Bolt On Horsepower or Snake Oil?

[steve125]

Originally posted by marcusgunby
Well we tested and im sad to say it showed no gain on power or torque.

Swap was so fired up about this I-Cat, he was headed right over to the dyno and would report back over on the Moto News site. It's been 2 weeks and have'nt heard a word about it since. I guess he knows now what you know Marcus.

We'll name it the " I-Can't" from now on,  cuz "I can't" waste $200 on that little piece of plastic!, thanks Marcus. :thumb:

 

 

 

[CaptainObvious]

Originally posted by steve125
We'll name it the " I-Can't" from now on

Until someone proves otherwise, that's a good name.

 

[truespode]

So I guess we don't "need one" as the TWMX article suggests :)

The bad thing is I respect TWMX more than I do most any other magazine so I'm actually saddened by this news that there is not a gain. I was hoping they would be right.

Oh well. Life goes on.

Ivan

 

[marcusgunby]

This is how the ICAT seems to appear to have a power increase-in time mode on the dyno it shifts the curve left or right depending on how fast the operator presses the button to capture a run-,a one second delay makes a huge difference but as you can see the graphs are really the same-just one is shifted across, if you super-impose them , they are the same.

 

[marcusgunby]

this is the engine speed version-you see when the dyno converts the time to engine speed it evens out and the difference is negligable.The ICAT is the red line.

 

[bclapham]

i still think it would be worth putting it on the bike and actually riding it- i have much more confidence in young marcus's test ridng abilities :worship:

 

[bclapham]

Originally posted by Truespode
The bad thing is I respect TWMX more than I do most any other magazine so I'm actually saddened by this news that there is not a gain. I was hoping they would be right.

this months issue saddened me a bit, "there can be no denying the fact that more noise equals more HP" :silly:

 

[markymark77]

Thanks for your efforts Marcus. You saved me from blowing $200 for nothing.

 

[nephron]

Wow. This one shows 10 hp increase @ 5 seconds! :silly: The YZ250 curve in their ad cuts off early and shows nothing beyond where they cut it off. What a surprise.

 

[swapmoto]

Man, I love reading posts on this BB that say "real world tests." Why on earth would you imply that the conclusions that we arrive at are not "real world?" If anything, magazine testers should be able to offer thorough feedback because we get to test a wide variety of products. If you've read TWMX at all, you'll know that not every product we test gets a rave review. The Icat people are NOT advertisers, so scratch that "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" theory out the door.

The Icat, we've found, does not actually show any results on the dyno. Well, none to write home about, that it. However, every single person who has tried ours has been very impressed. I'm sure that there are some tuners on here who will admit that big gains on the dyno don't always translate to a better feel on the track. Why can't that work both ways? (and I did post my findings on mototalk...) I was so amazed that the dyno runs showed little or nothing, that I headed back to the track with several bikes and took the icat on and off.

Furthermore, several riders at the track who have nothing to do with TWMX have been impressed with the device, without any pre-ride influence from me. The Icat cleans up the way the bike revs and you can feel a noticeable difference on the track. On the CR250R, it has produced a better feel than any aftermarket exhaust has, and that is saying something.

At this point in the season, I know of at least two factory riders who are using the Icat in 2004, and I know of several who have used it in the past.

If any of you TWMX doubters live in SoCal, contact me via e mail and I'd be happy to let you try it for yourself out at the track...
swapmoto@aol.com

 

[truespode]

Don,

I respect your magazine. I even link to it from my homepage (www.truespode.net). However, I was very dissappointed when you proclaimed... "...you need one." Yet you did not follow up with the dyno results in print.

Putting the results on MT is fine and dandy but it leaves a lot of your readers with only one view and that is that they "need one." I have yet to see the dyno results in conjunction with the rider feedback. Having a blanket statement like "you need one" but not having the dyno results leaves a lot of questions.

I believe that there is a feel of difference. Maybe it helps clean up the jetting, maybe it does something my un-technical mind cannot comprehend. I believe you and your test riders put in print what they believe about the product. However, the magazine left out an important part when it came to the measurable results (i.e. dyno). This leaves a lot of skepticism to go around.

I personally would have believed the review with the accurate dyno results even if they did not show any difference simply b/c of the integrity I feel is associated with your magazine. However, without the dyno and any commentary about its results the skepticism overshadows the review.

This is in no way meant to be an attack... just trying to give an objective point of view.

Ivan

 

[Okiewan]

Frankly, if the majority of us spend the same dollars on a club membership (or trainer) and stuck to it, we'd see MUCH faster lap times than ANY bolt on product will create.

Alas, I'm just like most of us, customizing the bike is a good time :p

 

[swapmoto]

So then, should we dyno everything that we test? I can see your point, but when each and every test rider who tried the thing was impressed, I have no problem writing such a review. Though you might think so, it wasn't just one or two riders who tried the device. We were just as skeptical as everyone else when we were presented with the thing. Hell, I even licked my chops in anticipation of a unfavorable product review. (those are always fun to write...)
Anyway, not getting defensive here, just trying to stand behind our words and explain why we wrote them.

 

[marcusgunby]

Maybe it does feel different on the track, however the advert/box says it adds approx 5hp and thats a lie im afraid.If i pay $200 and it says 5hp i want 5hp more-sounds reasonable to me?

big gains on a dyno at peak doesnt trnaslate into a good engine, gains all the way upto peak do generally translate into a good engine.Like i said the dynos a tool, if the ICAt doesnt show a hp change they should say so.There is too much BS in mx tuning and this product doesnt help IMO.Its called false advertising.I wasnt really fired up about the product until now to be honest.Many top riders have rode with many bad setups-it wont convince me i should pay good money to own one.

Look at my dynos on the rm pipes-you see real world gains from both manufactures.Now i could go on about how bad some pc pipes are, but lets not go there.

the mx tuning industy need to clean up its act and a ICAT is doing nothing for the industrys emmisions.

 

[swapmoto]

Does the Icat web site claim a five horsepower gain? If it does, I must have missed it.

 

[Zenith]

From - http://www.icatsportusa.com/test.html

Gain over 5bhp in under 5 seconds

 

[marcusgunby]

its also on the chart on the box.

 

[CaptainObvious]

In the words of iCAT Sports USA...

"The graph shows power (bhp) against time (seconds). This test was undertaken on a standard 2002 YZ250. The blue baseline was recorded without the iCAT fitted. The orange line shows the same machine after the iCAT was fitted. The improvement in throttle response at 1.87 seconds is a massive 5.4 bhp."

Of couse, the "normal" dyno plot is hp as it relates to rpm. They chose hp vs. time for some reason.

 

[bclapham]

swap, dont take this personally- to be fair, from what i can see TWMX guys are a good bunch and many of them have quite some credability around these parts- its not like they have 1 pro, 1 intermediate and about 15 guys from the over 60 class writing bike reports, LOL.

hopefully the British weather will give an opportunity for Marcus to ride it on the bike.

 

[steve125]

Marcus,  we made the Power Now and you guys made the I-Cat. 

So it's a tie! game over for now ;)

 

[CaptainObvious]

Marcus,

If you want some help in performing an A/B comparison, I can give you a hand. I'll be in England the 2nd and 3rd weeks in January.

 

[Rich Rohrich]

Originally posted by swapmoto
So then, should we dyno everything that we test? I can see your point, but when each and every test rider who tried the thing was impressed, I have no problem writing such a review.

We all know that a chassis dyno running in the back of a warehouse with poor air turn over isn't the final answer. I personally think the skeptical attitude you are seeing comes from the massive amount of misinformation that has been dumped on us over the years by the dirtbike press. While you might not be personally responsible for the unending stream of BS that has filled the pages of magazines, you shouldn't be surprised when readers are automatically skeptical. When readers are presented with nothing other than an opinion from a rider they don't know it's reasonable to assume they might ask for something more concrete.

Speaking for myself I think dynos tests as they are currently done by magazines are a total waste of time. The test conditions never appear to be controlled closely enough to provide valid data , and the data is usually presented in what looks to be a graphic artist's drawing of the original printout. Too many sources of error to find subtle differences, or compare tests from one month to the next.

A test bike fitted with a small , light (as low as 400 grams) moderate cost onboard data acquisition&recorder system run on a specific test course of acceleration runs under load and timed with simple beacon timers, could provide a lot of useful comparison data and . Having a standard suite of tests like this could give you guys a real edge. You could test performance products in a standard fashion and give the reader a "real world" way to compare the relative merits of various products.

Histogram data on throttle position, RPM and air/fuel ratio is incredibly easy to produce and can provide the readers with a better view of the conditions that the bike was tested under, both on the track in race type conditions and during the test suite.
Here's a simple RPM example from a test I ran at a tight SX practice track.
http://www.dirtrider.net/teamdrn/showphoto.php?photo=4438&size=big&password=&sort=1&cat=500

I applaud the fact that you seem much more willing to listen and interact with your readers than anyone else in the magazine business. How about taking the next step and changing the face of magazine testing. The days of a faceless test rider saying "it ran great at high rpm" without providing any quantitative explanation of what that really means are over. :thumb:

If you are interested in this type of testing I'd be happy to provide additional resources and info to help you to make it happen.

 

[swapmoto]

Rich,
I'm interested in what you're saying. My office line is 714/247-0077 x227 and my e mail is donn.maeda @time4.com
As far as the five hp gain that is claimed on the web site and packaging... To be honest, I'm appauled. If the Icat fella that I deal with spewed those claims in my direction I would have bitch slapped him. No, the Icat does not boost your bike by 5 hp, but I still contend that it does make the bike feel better.

No offense taken at all. I enjoy reading what "real readers" (ha ha) have to say.

 

[Rich Rohrich]

Originally posted by swapmoto
Rich,
I'm interested in what you're saying.

I'll be in touch. :thumb:

 

[swapmoto]

I just surfed the web and found that the web site claiming the HP increase is not the site of Icat's USA importer. I know that the guys here would never make such claims... www.icatusa.com