Boer's BMW Booster Thingamabob.

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Nov 14, 2007
Messages
27,808
Reaction score
10,079
Bike
BMW R1200GS
Ja, so, due an error by Eskom I didn't have to pay the lektriek bill this month and had about R1k burning a serious hole in my pocket.  With my pocket almost on fire, I read about the so-called accelarerator plug.  Wanted to buy some Capey dude's second hand one, but he sold it before I could make up my mind, so off I went to see Boer.   He fitted the thing in a few minutes, cash exhanged hands and, full of expectations, off I went.  I have now ridden my bike just on 300km's with the plug installed.  Herewith my feedback.  I will list all expactations (my own as well as what I read on the web) and how well they were met:

Bike:  

2009 BMW R1200GS (Acropovic can)

Cooler running:

Can't sday as the GS heat guage does not measure in small increments.


Barking:

Reduced to a level that keeps the 18 year old in me happy, without embarresing the 50 year old.

Smoother Idling:

It never really bothered me, so I didn't expect any change.  I did however read some stuff on the web that the plug will provide a "stronger" idle.  I won't bet my salary on this, but I am pretty sure I do now have a smoother idle, especially when the bike is warm.

Throttle response:

I absolutely required this improvement.  I grew up in the carburettor era.  Me, myself and I control the throttle, not some propellor head, rocket scientist type dude in a far away country.  Me and only me!  I feel strongly about this and the Accelerator thingy gave me exactly that.  Also, not being Valentino Rossi, in my normal commuting I seldomly exceed 4500 revs (exactly where the plug does its job) and therefore, the bike feels awesome all the time with that dastardly throttle vagueness gone.  For me, this is a dramatic improvement, especially at revs below 4000.  This makes the bike much more responsive and easier to ride as throttle movement gives exactly what is expected by the rider.   I am an instructor with a rider school and I found the Beemer irritating to control properly during slow speed manauvers, i.e. figure 8's etc.  It was now spot on.

Better performance:

I wasn't too concerned if the bike had more power or not.  It does have oodles of power anyway, but I noted some claims in this regard on forums, all over the place.  I can't bet my eye teeth that there is more power, ergo more performance.  I does however feel that way and what is fact, is that is is much easier to get off the mark quickly.  Prior to fitting the plug, I felt that too much clutch slip was required to really make it fly off te mark.  Now it feels like I would expect a 1200cc bike to feel.  There is a vast improvement in what I call "roll-on" power as well.  By this I mean cruising in a gear and you need to go just a tad faster.  In the past, you would open the throttle and wait.  Now the bike immediately increases speed and feels powerful doing so as well.  I don't know if a dyno will confirm this, but to me that is unimportant.  The bike is more rideable and that is important to me.

Smoother:

Indeed!  I found a smoothing out of things in two areas that irked me a tad about this bike.  First, normal slow riding and gear changes, especialy 1 through 3 or 4.  The plug made a big difference.  The biggest thing that truly irritated me was changing gears when hammering it through the revs.  Changing gears at high revs was like a bloody beginner on a 50cc two stroke.  You just could not seem to syncronise clutch and throttle.  That is 90% gone and for me, that alone is worth the price of the plug.  I am a tad old to change gears like a beginner!

Fuel consumption:

I didn't expect anything, but initial indications are an improvement in fuel consumption of about 0,2 l/100km, or about 0.8 km/l.  One tank is not a large enough sample to really say, so I will monitor this for awhile.

Pinging:

My bike seemed to have a noise from the engine, especially when asked to accelarate hard from lowish revs.  It sounded like the start of a fine ping to me, although BMW techies couldn't hear anything untoward.  That noise is now gone.  It indicates to me that the sound I heard was the start of a ping and with the thingamajig in place, that was resolved.  





General:

There isn't much wrong with the R1200GS.  It is an awesome bike to start with.  With the plug is just gets so much nicer to ride and with my limited knowledge, all the changes I experienced tells me that the bike is now running a tad richer than before.  Obviously this can only be proven by a proper dyno test, but I am happy.  A tad rich is always better than a tad lean in terms of engine wear and a tad lean makes the bike less responsive and enjoyable to ride.

Thanks Boer!  It works as stated and more.




 











 
Top