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My review of the Shoodabeen Hammer flash

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wayniac

Bicycle
I'd like to give my first impressions of my flashed ECU from Shoodabeen.
I rode over to Shoodabeen on Saturday the 18th and intentionally did some roll on pulls on the way over (I was already running the Mountain Runner flash). I wanted to have a comparison fresh in my mind before the ride home with the new flash.
After a nice chat with Steve including discussing the options I decided to go with the Hammer flash.
The Hammer flash is new but no secret it's on the website.
It's going to be the same as the Mountain Runner Premium in the upper range of throttle position. The difference lies in the bottom half of the throttle range where the Hammer flash makes the throttle response sharper than the Mountain Runner (standard) that I had been running. This lower throttle range is the same in Mountain Runner and Mountain Runner Premium.
Now that that's out of the way I'll give you my impressions. I should give you a little background...... I've been riding since age 7 (40 years now) with 32+ years on the street. I've owned standards, sport bikes including a GSXR 1000, touring bikes including a Goldwing 1800 and sport touring in the form of the Concours 14. I say all this to tell you that I appreciate power, torque and smoothness.
This flash delivers in every way!
The roll on power is impressive, there's no other way to say it. It's very noticeable coming from the Mountain Runner flash and must be a huge jump from stock. In the last two days I've tried to come up with a good description to put it into words.
The best I can come up with it feels as though you had been riding with a passenger or other load, dropped the load and the bike feels suddenly faster. It accelerates with much more authority and it is torque rich over a vast engine speed range. I did pulls in 3rd and 4th gear from about 40 mph on up and it pulls very strong.
The bottom end of the range feels very crisp and the throttle response is immediate. It feels like a bike with perfectly dialed in carburetors. When I first started riding fuel injected bikes my biggest complaint was the on/off throttle jerkiness and sometimes lag. There is none of that present.
I can compare the throttle response in the lower throttle range to the Mountain Runner and Premium (they are the same in the lower range) to this Hammer tune. I was told that the increased throttle sharpness might make it a little more challenging to be smooth with the throttle when compared to Mountain Runner. I didn't find this to be the case for me. I really really like the increased throttle sharpness/response.
To sum all this up I'd say

Mountain Runner
#1 quality is smoothness over stock
#2 quality is power gains that make for a sneaky fast bike without abrupt or harsh response.

Mountain Runner Premium (I can comment because I've ridden all parts of it)
This is for the guy that values that lower throttle setting smoothness but wants the animal to come out of the bike when you want wack it open.
Quality #1 smoothness
Quality #2 power but a more significant pull/acceleration on top.

Hammer
#1 quality is power and sharp throttle response throughout the range.
#2 quality and it's still very close is the smoothness. If there is any reduction in throttle smoothness I was barely able to perceive it and the improved response was a good trade-off for me.

This flash is a Home Run!

I've never been happier with this bike.

One last note, it's too soon to comment on the MPGs. I was having too much fun acting like a hooligan on the way home.

If you've been on the fence, do it now. I can't imagine anyone not being thrilled with the transformation.
 
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