Yep the CI one is just like any other DS2 as far as the additional hardware needed to make it work. It needs some sort of control module or box which could be a stock one or a fancy MSD sort of thing and it needs a coil again could be stock or uber performance, your choice.
The advantage to buying from CI over a parts store or junkyard is the CI/Davis units are carefully rebuilt to very high standards by people that know what they are doing. The other parts (modules / caps / wires/ ect.) that come from CI/Davis are also carefully selected to be higher or the highest quality available, not just what the distributor was importing that week like you could get from other parts stores.
I assume he is getting it from Davis just like the DUI. Davis offers both the DUI and a high quality Duraspark for the other Ford Motors so I assume CI is just like they are doing for the DUI they are getting the DS custom made to fit our little 6's. Davis offered the DS for those that dont like the coil in cap or are die hard blue oval folks that cant stand to use something that GM used. Lucky for us CI made the deal to get them also made for our 6's so even we now have choices.
Items like this that CI goes out of their way to get produced is why we need to support them. Next time you are working on your six have a look at their full catalog, sure there are some things you can get elsewhere maybe even a little cheaper but you know buying from CI will be good stuff and if there is a problem there will be good support. The more we buy the more resources they will have to bring us more products. I dont work for CI and they did not put me up to this. In my day job and other car interests I have seen too many situations where people do not support the dealer that caters to their industry / market. Especially in tough economic times like this many of them cant hang on. When they go so do their custom products that are sometimes the only source. When that happens sometimes the next business to fail is yours.