It was Craig, part number is now 38010143A, he said they are now on the fifth version of this coil. No longer a stock item but will take two days from Italy and 2 further delays to deliver to me. Fingers crossed on that as the last time I got a spare from Italy it was 6 weeks. £126.04 was a bit of a shock I have to say. The 748 reminded me how precisely it handles today (even on 75% worn tyres) and why I really need to get the 999 properly set up (both rolling chassis and engine)
CR the coil is confirmed as dead, swapped it to the vertical cylinder to check. Cleaning it and drying it off has not improved it, unfortunately
All sorted now, Craig called Monday saying the coil had arrived from Italy, coil arrived Tuesday, great service from one of the best spares suppliers in the business. 10 minutes to fit, test run and put the fairings back on. Took a few seconds running on 1 cylinder for the ecu to recognise the new coil, eobd light went out and the engine started firing on both cylinders. The coil flying lead looks to be a better more weather resistant design and the connector is now behind a solid bit of fairing instead of in the splash zone. Test run to work in the morning or on Saturday if the forecast is ok. Plus another opportunity to stand and admire the two gorgeous beasts in the garage knowing they are both willing and ready to go.
That's because the recess in the head tapers and the hex on the plug body is much closer to the top on the oem champion plugs. Normal plug spanners can't reach the hex on NGK plugs due to the taper. The cure is to grind down the oem spanner a bit or buy a sufficiently thin-walled plug spanner that will fit deep enough into the tapered recess to engage the hex flats
