Engine braking

[Gravisman]

Hello to all the fast dudes and dudettes out there. I just started riding a race prepped fz-07 and coming from a ZX-6R I’ve been caught out by how powerful the engine brake is. In my first track day I found myself letting the revs drop a bit before downshifting to make the engine brake feel more manageable. I’m used to leaning heavily on the slipper clutch for downshifts, and maybe that’s part of the problem, though I do have a yoshimura slipper on the FZ-07. Anyway, I’m curious what techniques others are employing to tame the engine brake. I’ve been thinking about trying out some different gearings with the thought that maybe a smaller rear sprocket would ease the engine braking.

[mjh937]

I did not like the engine braking either, so I had my ECU flashed by 2 Wheel Dynoworks.  They remove the fuel cutoff on deceleration and it makes a big difference.  You can find them in the supporting vendors section of the website.  There are a lot of guys here who race, so they may have some other options for you.  

[mossrider]

Like MJ said, I use a flash to bleed it some fuel on chop throttle among a few other little hacks. I delay my downshifts a moment to minimize e-braking some. I'm using a Yoyodyne slipper with the red buttons, stock springs and plates also. Having said that, it still drags some, since it's a twin rather than a small bore inline 4 it has more intrinsic back torque. Learn to use it to your advantage.

 

[Gravisman]

Realized I said yoshimura when I meant yoyodyne. Thanks for the tips on ECU flashing - I’ll definitely look into that. Is the amount of fuel during deceleration a tunable parameter with the flash kit or is it just on/off?

[mossrider]

Tunable

[Gravisman]

[Kiwii]

If you want to do the ECU flash yourself: jake the garden snake on YouTube has a video on it. He uses the FTecu kit. There’s an option to turn off the engine braking on the computer program. Haven’t done it myself but very tempted. The ecu flash kit is a bit pricy ~$300. 

[Gravisman]

Yeah, I think I'm going to play with the parameter myself. It turns out my bike has an aftermarket ECU from aRacer Speedtek so my flashing story is a bit different, but I'll report back when I'm able to test out some changes.

[scratchpad]

On 9/4/2020 at 6:29 AM, Gravisman said:

Yeah, I think I'm going to play with the parameter myself. It turns out my bike has an aftermarket ECU from aRacer Speedtek so my flashing story is a bit different, but I'll report back when I'm able to test out some changes.

get a hold of Matt @spatt he may be able to help you out as he uses and deals with the aRacer stuff 

[Spatt]

Engine braking on aRacer isn’t like flash tune.  It controls the ISC and its duty cycle and control off throttle injection.

you can basically remove all engine braking and free wheel the bike into the corners if you want.   It’s rider specific so I generally tune it at the track.