Rick Olivers Programable CDI. Track day test.
Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 5:13 pm
Well I decided that November was a good time of the year to do a track day so I booked up Snetterton. While getting a few bits and bobs sorted on the bike I noticed that I needed a new clutch cable. Luckily for me Rick Oliver only lives 5mins down the road so off I popped. While I was there I started talking to him about these Programmable CDI's as I had fancied one but was not quite sure how it worked or what it did. So Rick asked me if I fancied giving one a bash around the track and let him have some feed back about how I got on.
Ok first off I did not snap his had off because as I have a full Tyga system fitted to the bike and I still need to get the bike fully sorted on the jetting, so I did not know whether it was going to be a good idea, or if I would see any gains or not. But Rick said just take it and have a go, so I did.
First off when I got there the track was wet and I had brand new tyres on so I wanted to run the OEM CDI, and off I went. Straight away I was getting naffed off with the way my bike was running, massive flat spot around the 6k - 8k mark and if I was in the wrong gear coming out of a bend the bike was really slow to pick up. So I finished off this 20 min session, but I thought I would keep the set up as is because the bike was cold and had not been used for a good couple of months. I also wanted to use up the rest of the normal fuel that was in the tank before I went over on to the higher octane stuff.
20 more mins around the track like the last, the bike was feeling good but I was still not happy wishing that I had got my finger out and sorted the jetting for the full Tyga system that I was running. So time for a change off comes the rear seat unit and out comes the OEM CDI and in went the new one with HRC power curve programmed in it. Fuelled the bike up with high octane full.
The bike started and off I went.............oh what a difference this made. To be honest I did not think that there was going to be much of a change by just fitting a new CDI, what with the jetting issues I had already but I was wrong.
The bike was like new, it did not feel like there was a massive BHP gain in power but it was just 100% better, if that make any sense.
When I was on the power the engine just span up quicker and was a lot crisper through the rev range, there was no loss of power at any point, no flat spots. I even tried to go round bend in the wrong gear and the bike just picked up quicker than before.
So on the whole even with me being on the fence when I tried the unit out I was blown away by how much difference this made to the running of the engine. I would not say it adds much more in the way of power at all, but by Christ it makes the engine perform better. It is now on my shopping list. So a massive thanks the Rick for letting me have a play around the track with it fitted.
So I would say that if you want your engine to rev smoother, run crisper and just work loads better then how the OEM CDI has your engine running then this is for you. Plus for the money it is one hell of a cheap "bolt on" MOD.
If you have any questions let me know.
Matty.
Ok first off I did not snap his had off because as I have a full Tyga system fitted to the bike and I still need to get the bike fully sorted on the jetting, so I did not know whether it was going to be a good idea, or if I would see any gains or not. But Rick said just take it and have a go, so I did.
First off when I got there the track was wet and I had brand new tyres on so I wanted to run the OEM CDI, and off I went. Straight away I was getting naffed off with the way my bike was running, massive flat spot around the 6k - 8k mark and if I was in the wrong gear coming out of a bend the bike was really slow to pick up. So I finished off this 20 min session, but I thought I would keep the set up as is because the bike was cold and had not been used for a good couple of months. I also wanted to use up the rest of the normal fuel that was in the tank before I went over on to the higher octane stuff.
20 more mins around the track like the last, the bike was feeling good but I was still not happy wishing that I had got my finger out and sorted the jetting for the full Tyga system that I was running. So time for a change off comes the rear seat unit and out comes the OEM CDI and in went the new one with HRC power curve programmed in it. Fuelled the bike up with high octane full.
The bike started and off I went.............oh what a difference this made. To be honest I did not think that there was going to be much of a change by just fitting a new CDI, what with the jetting issues I had already but I was wrong.
The bike was like new, it did not feel like there was a massive BHP gain in power but it was just 100% better, if that make any sense.
When I was on the power the engine just span up quicker and was a lot crisper through the rev range, there was no loss of power at any point, no flat spots. I even tried to go round bend in the wrong gear and the bike just picked up quicker than before.
So on the whole even with me being on the fence when I tried the unit out I was blown away by how much difference this made to the running of the engine. I would not say it adds much more in the way of power at all, but by Christ it makes the engine perform better. It is now on my shopping list. So a massive thanks the Rick for letting me have a play around the track with it fitted.
So I would say that if you want your engine to rev smoother, run crisper and just work loads better then how the OEM CDI has your engine running then this is for you. Plus for the money it is one hell of a cheap "bolt on" MOD.
If you have any questions let me know.
Matty.