Tag Archives: YZF-R125 racing

The becoming of a drag queen?

So I went to check out a disused airfield nearby (in the header) with a view to doing some sort of top speed run, as legally as possible, on level ground.

And whilst it’s a great moody spot (especially in the mist) and it might work for head-to-head over an 1/8 mile or something like that, unfortunately it wasn’t really smooth enough to even be thinking about trying to get near triple digits like i’d been hoping to.

Which sucks, I was really hoping it would be suitable as santa pod is such a looong way away.

Well, dismayed I went back to check out if any other options had magically presented themselves, and in fact they had!

Last year I booked in to an event at Dakota Raceway which was then cancelled at short notice, and given they’d cancelled all events for the rest of the year after that, I thought it was game over there.

But apparently they’re back, which is awesome. and they have a RWYB event on the 16th August….so….

BOOKED!

Unfortunately it’s also only 1/8mile rather than 1/4, so we still won’t be hitting top speeds and will need to gear right down, and it’s likely to be as rough as the other airstrip, but it’s organised racing with (presumably) proper timing gear and any racing is fun so hell tf yes. Plus I bet they have an ambulance on standby which is a lot more than we’d have out in the wilderness by ourselves.

No-prep, not no prep:

So given I’ve been kinda flat out with moving the last couple of years, i’ve not really done a whole lot to the bike. I was very lucky in that I was able to just build the current engine, put it in and it *relentlessly*worked*great* for a couple of years, despite much adverse weather and circumstance. Nonetheless, I still wanted to give her an at least cursory going over to check there weren’t any glaringly obvious issues pending which might escalate when being run repeatedly down some rough concrete. I also wanted to just listen and feel and check that what I’d been observing while out riding was actually grounded in reality.

Dyno time

Whilst my dyno still doesn’t really give reliable power readings (yet!), so i can’t really say “it has x hp” with any certainty (at all), it does let me observe the bike closely while it’s under load, which is something I don’t usually get to do (e.g. when riding).

Whilst I’ve been working on the 2019/gen3 i’ve been kinda spoilt since the Tuneboss ECU works over bluetooth so I was able to keep my phone connected the whole time and either watch the map or be datalogging or whatever the whole time – it’s been rather convenient.

However, this bike is built using “prev-gen” technology so it’s all laptops and USB cables to talk to the PCV, flashing ecus (very slowly) with a spaghetti of wires and a half-hour round-trip to make a single change (and risk bricking your ECU)..arg. I’m realising how easy i’ve had it on the gen3 xD.

Since i can’t fit a laptop on the fuel tank, I also can’t usually have the PCV software hooked up when it’s in gear and under load so being able to see the AFR values and just generally how it’s doing whilst feeding it different throttle situations, is pretty useful (again, on the gen3 the AFR gauge on the dash let’s me keep an eye on that while riding).

I’m sure I’ll figure the dyno thing (not being able to get truly comparable/repeatable results) out in due course, and in fact i have thoughts on this so I’m trying to not be too annoyed that it hasn’t worked perfectly like I expected right out of the gate, but instead am trying to use the roller in ways I *can* apply and are still helpful… like being able to see what the bike does at 60mph.

Power readings or not, that’s still incredibly useful from a diagnostic perspective. Imagine being able to observe, prod and poke your bike while it’s at speed and hooked up to monitoring gear? Very handy.

I had a few modifications planned for the bike and was hoping to get them done before Dakota but actually my takeaway from today’s session is “it’s great! don’t mess with it, go race”, so I’m going to do just that and give myself a break for once.


Forced modifications, vibrational harmonization:

The modifications mentioned above are neither whimsical nor through choice.

Continue reading The becoming of a drag queen?

Northcust becomes UK/EU distributor for Tuneboss ECUs \o/

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.

image shows an A4 plaque which reads "Tuneboss Authorized Distributor, UK & EU"
Continue reading Northcust becomes UK/EU distributor for Tuneboss ECUs \o/

R125 Racer Profile: Cramy

So I’m not 100% sure where I’m going with this but I’ve been chatting to a few folks who race R125s in actual race series, and have recently helped tune a couple of them too. Oddly enough both the bikes I helped with are from a fairly similar part of Australia…not sure why that is, maybe they just have good taste 😉

Either way till recently I wasn’t even aware that there really *was* anyone using R125s for any sort of racing, but was obviously *delighted* to find out I was wrong.

Continue reading R125 Racer Profile: Cramy

First real sponsor!

So as you may or may not know, so far I’ve come up empty on what the current speed record for an R125 is, so I figured if there isn’t one, why not try to set one (with proof – pics or it didn’t happen!).

Even with many things in my favour, it turns out this is quite an expensive undertaking. It’s a long way to pretty much anywhere from Devon so fuel and entry fees are enough of a problem to be a problem, especially when trying to ensure a working bike too.

Hence – sponsors 🙂

"New Jersey Is a Lifestyle" - Business/Lifestyle directory for New Jersey, Sponsors top speed attempt on Yamaha YZF-R125 from UK tuner Northcust
Continue reading First real sponsor!

Racing services

So rather to my surprise, there appears to be a niche for folks who use R125s for racing series, who have to comply with series/class rules, and where (for example) fitting an aftermarket ECU is not permitted, but a piggyback+oem ECU is ok.

So if you’re chasing every last drop of speed to fend off those pesky suzukis whilst wanting to stay within your class rules, there are certain things we can do with an OEM ecu which you probably wouldn’t do on a regular street bike, but would be ok with a more built engine…such as raising the RPM limit, ignition timing tweaks etc.

Whilst I’m planning on moving away from an oem+piggyback setup myself in favour of a drop-in replacement aftermarket ECU, I do currently run a modified oem ecu + piggyback (PCV+autotune) setup in my main ’08 bike with its rebalanced internals, and that merrily screams all the way to 11.5K rpm.


Modifying the oem ECU is quite laborious and a bit of an arcane process, which (for street bikes anyway) makes it largely a less preferable option to a replacement/aftermarket ECU which can be easily tuned from a mobile device over bluetooth.

Street bike engines have usually also not been prepared to the same degree as race engines, and as such race engines may be able to handle things like a higher RPM limit or more timing more comfortably because they’ve been equipped with uprated valve springs, different fuels, adjusted internal balancing etc.

So if you find yourself in the position of needing some little adjustments to your oem ECU, then please get in touch to discuss your requirements.

Whilst I normally like to share as much info as I can, unfortunately the nature of racing means I can’t really give examples of work I’ve done, but if you’re needing a little additional RPM or other specific changes to the oem ecu, please do drop me an email.