Anyone had experience of these variators, reliability, benefits, performance improvement?

Quick answer is good but pricey, more cost effective option is to upgrade to Dr Pulley sliders in the existing OEM variator.

Had one in my tmax, best upgrade of all the stuff I put on it, night and day difference on acceleration, I would buy again!

Because of the unique design, they offer the best full performance upgrade, but the weird, cylindrical sliding weights wear out really fast, and to keep it at top performance need to be changed-out every second oil change. Yikes!

IF you STILL have to have the J. Costa, DR. Pulley makes replacement sliding weights for the J. Costa out of the same almost indestructible material that their famous Sliders are made of...
http://www.partsforscooters.com/169-396 ... ory=137336" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

On the DOWNSIDE, there HAVE been reliability problems with the J. Costa bushings in the past...

I looked at the jcosta for the srv and think its a great bit of kit if fitted with the dr pulley slider weights ,how ever i was warned off about using it on another forum with regards to the bushings as Skutorr has said . I personally would enquire direct to jcosta just to see as it may just have been a problem with a batch of material for the bushings . Acceleration is supposed to be night and day over the original set ups ,i did however go for the dr pulley weights slightly lighter for improved acceleration and i am very happy with the results .

i would stick to dr pulleys and just replace the rollers and sliders as although the mk3 version of the j costa is available, its still expensive, as you will in effect be buying new jcosta rollers every 5000, miles so not cost effective, going 10% less on the pulleys will give you exactly the same as a jcosta set up,
25 x 17 x 8 rollers at i think 21.5 gms each standard rollers so prob go for 19gms £38 delivered http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DR-PULLEY-SLI ... 5d4924f1d8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

or order the rollers and new sliders here
http://www.sip-scootershop.com/en/produ ... r+_sr2517p" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.sip-scootershop.com/en/produ ... +_sr251719" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
so thats about £50 rather than £300 for the evo3 and the dr pulleys will last 20,000 miles

Just get a JCosta sticker and put it on your scooter.
No-one will ever know.

gn2 wrote:Just get a JCosta sticker and put it on your scooter.
No-one will ever know.

I brought a second hand one for Silverwing it was better but On a tour of Scotland it would stick in a morning you would be revving its nuts off and getting nowhere till it warmed up then it would be ok for rest of day .