More Secret Sauce
First 6 cylinder PMAG in the land of upside down pilots installed, ran for say 14 hours before it lost its marbles and could not be retimed.
After 12 years dealing with EMAG I would suggest this is expected. They started out registering a patent to put a generator in an electronic ignition and mount it all in one package on the aircraft. Their plan was always to certify, and use ABE as a testbed. Based on what I have heard about the 6 cyl model I have no doubt that is their intent this time around. Nothing wrong with that as long as you go in with your eyes open.
Early 4 cyl units had magnets glued to shafts and no conformal coating on the CCT board so they could more easily figure out where things failed in the field. The bearings are too small. They glue them in with Loctite. Holding a constant tolerance on a bearing bore can be difficult when you anodise the housing. Seems to be minimal attempt to balance the rotating assembly. Run one up on the bench with a power drill and it should not take too long to make some assumptions about why they now recommend yearly removal and inspection of the bearings.
I have had two failures across four units in ~1,000 hours, one generator failed, covering the CCT board with copper - somehow it continued to run. One had the screws that hold the rectangular section to the round section back out. It was flapping around on the back of the engine, still firing but startup on the previous flight had been erratic enough that I went looking for the cause.
The are numerous things about the 4 cyl units that might have been improved including the default timing curve that was actually designed for a low compression engine, clunky software with bugs, the fact it can't tell you the exact firing angle etc. Even if you clock them the advance probably starts too early and is too aggressive but how would you know as they don't publish the curve?
Every time they go back to the US its 4 weeks downtime, a return trip costs $400-500 in freight, plus 2x the US$185 fixed price service fee + CCT boards if they need them. My experience has been they are easily the least reliable components on the aircraft.
The six cylinder unit has a number of additional challenges to contend with. The drive ratio on the magneto pad is 1:5 so it must have a gearbox. All the electronics inside has been redesigned to aid certification and the installation procedure looks complex too.
There are many people who have had good luck with them. The onboard generator and easy installation is almost a religion in itself, but I won't be doing the testing on the new model. It's someone else's turn.