost Leash" Which I think has boost by gear and stuff. Nice touch. Gotta run an air compressor and whatnot though. Wish you could mount those things on the swingarm or something. They get so hot and buzzy.

Haha yeah I've experimented with the clutch less shifting by unloading the gearbox and it does work pretty good. just a little pressure on the shifter and once unloaded enough it'll complete the shift. Up or down. I haven't ever made that same mistake you made on a corner. On other bikes for sure. I've kept this one too low and long to really carve any corners comfortably enough to shift in a turn. Plus the gearing in these is so long you can live life in 2/3/4th gear and not miss out on much. I would find myself on the highway in 4th or 5th not even realizing I could shift again. The new 17/38 gearing only makes that worse. I was doing 60-70 in 3/4th really comfortably. Previously 6th gear was used for cruising above 80 since I don't like to Bog these down too much.

Gotta run an air compressor and whatnot though. Wish you could mount those things on the swingarm or something. They get so hot and buzzy.

I'll bet. I had a tiny compressor I used to add air to the tires with. It was very loud and you didn't esnt to touch it after it ran 20 seconds. The swing arm is about the only place I can think of that I'd want to mount something like that. I'm sure you could figure that out. The compartment where the ABS pump is on the Gen2 was completely open on the Gen1. That would be perfect for a compressor but with the heat and the noise, forget it.

I've kept this one too low and long to really carve any corners comfortably enough to shift in a turn.

It's now adapted to what it was made to do best.

I would find myself on the highway in 4th or 5th not even realizing I could shift again.

This happens to me quite often with the stock exhaust. I can't hear the rpm and the engine's very smooth at highway speeds in 5th gear, maybe even fourth. As for bogging, I find 3000 rpm to be the lowest I want to run the engine but I was able to tune my Gen1 to accelerate smoothly from 2000 rpm in 6th gear even at 100% throttle. I noticed the map had no adjustments in that zone so I thought I'd try it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ayQ4nZN86k

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Thats pretty smooth for a 6th gear pull from that RPM. Stock gearing? I would occasionally bog this bike down before the rebuild in 4-5-6th gear around 1500-2000 RPM. Was never that smooth. Not jerky or anything. Just real real slow to accelerate until about 3500-4000 then it would start making the torque needed to pull through the gear.

Thats pretty smooth for a 6th gear pull from that RPM. Stock gearing?

No that bike was at +4T on the rear sprocket which gives it some more lugging power. Even so, the engine never ran smooth under load below 3000 rpm until tuned.

I would occasionally bog this bike down before the rebuild in 4-5-6th gear around 1500-2000 RPM. Was never that smooth. Not jerky or anything.

I could do just about anything with the throttle at super low rpm as long as I was in first gear. Third, through 6th, my 08 felt like it was straining or even sounded rough at 2000 rpm if the throttle was held at much more than a crack. I never tried to run it under load for more than a half second under those conditions. I'm sure I must have started my low rpm tuning using 1st gear. Those adjustments were later refined in 5th and sixth gear. As you know, there's a different stock fuel table for each gear. One of the things I had wanted to do was unify the per gear mapping for fuel and timing or have a separate map for each gear in the PC5. It ran with the same fuel adjustments for all gears though.

Just real real slow to accelerate until about 3500-4000 then it would start making the torque needed to pull through the gear.

It definitely comes alive at 3500 rpm. I just cruise on mine real easy at 3000-3200 pretty much of the time. During break in, I tried to keep it at 4000 all of the time. To me, even that's a lot of power for ordinary street riding, even 3000 rpm is enough in any gear. I've done my best to not run it below 3000 at all so far, not even coasting to a stop. I pull the clutch lever if I'm going to coast at that low of an rpm. As you see in the video, the Gen1 isn't showing any sign of stalling even at almost idle speed in first gear. Of course, there's no load on the engine and it does have the +4T advantage. I tried to not lug the brand new Gen2 down at all and even now, I avoid it. After a thousand miles, I'm not going to worry much about it as long as it feels smooth.

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I bet the +4 in the rear was pretty fun. That's a very torquey setup.

I bought this neat little super long allen key to check the air duct plate bolts. All were right except 3 seemed to have loosened a little. The threads on those ones didn't appear to have a ton of loctite on them. My guess is the loctite was rubbed off while handling it on install. I just poured the loctite onto the tool after unscrewing the bolt 80%. The loctite would work its way down the bolt head and into the threads. only needed a little cleanup afterwards. Although with how small the hex size is- this tool didn't have very high twist resistance. Might revisit this with an alternate tool for more power. This certainly did the job at least. The 3 loose guys are no swimming in proseal red.

Snatched this photo as well. Looked pretty to me.

MicroTech ECU died. MAP sensor only reads -28 inches of vacuum. Faulty ECU. Called Richard and he confirmed it was likely a faulty ECU but he has never experienced an issue like that before. I shipped the unit back to him. $50 for shipping. 7 business days to deliver it. It's up to him if he wants to send me a unit out of his stock or ship my unit back to Australia to the manufacturer.... Sounds like a long wait no matter what happens. Another wasted day driving 2.5-3.5 hours away. Sat around sweating while the tuner was troubleshooting with Richard.

Bummer day...

The unit worked previously but suddenly stopped working. No clue what triggered it. Very weird. It's got no damage to the outside. It should be water tight. It has barely left the climate controlled garage so it's not like it's sat in the summer sun all day every day. Just decided to quit. The microtech plugs into a laptop and displays RPM and boost pressure. RPMs were spot on. Boost pressure never left -28 inches. We tried blowing on the unit and shooting some compressed air from about 6 inches away into the pressure line. It never budged. Weird stuff.

If the sensor for pressure is in the Microtech rather than a sensor on the air box that sends data to the Microtech, I suspect it's some kind of simple spring two way spring valve that failed in the Microtech. Just a theory but the Microtech may be giving the lowest negative reading because the spring failed on the positive side and no longer provides any opposition to it. What a drag! In any case, I'd be about ready to go straight with DJ and leave the Microtech out of the loop. DJ products might not be cutting edge but they are probably going to be the most reliable. Right now, I'd put most trust in what is most commonly being used.

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I'm a little into the microtech setup too much to ditch it. It's not impossible to convert to the regular injectors only but I'd need a different fuel line setup and fuel pressure regulator. I'd also need to work to plug the holes drilled in the airbox for the secondary rail, and figure out how to plug the airbox hole that currently has a fuel line running through it.

I'm gonna hold out for the new Microtech. Hopefully I can get it ironed out well

I'm gonna hold out for the new Microtech. Hopefully I can get it ironed out well

Glad to hear that because I'd like to know the final verdict. You are a very patient man.

I was just talking to Brock's and was told I pretty much need to have a flash if I'm going to use any aftermarket fuel management system on my 2024 14R. I at least need to flash to disable the stock O2 sensor otherwise it will simply reverse any fuel adjustments made by the piggyback. I assume your bike has a stock O2 sensor too. How'd you deal with that?

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I bought my bike with a moore mafia drag racing flash on it. Already had the O2 sensor removed. I am 50/50 if my bike even has a spot to plug one of those in from the factory. I dont see any unused connectors anywhere. I have a 2012, so it's still a Gen 2, but really 2016-2020 and 2020+ all have their own electronics differences. But the same engine and the same platics. You will definetly need to unplug your O2 sensor for any flash you get. Otherwise the ECU will constantly lean and richen the fuel map you have flashed in order to meet it's own desired AFR. Sounded backwards to me. but thats how it is across the board. Unless you go aftermarket ECU. Lots of people unplug the O2 sensor on their stock ecu engines to gain more fueling. Not sure if that works on the 14s though.

* Last updated by: danmin on 7/18/2025 @ 10:27 AM *