Back story -
For a while, I've been working on a custom made quickshifter. I had some experience with Arduinos and so I made a basic circuit that took input from a button and cut the ignition ground for x ms. It worked fine, but it was rough around the edges. If I had issues with it on my R1 that I commute on, it wasn't a big deal. But, I had a second home made QS that was on my race bike. I needed something bulletproof to get me through the season and my circuit wasn't the answer.
So, I started looking around for some standalone options & ended up coming upon the HealTech QuickShifter easy. I thought the button was pretty interesting and all the reviews I saw seemed to be pretty positive. I reached out to see if they offered sponsorships and they offered to send me some samples to help with R&D as I had some experience with developing my own QS.
They ended up sending me 1 module, 2 wiring harnesses, and 2 buttons so I could use it on my R6 & R1 and only have to swap over the module.
All unboxed
First impressions -
- I'm not sure how big I expected the module to be, but the thing is tiny!
- The wiring harness looks great and there's plenty of spare wire for routing however I like
- I have no idea how this donut looking button is supposed to sense my shifts...
Install -
button -
R6 - As recommended, I used the longer bolt that was supplied and put it on the shift knuckle. Basically, you tighten it down but only enough for it to be snug. It uses the minor movement of the knuckle to sense when you're shifting.
R1 - I have a ghetto GP shift setup on this bike because I didn't want to buy rearsets. Because of that, the knuckle was in a weird location and I was having trouble getting the button in the same place as the R6. I put the button inline with the shift rod instead (don't mind the second button. it's just a shell of the previous project that I needed to leave in beacuse I cut the shift rod down to fit.)
If you want to GP shift your '04 R1 -
harness -
R6 - The bike was in the shop for a valve job and so I had them throw the harness on while they were in the area. Looks like it was a pretty straightforward install though.
R1 - This one took a longer because I'm a little dumb. In a Saturday morning haze, I decided that the best way to get to the coils was by pulling off the airbox. After removing everything to get to the airbox, I realized I was wrong and ended up going at it from the front. After that, the installation was easy.
derp
module - Super easy. It's tiny, so put it wherever you like. I put mine under the seat.
app - It worked fine. Easy to install and use.
Pre ride tuning -
After everything is set up, you need to take your phone and connect it to the module via bluetooth. Once it's hooked up, you can change the timing and other settings. Before your first ride, you need to set the pressure threshold for where the button is shifting. It's easy to do and documented well. Basically if you bang on the shifter, it'll need to be less sensitive & if you just nudge the shifter, it'll need to be more sensitive. No news here.
1st ride & tuning -
R6 - I got it all set up after the last race of the season so I'll be doing testing/tuning early next year. I took it around the block and it works fine so far.
R1 - The QS engaged and the sensitivity was spot on. I found that the default settings had the cut set about 10ms too long across the board. After pulling over a couple times to tweak the cutoff settings, I had them set great. Even though I don't shift at full throttle often, the cuts worked great for street riding.
Here's a quick video of me merging onto the freeway. Not full throttle and shortshifting and the shifts still go great. Unfortunately I don't have any race vids of it - I'll get some taken when the season starts back up again.
https://youtu.be/kw60fMJW-4g
Summary - It just works! I really like the button/sensor (even thought it looks nothing like a standard button) and it makes installation much easier than needing to buy an aftermarket shift rod. Also, the fact that it works for push and pull is glorious. Setup and installation are easy and it's great to have a more robust system in place than the DIY setup I had before.
For a while, I've been working on a custom made quickshifter. I had some experience with Arduinos and so I made a basic circuit that took input from a button and cut the ignition ground for x ms. It worked fine, but it was rough around the edges. If I had issues with it on my R1 that I commute on, it wasn't a big deal. But, I had a second home made QS that was on my race bike. I needed something bulletproof to get me through the season and my circuit wasn't the answer.
So, I started looking around for some standalone options & ended up coming upon the HealTech QuickShifter easy. I thought the button was pretty interesting and all the reviews I saw seemed to be pretty positive. I reached out to see if they offered sponsorships and they offered to send me some samples to help with R&D as I had some experience with developing my own QS.
They ended up sending me 1 module, 2 wiring harnesses, and 2 buttons so I could use it on my R6 & R1 and only have to swap over the module.
All unboxed
First impressions -
- I'm not sure how big I expected the module to be, but the thing is tiny!
- The wiring harness looks great and there's plenty of spare wire for routing however I like
- I have no idea how this donut looking button is supposed to sense my shifts...
Install -
button -
R6 - As recommended, I used the longer bolt that was supplied and put it on the shift knuckle. Basically, you tighten it down but only enough for it to be snug. It uses the minor movement of the knuckle to sense when you're shifting.
R1 - I have a ghetto GP shift setup on this bike because I didn't want to buy rearsets. Because of that, the knuckle was in a weird location and I was having trouble getting the button in the same place as the R6. I put the button inline with the shift rod instead (don't mind the second button. it's just a shell of the previous project that I needed to leave in beacuse I cut the shift rod down to fit.)
If you want to GP shift your '04 R1 -
harness -
R6 - The bike was in the shop for a valve job and so I had them throw the harness on while they were in the area. Looks like it was a pretty straightforward install though.
R1 - This one took a longer because I'm a little dumb. In a Saturday morning haze, I decided that the best way to get to the coils was by pulling off the airbox. After removing everything to get to the airbox, I realized I was wrong and ended up going at it from the front. After that, the installation was easy.
derp
module - Super easy. It's tiny, so put it wherever you like. I put mine under the seat.
app - It worked fine. Easy to install and use.
Pre ride tuning -
After everything is set up, you need to take your phone and connect it to the module via bluetooth. Once it's hooked up, you can change the timing and other settings. Before your first ride, you need to set the pressure threshold for where the button is shifting. It's easy to do and documented well. Basically if you bang on the shifter, it'll need to be less sensitive & if you just nudge the shifter, it'll need to be more sensitive. No news here.
1st ride & tuning -
R6 - I got it all set up after the last race of the season so I'll be doing testing/tuning early next year. I took it around the block and it works fine so far.
R1 - The QS engaged and the sensitivity was spot on. I found that the default settings had the cut set about 10ms too long across the board. After pulling over a couple times to tweak the cutoff settings, I had them set great. Even though I don't shift at full throttle often, the cuts worked great for street riding.
Here's a quick video of me merging onto the freeway. Not full throttle and shortshifting and the shifts still go great. Unfortunately I don't have any race vids of it - I'll get some taken when the season starts back up again.
https://youtu.be/kw60fMJW-4g
Summary - It just works! I really like the button/sensor (even thought it looks nothing like a standard button) and it makes installation much easier than needing to buy an aftermarket shift rod. Also, the fact that it works for push and pull is glorious. Setup and installation are easy and it's great to have a more robust system in place than the DIY setup I had before.