OEM Gen I and Gen II heated grip differences

Can anyone detail the differences between the Gen I and Gen II heated grips? From what I've found the Gen II's have the speed sensitive feature but I don't know if that actually part of the kit or if that is built into the wiring harness of the bike. The Gen I kits can be found chaper than the Gen II's so I'm trying to figure out if I can put a Gen I kit on my '08 if it will actually fit and how it may (not) operate. Searching just brings up lots of for sale ads.

You can put a Gen I kit on a Gen II, the Gen I kit is actually a universal kit that can go on the FJR, quad or snowmobile. It becomes a FJR 'kit' when they add a few jumpers to make it fit the FJR harness (for power and ground, not the grips). Some work and effort needs to go into the install.

The Gen II heat controller is managed by the ECU. The slow speed 'feature' happens to conserve power near 0 mph and idle speed. Plugging the Gen II controller into the factory harness will connect it to the ECU. The Gen II grips plug directly into the already existing connectors on the harness. Everything is there, all you have to do is put on the grips, install the temp knob assembly and plug 'er in. Convenience is expensive but it does come with reliability unlike all the wiring of the Gen I kit.

So what exactly is the difference in how they wire in? Sounds like they both plug into the existing harness. What makes the Gen I kit more difficult to install and the Gen II less so?

Gen I heated grip kit:



The Gen I kit doesn't look too complicated and if you don't care about looks you can just leave all the wiring dangling. If you want to secure the wiring and keep it discrete then there is a fair amount of disassemble and wire snaking. The fuse holder and the connectors are large, ugly and hard to hide, the picture doesn't do justice to the actual size.

The Gen II has two grips that plug into the existing wiring and the controller which mounts in the knock-out panel and plugs into the harness.

So they give you less, and charge you more for it. Typical, lol. Are the actual grips different, like do the wires route out of the grips differently?

My Gen 1 came with the factory heated grip kit installed by the PO. He left the wiring sloppily secured and as Ionbeam said, it was a mess. They give you a "Y" harness that connects to the brake light circuit at the right handlebar switch. I didn't like that setup at all. I cut off the sloppy wiring and connected to a fused circuit from the Fuzeblock. All tidy and wiring now is unobtrusive. Took some time and material to get there. Oh yeah, they work nicely after I muddled with them.

Someone else will have to answer about the Gen II grips. My take on it is the grips are essentially the same in terms of wattage and the wires will leave the grips about the same way, the grips are a slightly different length than the Gen I kit. The Gen II does offer a way of mostly hiding the grip wires but requires someone to either be clever to figure out how, or do the search 'cause it's documented here (found the documentation).

Don't overlook some other options like heated tapes which will come with an install work load a lot like the Gen I, only it lets you install grips of your choice. Honda makes a nice heated grip system that is worth looking at. Oxford makes an inexpensive grip kit which I just installed yesterday, so no report on performance yet. NOT RECOMMENDED: Big Bike or Show Chrome grips due to low wattage and poor power controller design.

My original Gen I kit was bad right out of the box. The replacement kit worked until my left grip got pinched and it opened up the element. The next Gen I failure was a broken wire inside the throttle grip. The next Gen I failure was a broken wire inside the throttle grip in spite of my efforts to strain relief the wire. It's a bummer that you can't just buy an individual Gen I grip. You can buy an individual Gen II grip, but oh my, the price! I was given some heated tapes with unknown target application, these just plain didn't get the job done at New England temps. As previously mentioned, I just installed Oxford Heaterz grips. On my ride in to work this morning at 42º(F) I will observe that these grips got hot way faster than any other grip I have used and 70% power was too hot. To complicate things I had also just installed hand guards that give good wind protection making the grip heaters even more effective.

This is the Gen I system schematic I drew up to help me wire to my power distribution and loose Yamaha's little bits 'n pieces, I depict the grips as resistors (which is what they really are):



For comparison, this is the schematic I drew up for the Gen II grips showing the 5 connectors that you simply plug into:

Thanks, I'm just trying to look at my options. All my other bikes I've installed the Dual Star kit and it was worked very well. I like the option of the OEM kit since I haven't had that before and it's usually cleaner. That's why I'm looking the the OEM options since the Gen II kit is SO expensive.

A downside to the OEM grips is the ground is pulsed dependent on some rpm and speed factors, to help preserve battery power at low rpms/slow speed. One can remove the pin for the green/white wire at the ECU and ground it directly, which will allow the grips to heat up faster, e.g., I believe they are only something like 50% power at idle (although I'd guess from experience, more like 30%).

True, that's good info. I didn't realize that that feature could be disabled.