MSD 8963 Shift Light Installation on CBR954
 

The MSD 8963 shift light will work on any bike but may require a different installation method than the one below. This installation "How to" will work on any bike with individual coil ignition system.

Difference between MSD 8963 and MSD 89631 Shift Lights.

MSD 8963 allows you to set up to 4 different shift points.

MSD 89631 allows only 1 shift point for all gears.

Installation:

1. Remove seat and disconnect negative battery terminal.

2. Prop up gas tank, remove air box and heatshield.

3. Decide which coil you want to use. I decided on #4 since most wires run down the right side of the bike.

4. Attach the GMR supplied with shift light to the positive wire on the coil and route the wire back to the battery area. NOTE: In the pic I had the wire doubled up in the GMR since I had read online that some bikes require it this way to get a good signal. The 954 does not require it this way.

5. Decide where you want to mount the shift light and route the wire to the battery area. I used zip ties and mounted my shift light to the left part of the upper fairing stay.

6. Connect the green wire from the shift light to the green wire from the GMR. Make sure you have a solid connection and tape up the two wires.

7. Connect the two black wires together and attach a connector so you will be able to attach the wires to the negative battery terminal. Do not connect to battery yet.

8. You will need a mini fuse tap. (Purchase at any auto parts store) Connect the two red wires together and attach a connector supplied with the fuse tap kit. I had to cut off the curled tip of the fuse tap to get it and the fuse to fit. I used the 20A fuse for the headlight as my 12V switch power source. Connect the fuse tap to the left side(negative) of the fuse so your shift light is protected by the fuse. Now connect the red wires to the end of the fuse tap.

9. Now you are ready to connect the negative battery terminal and test your shift light for key switch power. Turn on the key and check to make sure the shift kit comes on. If it comes on with the key then you are ready to tidy up everything and put the bike back together.

10. Use wire ties to neatly tie up your wires to existing wires to make sure the wires will not get pinched when you reassemble the bike.


Now you are ready to program your shift light. Turn on the key and it will flash 3500 on the display. Press both buttons to enter the programming mode. Use the up button to set the first shift point. Anything over 10k rpm will show as 1050 for 10500 rpm up to 1600 max for 16000 rpm. Press both buttons again to move to next shift point. (If you only want one shift point then buy the MSD 89631). After setting shift points and pressing both buttons you will see CY8 so press down until you see CY1 for one-cylinder activation. Lastly you can adjust the brightness of the shift light from 1-9 to what you prefer.

You are now ready to use your shift light. No more looking at the tach to know when to shift. Just look ahead and shift when the light comes on. This is good for all bikes that did not come with a shift light. I plan to use it for drag racing but it will also work great for track days.

nice write up, i'm sure a lot of people will reference this!

UPDATE: In step #4 above you will need to loop the coil wire through the GMR as seen in the pic to get a good signal at high rpm. In my first attempt at wiring it this way I didn't have the metal tabs of the GMR touching so it didn't read the signal properly. So I just ran the coil wire through the GMR and it seemed to work fine at low rpm but at high rpm it would completely loose the signal so the shift light would not work.

Today I looped the wire again through the GMR and it read the signal good. I still have not tested it at high rpm because I don't like reving my bike to redline with it sitting still in the garage. I will test it this Thursday at the drag strip and post another update on how well it works.