Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1367911
The Suzuki tuner has its own wiring har- ness and has to be physically plugged into the bike for it to work (there is no wireless connection here as there is with Yamaha's or even KTM's power tuner systems). Since the Suzuki still does not have e-start, which means there is no onboard battery, users must supply their own external 12-volt bat- tery to power the 2.0 Tuner unit. The battery powers the tuner, and the tuner connects to the phone via the app, which requires some phone tapping. Sounds like a pain? To be honest, it kind of is. It's a bit of a process to get it all wired up and you'll probably want to do all this first from the comforts of your garage. Then, you can simply bring all of your modified couplers with you to the track and swap them out as you see fit. By the way, Suzuki designed the MX- Tuner 2.0 so that it won't let you harm the engine, so you can experiment with a piece of mind that your bike won't blow up from your settings. In case you are wondering, the MX-Tuner 2.0 is compatible with the 2019-'21 RM- Z250 and 2020-'21 RM-Z450. If you already own one of these models, the Suzuki MX- Tuner 2.0 can be had for $600 and another $30 for the wiring harness, but everything, except the battery, is included with any new purchase within these model years. It is nice to see Suzuki taking a crack at the "smart-bike" market, and the app does offer some cool adjustability and features, but we'd gladly trade the whole battery, tuner and app combo for an electric starting system. FAMILIAR GROUND Everything else about the RM-Z450 is the same as it was, which isn't a terrible thing by any means. The bike still makes good old-school power that is still very much com- petitive to this day; it just doesn't deliver it in such an exciting fashion, though the new power tuner will help in this department. The Suzuki just doesn't have the same all-out power as its peers, but in reality, the RM-Z450 still has more power than most of us can fully use anyway (be honest now!), especially late in the moto. P136 RIDE REVIEW I 2021 SUZUKI RM-Z450 The RM-Z's ergos is still one of the best in the business. (Right) The RM- Z's suspension is good right out of the crate but can be made better after setting aside some track time for fine tuning. Luckily, the Suzook's suspension is fully adjustable.