Faster pussycat
By TMX Archives on 6th Jun 03
quite a few new products that I get asked to test at dbr towers. THERE ARE quite a few new products that I get asked to test at dbr towers. Having been involved at the sharp end of the business for so many years, there's rarely a product that's an all-new item that hasn't been seen in some form or another. So when a company in Northampton sent me their product I didn't really give it much notice.The iCAT is a small (say 25mm long) black plastic tube that fits in the HT wire between the ignition coil and the spark plug. I've seen these before and they never worked. Does anyone remember the Answer Roost Boost? It was a load of ***t!I know a new black-box will improve the power by altering the ignition curve and they can also offer a start setting - although the difference isn't great. They do have an effect but they're pretty pricey. So the iCAT stayed in the top of the Wobbly toolbox for a few weeks before I thought I'd give it a try. Big mistake!I should've been a little keener as Martin the iCAT bloke was quoting some pretty heavy hitters as users, people such as Roy Emberson, Robbies Herring and Reynard and the Albion KTM squad - all of whom have seen it all and are no fools, trust me.I tried it on the long-termer YZF450 and I have to say I've never had such a power increase from one (I want to say bolt-on part but it isn't) component as with this innocent looking plastic tube. I'm sold on it. The YZF is more of a beast than I can handle in stock trim but the iCAT makes the power smoother and easier to manage - although there's definitely more there.So here's the tech side. The tube contains an awful lot of aerospace components which electronically alter the shape and pulse of the spark to create 'Superior Burn Technology' (as it says in the brochure). All we need to know is roughly what it does, not how it does it. All it effectively does is give the spark plug a stronger, longer signal which in turn equates to a stronger, longer spark. This then burns all the mixture in the chamber, cutting down on the emissions.Emission control is what the iCAT was originally designed for - the power increase was a by-product. The resulting spark cleans up all kinds of jetting woes too - it means you can run the bike with a too-rich pilot jet and it'll run better while the throttle response is greatly improved as well. And engine bogging is pretty much a thing of the past too - I seriously can't fault the thing.I even fitted one to my new machine, a Suzuki DRZ110 pit-bike, which is in my Smith truck at all the Stateside races. After fitting a Pro-Circuit pipe the Suzuki needed jetting changes to clean up the bottom - two minutes later and one iCAT less the thing runs as good as the full race-prepped mini-bikes! You can also run a bigger plug gap as it's now strong enough to cope and one more bonus is that the bike will use less fuel.To fit the iCAT is simplicity itself - well it is now. The first ones Martin and the boys gave us to test were easy enough to fit if you had a HT crimping tool... A what? Now I don't own one of those - never have - so I'm guessing most of you lot don't either. So I suggested simply having the fittings with a screw-fit the same as in the plug cap, eliminating the need for any tools whatsoever. All you do is cut the HT lead in a position the iCAT won't bother anything and screw the thing in-line, it even says which end will point towards the coil on the sticker. The only bikes which need a specially made one are the four-stroke Yamahas as the ignition coil and the plug cap are all one item found in the long plug tube that runs through all of the gubbins in the head.The iCAT will fit anything with a plug - although the thing runs on a percentage-related gain so fitting it to a PW50 isn't gonna give you the same power gains as on a CRF450. It's certainly a lot more impressive on the bigger four-stroke bikes. I know that the list of people currently testing these things worldwide is impressive as Pro-Circuit, FMF, Bill's Pipes and Terry Varner have all dyno'd bikes with these on and are currently track testing.