And Yet Another New 2007 Owner

Honda USA must have had a disastrous year in 2007 with so many VFR leftovers sitting around in the warehouse. I don't want to start a new discussion of prices - but I picked my new 2007 up for a good price and a Ducati trade in. So far the verdict is out on the bike. I have to put more miles on it. The throttle has more flat spots below 6k than my high school chorus. There's also that weird throttle dip and then VTEC surge at about 6.8/7k. I'm going to "discuss" the throttle issues with the dealer when I bring the bike in for the first service. If that doesn't result in a significant improvent I'm going to see if a PC can tune out the throttle issues. (I figure that for what I paid for the bike it's worth doing on my own the development engineering that Honda should have done before they put the bike on the market). If I can't improve the throttle it's going to be a short ownership experience for me because I don't see how you can safely corner a bike with so many weird throttle issues, some of which I think relate to the FI and others to the VTEC.

 

From what I've read... and I've read EVERY single issue on the subject on these boards... it will tune out just fine. It just takes a PC and a good tuner. I will be doing this to smooth things out too, but I have been waiting till I can get everything I need for replacement exhaust and a few other mods before I jump in and get a custom map.

Others have also said that around 10k the bike really becomes broken in and it will smooth out a little more then. I can't attest to this as I picked up my bike around 15k.

 

As I said, the jury's out and I want to be fair to the bike. I don't have a lot of miles on it and I know from experience that a lot of issues that seem important when you first get a new bike kind of disappear as you adapt to it. Also, despite the close tolerances of modern engine assembly, it still takes some time for everything to loosen up and kind of "harmonize." But having said all of that, the fact that many owners finish engineering the bike with a PC is kind of a throw back to what bikes were like in the 60's and not something that I expected from Honda.

 

Check out "alaskan" home page and goto his photo gallery. There is only one picture in there. It's a dyno graph with before and after custom tune. We all have differant opinions on this subject but it sounds like you have the same concerns that I, alaskan, and others have had. His chart shows just how easy those things are to remedy. I'ld show you mine as well if I had a working scanner. Our numbers are essentially identical with similiar mods so I would have to think that they would apply to any 6gen with the same tune.

 

My VFR doesn't seem that bad at all. My previous daily ride was a 2002 Ducati ST2 with very linear power delivery, not much on top, but grunt in spades and great control. I don't find the VFR that much trouble to ride, but I do have a PCV and Autotune on order. Hopefully it'll take care of all the low speed throttle control issues, minor as they are.

Leo Smith