Annitori Quickshifter QS Pro installed and beta tested on Yamaha R3

I installed the prototype Annitori QS Pro this past weekend.  This kit didn’t have a complete harness like the retail kits will have, and we had to figure out what size rods would replace the stock shift rod, so I won’t post the full installation pictures yet, but here’s some photos of the shifter installed.  I wanted to put the Quickshifter brain on top of my Bazzaz Z-Fi in the tail section, but the cable to the switch wasn’t quite long enough, so it ended up on my Battery.  The complete kit will likely include a plug and play harness for the ignition coils, and a set of left and right hand thread set screws to replace the stock shift rod.

I was able to do some testing with it today, basically getting on and off the freeway on ramps by my house.  All of this with standard shift pattern.  Shifting above 75% throttle and between 9-12k rpm to simulate track riding (redline is at 12500).  I’m making some riser plates for the stock rearsets next week, then I can switch to gp shift and this will be easier to fine tune.  These tests were to help Annitori determine the default and recommended settings for the R3.  There are two primary adjustments.  The sensitivity adjustment determines how hard you must push or pull the lever before the quickshifter activates and kills the ignition, I started with this at 60 out of 100, which is their most common setting.  Then there is the kill time in milliseconds, which determines how long the ignition is killed to unload the transmission and allow the shift to happen.  I started with this at 55ms which is also pretty average.  The good news was that the shifter worked, and it worked in both directions, push and pull, so at least my install and modified prototype harness worked lol.  The bad news was that when shifting to second gear, the bike would jerk so bad it was dangerous.  Shifting to third was bad too, 4th, 5th and 6th were manageable.  Actually, 4th 5th and 6th were decent with every setting I tried, so I started focusing on the shift to 2nd and third.  The jerks were bad enough that it would often cause me to inadvertently hit the shifter again causing another kill but no shift.  First I tried increasing the sensitivity to 70.  This didn’t change much, maybe made miss kills worse, hard to tell.  Then I reduced the sensitivity to 50.  I thought it was a little better at first, but I would get the miss kills worse because of having to pull harder on the lever.  I tried 40 sensitivity also, still bad.  Then I put the sensitivity back to 60 and dropped the kill time to 45, this was still really bad, so I increased the kill time to 65 and it finally showed some improvement.  Then I tried 75ms and it was much better, still 60 sensitivity.  The 2nd gear and 3rd gear shifts were manageable, even decent, and the rest were buttery smooth.  I increased it again to 85 and it changed a little, but not better I don’t think, so I went back to 70, then to 80, and tried the sensitivity at 50 and 70 again.  The best I could come up with doing these tests was 60 sensitivity and 75 kill time.  But that may change a little when I go to GP shift and I can control my foot and the lever better.  Very exciting stuff!  Stay tuned for the next test which will likely be on the track, with GP shift, and new rearsets.