Misc: Ignition Optimum Kickstart Ignition Advance

Oldhaven

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I read varying opinions on the necessity for multi spark for relatively mildly tuned engines. I do think my exhaust note is a bit crisper and I have a very nice idle with the three sparks. I have heard that from the other users too, and Bill Norton uses one of these on his Comet engined car and likes it a lot. It would be interesting to try both, and would be quite simple to do with the programming software. it can be changed in a matter of minutes while on the bike. If I do use a AFR meter, the change could probably be detected. Here is a graph I just did of single spark and adjusting the initial sparks down to 5* BTDC. ( I can't do that with 3 sparks because there has to be 5* between the spark events so the coil can recover)

single spark.jpg
 

Cyborg

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I'm about to start dabbling in the world of A/F meters. I bought one for the Comet, but haven't had a chance to use it yet so no real world experience to share with you.... but I believe if you use a heated wideband sensor then I don't think there is any disadvantage to being a bit farther down the pipe.

How are you finding that software? I have it and the adapter, but haven't played with it yet. Figure there is no point, because by the time I'm ready to program things I will have forgotten everything.
 

Magnetoman

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but I believe if you use a heated wideband sensor then I don't think there is any disadvantage to being a bit farther down the pipe.
Like the saying about investing in real estate, it's all about location. There's a big disadvantage to having the sensor too close to the end of a tailpipe on a single because fresh air is sucked quite a way back up the pipe on each revolution, negating the meter's reading.

After encountering this problem with a ~12" clamp-on sniffer sold for this purpose for use on multi-cylinder engines, I made a "blanket" from a high temperature silicone material that wraps around the end of a tailpipe and serves as a Bunsen valve to let exhaust out but not let air back in. That system works fine, although I wouldn't trust it to hold at highway speeds. More recently I came into an old Gold Star pipe to which I welded a bung for the sensor allowing me to swap the pipe between my bikes and not have any limitation on the speed.
 
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Oldhaven

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I was following that subject in your Comet Mongrel thread. What AFR system did you finally get?

I think you were leaning towards this one:


Does it also report Lambda in addition to AFR? I'm thinking it may be something I didn't know I couldn't live without, especially if i am messing around with ignition curves. I like the idea of that short adapter. something like this would make it easy:

pipe adapter.jpg

The software is pretty easy to use, and has a nice help file and a new curve wizard, in case you want to start from scratch, though it is faster to just modify an existing curve, saving it as something else. I have done that for single fire and dual fire Vincents. and could send you those by email if you want to play around a bit. You have dual plugs so you may want to modify the curves down to the 20's anyway unless you are using one of those holes for a Compression Release.

Ron
 

Robert Watson

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I have an Innovate tailpipe sniffer (A/F) that we used to try and sort out a very rich Comet some time ago, and within a short while we had it to a very reasonable tune. I tried it on the TTR but the pipe was wrong and had some much turbulence at the end that I could not get any reading. Maybe this summer I will try it again, although on a twin two right in the pipes with readouts on the handlebars has been done around here on a couple of bikes with good results. If you zoom in on these you can see the setup.
20160109_100402.jpg
20160109_100415.jpg
 

Cyborg

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Like the saying about investing in real estate, it's all about location. There's a big disadvantage to having the sensor too close to the end of a tailpipe on a single because fresh air is sucked quite a way back up the pipe on each revolution, negating the meter's reading.

After encountering this problem with a ~12" clamp-on sniffer sold for this purpose for use on multi-cylinder engines, I made a "blanket" from a high temperature silicone material that wraps around the end of a tailpipe and serves as a Bunsen valve to let exhaust out but not let air back in. That system works fine, although I wouldn't trust it to hold at highway speeds. More recently I came into an old Gold Star pipe to which I welded a bung for the sensor allowing me to swap the pipe between my bikes and not have any limitation on the speed.
Thanks for that. I was planning on welding the bung in about 5" from the rear of the header pipe. I can easily mount it upstream as the proposed location was just to have it tucked out of sight. As for a Bunsen valve, I'm using (at this point anyway) a reverse cone setup, so that would complicate things. I didn't think about reversion although that is something that I keep in mind while setting up the water cooled exhaust on the barge.
 

Cyborg

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I ended up spending a bit more for the extra digit. Bought it off Ebay, but same price as the site. A far as lambda as well as A/F ratio... it has a 0-5V output for tuning, so I assume yes. Also come with a long enough harness to mount it in a bus.

AF Gauge .jpg
 
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Magnetoman

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I was planning on welding the bung in about 5" from the rear of the header pipe.
For what it's worth, the photo shows where I welded the bung on my extra Gold Star pipe. The sensor shouldn't be too close to the head (because it could get too hot) or too close to the end of the pipe (because of the fresh air. Also, it needs to be toward the top of the pipe (so water condensation at startup won't hit the hot sensor), and somewhere out of harms way. The location I picked satisfies all of those constraints. Although it makes no functional difference, for aesthetic reasons I took a little extra time to make an angled adapter piece between the bung and pipe so the sensor would be vertical.

Since Oldhaven asked about A/F meters and Robert mentioned 'Innovate', I use Innovate's portable LM-1 meter. The company replaced this with the LM-2 model in 2008, but haven't make any changes since then. I mention this because a larger company acquired Innovate c2010 and as best as I can determine there haven't been any improvement to their portable A/F meters in a decade, which is nearly a century in electronics-years. Although I'm happy with the performance of my LM-1, and it's possible the decade-old LM-2 may be as good as anything else currently on the market, if I were in the market for a portable A/F meter today I would research all the alternatives before buying one.

As an aside for any LM-1 readers looking at this post, I hadn't used my LM-1 with my current laptop and when I recently did I discovered to my chagrin that the latest 3.37 version of the Logworks software for it has a glitch that won't let me transfer saved data from the meter (the program crashes when I try). Innovate's technical support was completely useless, leaving me to deal with this myself. Luckily, I had a copy of the installation file for 3.01 on a CD and, despite Vista having been the version of Windows when it was issued in 2009, it installed on Win10 without any error messages and works.

There are several (big) advantages to a unit that has several inputs and also logs the data for later study. I use mine with a tachometer input along with a (universal) throttle position sensor I made based on a potentiometer and AAA battery. Looking at the logs in the comfort of my home, rather than trying to memorize a few numbers as I fly down the road, lets me see see what is happening with the A/F ratio at various throttle positions, as well as see transients when I, for example, slam the throttle open (it records data at 12 Hz).

26747
 
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Cyborg

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I appreciate your guidance. Any chance you could post a photo of the bunsen valve?
At the risk of sounding like one of those infernal rivet counters, shouldn't you have a 1 1/2" GP on there. RRT2 stamped on your gearbox? Just jealousy on my part...
 

Magnetoman

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I appreciate your guidance. Any chance you could post a photo of the bunsen valve?
At the risk of sounding like one of those infernal rivet counters, shouldn't you have a 1 1/2" GP on there. RRT2 stamped on your gearbox?
I'll see if I can find a photo but, if not, take one later today.

That Gold Star is actually one of 365 U.S.-only 'Competition' models and has the stock SCT gearbox. However, since I have it configured with rearsets I replaced the kickstarter with one from an RRT2 to get the lever out of my way. Its GP is in a box because it's more fun to ride a motorcycle that actually idles... That's a 1036 Concentric on it now.
 
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