Capacitive Discharge Ignition GONE!

usually a CDI ignition precharges the coil with not 12, but 300V (!) of power by a large capacitor. Allows a much hotter spark, a larger plug gap for a larger kernal, and the ability to do multi strike or electronic delay (retard)

Here is a summary:
Advantages of CDI

• The major advantage of CDI is that the capacitor can be fully charged in a very short time (typically 1ms). So the CDI is suited to an application where the insufficient dwell time is available.
• The capacitor discharge ignition system has a short transient response, a fast voltage rise (between 3 to 10 kV/ µs) compared to inductive systems (300 to 500 V/ µs) and shorter spark duration (about 50-80 µs).
• The fast voltage rising makes CDI systems unaffected to shunt resistance.

Disadvantages of CDI

• The capacitor discharge ignition system generates huge electromagnetic noise and this is the main reason why CDIs are rarely used by automobile manufacturers.
• The short spark duration is not good for lighting relatively lean mixtures as used at low power levels. To solve this problem many CDI ignitions release multiple sparks at low engine speeds.