No; completely unnecessary. If your bike runs good, then call it a day and enjoy it.
If you were a pro racer and you had access to ignition, fuel, and other tables... and you needed to get the last 5% of performance... then sure, a dyno session with a qualified tuner writing a custom tune may make more power with just breather mods... but resetting an ECM does nothing.
The GL1800 actually uses a couple of "3D" maps, one for low-load low-throttle and one for high-load high throttle. These maps are hard-coded and no reset, restart, or re-anything else is gonna change them. The ECM reads a set of basic inputs, checks the correction and control input sensors, and then generates a set of outputs to control ignition and fueling.
Whether your ECM is reset or not, it will still use the same set of sensors, in the same way, and it will still use the same tables to operate your engine.
Our ECM uses sensor input to adjust ignition and fueling, not adapt; that's something different. An adaptive ECM "learns" a particular driving style to help predict the engine control outputs.
Bob, the procedure above doesn't recallibrate. Recalibrating an ECM means that the map profiles in the pics I posted above have been re-written (re-shaped)... and that doesn't happen with a reset. It better not!
Back to factory? If you're not running a Guhl tune, you ARE at factory.
Reseting the ECM is vastly different from recalibrating it; Guhl is the only person I know of who is doing commercial recalibrations for the average Joe.
The calibration in this bike, or for that matter, in any production vehicle on the road, is not cal'd at sea level, nor is it cal'd at any other single altitude. OEM tuners go to GREAT lengths to create a single tune that is the best combination to work in ALL environmental conditions worldwide; high, low, hot, cold, dry, and humid.
Guhl could create a tune optimized for elevation, if he were so inclined $, but reseting the factory tune means that you are still running the factory tune (i.e. nothing is different).
Exactly how does the above procedure help a bike at elevation? And how does it recalibrate the ECM?
I'm open to the idea that I may be missing something... but I don't believe that procedure will do anything to help with elevation; how could it?
Valid concerns... but I'd be godsmacked if you can show me a filter and exhaust mod that will throw an OEM tune out of range. Maybe on a newer platform, but not on a platform that has been on the road for 15 years.
Tail pipe sniffers are for folks who are not serious about tuning engines. The AFR sensor needs to be pre-cat, not after. Even if you're running cat-less it needs to be much closer to the exhaust port. If you're not at stoich at idle, you'll know by the smell. If you ARE at stoich at high throttle, you'll know by having your engine blown.
Honda won't tune your bike but Guhl will. Try checking some of the Guhl threads or maybe Guhl's website for before and after a/f ratios on some dyno sheets that have been shared.