E-Bay is a wonderful site for sourcing the things you need for your bike and it was this thought process that I had for sourcing a PC III for my Fireblade RR5. However, it seemed I always being outbid, or just that I wouldn't pay the price required. But, I thought, perhaps they are cheaper in the States? And as I was going anyway ...

I have just returned from the States and in my possession was a brand new PC III USB for a 2004/5 CBR1000RR, all for the princely sum of £138.77. The pound to dollar rate being a large factor here, but that price is still cheaper than any 2nd hand unit I had been bidding for on E-Bay!! How come the Americans always seem to get such good deals?

Upon reading the instructions it all looked very straightforward to fit, basically a case of unplugging the OEM injector loom and replacing it with the PC loom. But before attempting this I had to find the map for my bike's current setup. I have a Micron slip-on end can and BMC Air Filters; these on their own make a difference to lower pull below 4000 revs over the stock setup, but the PC III is supposed sort the fuelling even further.

The first thing to do and which Dynojet recommend is install the CD-ROM that comes with the kit. Once you do this it allows you to get onto the Dynojet website and find the fuel map for your bike. I found mine easy enough, in fact there are about 45 setups you can download and these cover a variation from a completely stock bike to whatever air filter and exhaust system you may have. As my kit came from the US, I had to scroll down a bit until I found the set up for a European model Blade, but sure enough it was there.

Now, there are 2 ways of loading the set up into the PC III unit itself. You can fit the PC III to the bike first and then plug in a laptop with the downloads installed and transfer direct that way via the supplied USB cable. All very pit lane and race team looking.

Or you can do what I did - upload the fuel map into the PC III before fitting it to the bike by powering up the PC III unit remotely with a 9V battery and the 9V lead supplied in the kit. Just remember the battery is not included!!

The latter worked fine and is dead simple, even to a technophobe like me.

From wheeling the bike out and starting to remove the front and rear seats, the tank cover, the left hand fairing screws, (top and furthest back of the 4 screws), the tank retaining bracket and the rear seat unit screws, (no need to physically remove the seat unit, just the screws to allow the panels to be moved for threading the loom through), the job took approximately one hour to complete from start to finish.

Once the tank is lifted up and you use a socket extension bar to keep it there, it's all very straight forward. The lower injectors are the ones you have to get at, but these clip out of situ very easily. In total there are 5 leads on the PC III loom. On the end of each of the 4 x PC III injector leads there are 2 x plugs, one (the grey one), replaces the OEM one you remove from the injector, you then plug this into the smaller 2 pin plug (black), that is on the PC III loom, (so in effect the OEM system stays in place, it's just wired differently).

The 4 injector plugs have different coloured wire on them and you start from far left with the Orange wired connector, (all this is included in the instructions) and then work your way from left to right. Finally you locate the TPS (Throttle Position Sensor, this is why you remove the 2 x left hand fairing screws) and follow the same method as the injectors, plugging the OEM plug into the smaller Dynojet connector and the bigger Dynojet connector onto where the TPS connector went, I cannot explain how easy it is and it is virtually impossible to get it wrong, unless you are colour blind of course?!

On the PC III unit there are 3 x buttons, for low, medium and high revs. I left these alone and would only alter them if the bike was to be dyno tested on a rolling road to make the fuelling as finite as possible.

The PC III unit sits snugly under the rear seat unit and can be held in place with the supplied Velcro. When you turn the ignition on, with handle bar run switch on, you see a green light scroll up and down and then settle on the Fuel minus sign. Then you start the bike and voila it works.

I then took the bike out for a 30 mile ride to test it and have to say the difference is instantly noticeable. The lower revs fuelling is smoothed out nicely. I tried a top gear roll on from 2000 revs and there is still a slight lag, (as perhaps expected?), but in the lower gears from 2000 revs the pick up is much sweeter than before and enhances the rush you get when you hit 8000 revs. All the way through the rev range from 2000 to 11000 revs the bike feels great.

What exact BHP increase this gives I really couldn't tell you, but there is a marked improvement and it is by far and away the best 138 quid I have ever spent on performance enhancements for my bike. My local Honda dealer here in Belgium reckons it even works well on a completely stock bike too.

The speed with which one of these can be fitted makes me think back to when I used to have to remove carbs, slides, springs, jets, drill holes and phaff about with needle positions a thing of the distant past, thank god for fuel injection!!!

UPDATE

With a full Arrow exhaust system and B&C air filters plus the Power Commander on a Fuchs dyno the bike now has a power output of 178 BHP at the crank, 170 at the front sprocket and 164 at the rear wheel. Power comes in nicely from about 4000 revs and pulls very well through the rest of the rev range. So in essence the Blade now produces 12 BHP more than it did when Honda bolted it all together in Japan.

On the road this power is nice to have, but it's never going to be a V twin, or a 2008 Blade which has more bottom end punch but less overall power output. Nothing's ever perfect ..