Ok so I’m quite excited about this. It’s been in the works for coming up to a year now but till we reached a particular point where we were both happy, I’ve had to keep things kinda under wraps.
Several years ago, sparked off by a conversation with Legend of Legend’s Garage (who used to do a fair bit of R125 stuff), I learned about Tuneboss ECUs, which seem to be quite popular in the R125 racing community (in europe anyway).
I got in touch with Tuneboss but since the previous ECUs were a limited run there were simply none to be had.
3 years pass and then I get an email asking if I’m still interested in buying a few ECUs. At the time I was just looking to buy 2 or 3, mostly for my own usage but perhaps for a few other friends if they were interested.
Either way, we got chatting and things escalated and whilst the UK/EU market is small compared to the Asian market, they wanted to have a presence here.
Why exactly am I so excited?
well, currently I have more or less “the best setup I know of” on my 2008 R125 – so PCV+wideband with autotune, and a hacked/reflashed OEM ecu to increase the RPM limit and tweak the timing. That gives “tune-as you ride” functionality with an 11.5K RPM limit, which translates into a very fun ride, geared for approaching triple digits.
That being said…
For starters – the Tuneboss ECU is a direct replacement for the OEM unit, which means no having to intercept wires for the injector etc to fit it in the first place, so installation is easier (literally just swap it in for the stock one, done!).
Plus I can’t help but think that having “first hand” info from the loom is better than having “second-hand” info from a piggyback controller. I know the difference must be marginal but one device responding to another device has to be less ideal than just sorting everything in The Actual ECU.
But it also can do ignition timing and has a feature equivalent to autotune built in, and it can all be tweaked from my Android phone over bluetooth, rather than needing a laptop and USB cable as with the PCV.
Also whilst re-flashing the OEM ECU is possible (e.g. for ignition timing adjustments), and for certain circumstances is necessary (e.g. racing where rules only allow a piggyback, not aftermarket ECU) it’s quite an involved process so the slightest adjustment is a 30-60mins round trip…whereas with the Tuneboss ECU you can make adjustments literally *while the engine is running*. Game-changer!
Tuneboss are also the only ECU manufacturer to support gen1, gen2 and gen3 bikes where support for any kind of aftermarket mapping has been sadly absent for gen2 and 3, much to the frustration of gen2/3 owners.
For me this was like emailing mclaren and saying “hey what’s up, lemme at that sweet tech” and they reply “sure, here you go”. So when I’m waxing lyrical about these devices it’s because I think they are BAD_ASS. Any sales relationship came afterwards. The first contact was because i wanted one of these for my bike to make it faster, because that’s what I do.
So after some back and forth, they bought me a gen3 bike to test on and sent me a couple of development ECUs and so far what I’ve seen is very impressive.
Why northcust?
Compared to the UK/EU the asian market for small-cc bikes is huge. Some places like Sri Lanka have absolute restrictions on max cc (250max) which means there’s a thriving market for tuning parts and weird and wonderful small-cc bike. Also they don’t have the 125cc restriction so the R15, or FZ150i is the “standard” since the licenses tend to be less restrictive. The R125 isn’t even a thing there.
This poses a problem – how do TB market an ECU in the UK/EU but then be unable to supply a starting map for it?
This is where I come in. For better of worse, I seem to have ended up as one of the only tuners in the UK dedicated to R125s. Most tuning shops are only interested in bigger bikes. If you search for “R125 PCV map” I’m listed *before* dynojet who actually made the PCV (!). I’ve helped remap bikes all over the world so I guess in a way I’m actually the logical (only) choice for a project like this (which I’m pretty pleased with myself about ngl).
So my role in this is to take the Tuneboss ECUs which are intended (and prepared) for an asian market (R15, FZ150i etc) and produce maps which are compatible with the R125 (and equivalents). Otherwise you could buy an ECU but there would exist no map for it.
Toward that end I built a basic dyno (which Tuneboss sponsored the build of), I have a development gen3 bike and my job is to produce a map for the UK/EU bikes. This is what I’m working on currently. I will also sell and provide after-sales support for UK/EU devices.
The Tuneboss ECU also includes the option of connecting a wideband module (purchased separately, still requires adding an o2 bung to your exhaust system), which then uses their equivalent of Dynojet’s “Autotune” module.
Please be clear this is an addon which requires the purchase of a specific wideband/module as well as needing an O2 sensor bung adding to your exhaust, so won’t be for most people, and is not part of the standard package). Most folks will just buy the ECU, load up the most suitable map and enjoy riding.
The thing I was waiting for, and why all this had to stay somewhat under wraps, was to see the “Staytuned” (autotune) module working on my gen3 dev bike, so then I *knew* I could build a decent map for it by riding and dyno time.
Well the other week I had the priviledge of meeting one of the Tuneboss head-honchos while they were in the UK and that coincided with the first version of the staytuned feature being functional. While he was here we also got the staytuned running on the dev bike and I have seen it working with my own eyes, hence I’m happy to make the announcement now.
I’ve already made some refinements to the dyno but that means over the next few weeks I’ll be using time riding (with Staytuned active) and some dyno tweaking to try and produce a credible map for UK/EU bikes which will then be distributed as THE MAP for this region, which means that you, dear reader, can order one of these whizzy new ECUs and be confident that the map will work on your gen3 bike.
And if there’s a problem I will be on hand to support it. Personally after-sales support is hugely important to me when I buy something so I feel like that’s a real bonus here. I have provided one-on-one support for countless R125s now and having that baked into the process seems like a great idea to me.
We’ve set up a website specifically for the sale and support of Tuneboss products, and given I have a background in coding, ecommerce and IT support, and also fix bikes remotely just for fun, again I’m kinda ideally placed to sell and support these products.
Because I’m a one-person operation and also just because of how it worked out timing-wise, we’re doing this in stages.
I want to make sure everyone gets a product they’re happy with, and selling a gazillion of these units would likely be too much for me to handle, so we’re going to be doing these in small batches (e.g. 10 at a time) and by generation. First up is Gen 3 (2019-2021). Then will be gen1 (2008-2013) and then gen2 (sorry, but gen2 is complicated).
So on the Tuneboss UK site I’ve set up mailing lists where you can register interest for your generation of bike. Since units are limited they will be offered for sale to the people on the mailing list, in the order they signed up.
We are already at 2/10 slots for the first batch of gen3 ECUs so if you have a gen3 you want to make faster then (even if you ultimately decide not to buy) maybe chuck your email on the list so you at least have “the option “dibbs”.
We will also be doing some market research on those lists to ensure compatibility. e.g if everyone on the list has a particular exhaust we’ll get one and produce a map for it so everyone is catered for.
For myself I’ve always felt like I’m “on the outside looking in” as far as development goes, which has meant I’ve had to reverse-engineer and make-do on the PCV, whereas here we have a company that is recognising and engaging with grassroots riders like you and I, and just like I have, you have a chance to become part of the development process and decide how this goes. Very cool!
The basic ECU, which lets you tune fuel and timing over bluetooth from your Android device (no IOS sorry), lets you set things like cold start adjustment and on gen3 also VVA activation will sell for £299, delivered.
That’s comparable to the PCFC and considerably less than the PCV, especially considering the Tuneboss can also adjust RPM limit and adjust ignition timing, which neither PCFC or PCV can do. It also includes the StayTuned module which is an additional £258 if you want to add it to your PCV (£450). Quite an impressive saving I think you’ll agree.
The only thing I’ve seen the PCV offer that the Tuneboss can’t do is the “per gear mapping” – which adds a speed-sensor into the mix and is meant to allow having a different map (and corresponding AFR target table) for each gear, based on the logic that x% throttle and y rpm may require different fuelling in 1st vs 6th. However, I have tried to implement the per-gear mapping on my PCV and failed. The OEM speed sensor in the front wheel doesn’t register with the PCV, so you would need to add a second hall-sensor to register speed on the rear wheel which is…not trivial.
When I spoke to Dynojet support about this (who were very helpful, if a little surprised) I very much got the impression I was the only person in the world ever to have tried to do this, so I’m not seeing it as a legitimate downside.
Other neat things about it being an OEM-replacement ECU rather than a piggyback ECU would be for example that we will also be including a quickshifter (if you want it) with the first few orders.. because you can do that sort of thing if you’re the ECU. I only have a limited number of quickshifters so they will be offered as available.
Also worth noting is that the Tuneboss ECUs offer FULL DATA LOGGING by default. So you can turn that on and it just records every ride – so then you can look back at your run to see how things were – so TPS, RPM, time, and if you have a wideband installed AFR values too (and probably a bunch I’ve forgotten). Very, very cool! especially if racing.
Gen2 side-quest:
On gen2 there is the repeated theme of “what about the narrowband O2 sensor”. Various piggybacks have tried to navigate around this – the Rapidbikes EVO claims to support gen2 up to 2016, and (apparently) sends a slightly fluctuating signal to the ECU to replace the actual reading from the NBO2 sensor. I think the powertronic does the same… but, if you’re *the ECU* (rather than a piggyback) you can simply opt to ignore it. And thus the Gen2 becomes as tunable as the Gen1 by reverting to an effectively open-loop system 🙂 (unless you add the wideband kit which then means you can run StayTuned). Pretty. Damn. Sweet!
Since the first contact Tuneboss have been amazing to deal with, and their obvious enthusiasm for the product and focus on dealer-support has been really refreshing. Especially now having met them in person I’m very excited about where this could lead.
For me both as an R125 enthusiast and as a budding tuner, this is very exciting since I get to tune bikes and apply the knowledge I’ve acquired to make bikes faster rather than punching numbers into boxes, which I’m super here for!
Once we have the gen3 set up properly I’ll be installing one of the dev kits onto my 180cc Gen1 and see what difference that makes, and building a stock Gen1 to produce initial maps on for gen1 owners.
So in summary…
Gen1, Gen2 and Gen3 supported. Get yourself onto the mailing list if you’re even slightly interested. As soon as I have units available for each gen they will be announced there before anywhere else. We will be conducting research re mods etc on those lists to ensure we cover all bases as far as we can.
Initial sales will be through paypal, bank transfer or bitcoin, but once we’re properly set up I’ll get a proper merchant account so we can accept all cards.
Thank you very much to Tuneboss Malaysia for excellent comms and support so far. I hope this is a long and productive partnership 🙂
If you are a bike dealership and want to offer these products, please contact me and I can get you set up.
