Yeah, I'd got curious and did a spot of reading about them. They do sound pretty sweet - check this youtube of the Fastbikegear Frankencati wringing its nuts off:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6u5wi9Mvjo
Of course that's a very highly modded bike, I expect that the muffler has a lot to do with the sound.
The downsides so far seem to be:
- price
- sensitive to EMI emissions from the coils so relocation of CDI to tail might be needed and / or shielding on all electrical lines
- won't work well with CA Cycleworks coils
- can have problems with corrupted firmware (OK, once in a blue moon, but it's happened)
- doesn't like the battery getting a bit flat
Full credit to Liam, he's completely open about these issues and welcomes discussion of them.
In terms of reliability of the OEM Kokusans, they actually did let me down once, in the worst rain I've ever ridden in. Bakeout (at 50 C, fan bake oven) and silicone seal grease got them going again.
For now, I'll keep going with the Kokusans, since going to Ignitech is going to cost $$... need coils, Hall sensors, TPS as well as the programmable CDI.
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