Misc: Ignition Pazon Vs Trispark

[Martyn Goodwin]

Craig,

I 'had" a Pazon on my Comet. It did not work out. I will PM you some photo's.

Martyn

 

[oexing]

So these are coil ignitions really, but with electronics I suppose ? Advance curves ?? I am so happy to keep the flyweights in that Ford Capri V 6 distributor I converted a few weeks ago for contactless "lumenition" infrared sensor ignition. Contacts don´t last long on 6 cylinders, not a factor on singles or twins really. The slotted trigger disc is homemade , not included in ignition, Bavarian manufacturer, set is € 130.- . Available in 6 or 12 V, positive and negative earth - and small and cheap enough to keep the matchbox size blackbox in the toolbox, in case. On a Vincent I´d rather try to do a D distributor, with some cheap electronics maybe, contact breakers get a bit thin today to find. Otherwise nothing beats contact coil ignition for reliability, no visual check will tell you if your electronics will fu** up on next trip and spoil the rest of your day thoroughly.
Looking at photos above the small coils seem to be for sort of CDI ignition only, what sort of sparks can you get from these ? Not my choice then, I prefer the big traditional coils with fat sparks, sorry.

Vic

Infrared ignition on 50ies Horex, blackbox above left, alu trigger plate behind ATD, sensor on top .

 

[vibrac]

Just a note to pure coil ignition fans
We are racing our twin on a BTH magneto, we had a missfire that I am pretty certain was the added restriction of Mallory Silencer changes (ie mixture), but to be certain we took off the BTH last week to get it checked by BTH I was amazed to find it was 23years old ! and it came back with a clear bill of health coils and all. We shant be looking for anything else that for sure.

 

[Oldhaven]

There is also the PowerArc https://www.vincentownersclub.co.uk/threads/programmable-ignition.9811/

Maybe OldHaven will chime in?

I have been happy with the Power Arc ignition on my twin. Bob Larmour also has one and he and I teamed up to supply a few of these ignitions fitted to a purpose built magneto replacement housing that suited Vincent Twins and singles. We did twenty housings, most of which have now gone out to users. We had a very good price point at $575 to $675 depending on coil options, complete with housing, coils, plug wires and some installation bits. Our philosophy on this was similar to timetraveler’s in that we did not make much on the kits, only enough to cover costs and the expenses and time to do development and shipping. In retrospect I should have asked a bit more than that and made the kit even more fit and forget With coil mounts, wiring extras, etc, since some installation is required. The ignition itself is supplied to us and warrantied by Power Arc, and we just made the housings and parts that would have to be fabricated by a Vincent user. Power Arc is still going strong, working on further developing the ignitions, and supplies ignitions for many other vehicles, so they will be there for the future should any Vincent users need some help or replacement parts for existing units. You can check out the Power Arc website for current information. We felt that the effort to fabricate or adapt a housing for a Power Arc ignition from scratch or another application as several others have done would be eliminated.
We have not seen enough interest to make any more housings at this point. the housings we made were attractive, well made by Bob’s CNC supplier and assembled by Bob to his usual high standards, and followed the pattern most other mag replacements do. I was a bit surprised there was not more interest due to the ability to program almost anything about the ignition curves, from 1 to 3 sparks, dwell, curves for dual points, total range of advance, tach output available, single fire or wasted spark coils, battery shutoff to the coils when not in use, low current draw etc. As it turns out most users do not need most of these features.
I have had some serious medical issues lately which have kept me from putting more recent effort into this project, and when I left off I was working with the Power Arc people to develop an even simpler housing to further cut costs, size and weight.



I may get back working on this very promising development work now that I seem to be feeling a bit better than I was over the winter and spring.

 

[BigEd]

i've only used the Pazon but gave good service and easy to set up, on other forums it seems to be the EI go to.
With duff battery it goes full retard around 11v , there may be some slight variation with other systems but once you're in that pickle you're grasping at straws anyway.

Have you actually experienced the full retard with 11V low voltage using a Pazon system?
This was or at least used to be a problem with the early Boyer system and the Pazon was said to avoid that problem.
I guess any system is going to have problems if the voltage falls too much.

 

[brian gains]

the twin firing twin plug heads has Lucas Rita and no issues thus far. Had Boyer fitted on Triumph twin with no issues and fitted Pazon on Triumph 500 twin, it went to full retard and I checked battery with analogue multi meter which appeared to have 12v which although poor for a healthy battery threw me why I had the ignition issue. on further investigation it became apparent that the battery had recovered slightly overnight but on start up would stay retarded. asking around , the opinion seemed to be that at 10,5v charge it was game over.
Ii've had a duff condenser on the comet doing the usual fail when hot and also done the BrightSpark repair on a BSA magdyno, despite this I do prefer magneto ignition, kick and go with no concerns regarding battery, as my father used to say' why do you think they fitted them to aircraft - reliability'
but not to get off topic Pazon EI is a good bit of kit IMHO.

 

[Gene Nehring]

I was hoping to have someone discuss the tri spark unit for twins and their experiences. The website and video of starting a rapide looks interesting. The price is also very fair.

Maybe Greg has some experiences @greg brillus

 

[craig]

To retain a stock look to a Rapide or Comet.
Are there photos, not written description, of a successful TriSpark installed on twin or single?
Any problems with kill button wire or Podtronics regulator affecting ignition?

 

[greg brillus]

I've installed both systems.........The pazon has a separate box which is a downside I feel, something extra to mount somewhere, difficult on a Vincent twin.........Its' only advantage is it has a built in adjustable rev limiter which is pretty useless for most all users.........If you need a limiter on a road going Vincent then you are a mechanical masochist........Perhaps you should ride a new R 1 instead........The Tri Sparks are ok, simple and a bit easier to set up now the instructions have been re written to suit the Vincent twin timing.........from memory they only give about 24 degrees of crank timing which I instructed them was a bit low, ideally you want 30 degrees. My preference would be the Tri spark, and they are very cost effective.......The coils on all of these tend to be dual output, this works fine for a reasonably stock engine, but for one with bigger cams it can cause issues with spitting back through the carby's at low engine speed ( I found this on my Rapide, which has bigger cams than normal Mk 2's).........You can fabricate a simple bracket to mount the coil next to the oil filter chamber, and this keeps the lot all nicely behind the mag cowl.........I used the 1st position of the headlight switch for my ignition on/off and this worked well.........I ended up re installing the BTH mag to stop the spitting back problem. These newer ignitions are quite efficient and only draw a small amount of current from the charging system, perhaps a little over 1 amp whilst riding at normal speeds.

 

[Gene Nehring]

I've installed both systems.........The pazon has a separate box which is a downside I feel, something extra to mount somewhere, difficult on a Vincent twin.........Its' only advantage is it has a built in adjustable rev limiter which is pretty useless for most all users.........If you need a limiter on a road going Vincent then you are a mechanical masochist........Perhaps you should ride a new R 1 instead........The Tri Sparks are ok, simple and a bit easier to set up now the instructions have been re written to suit the Vincent twin timing.........from memory they only give about 24 degrees of crank timing which I instructed them was a bit low, ideally you want 30 degrees. My preference would be the Tri spark, and they are very cost effective.......The coils on all of these tent to be duel output, this works fine for a reasonably stock engine, but for one with bigger cams it can cause issues with spitting back through the carby's at low engine speed ( I found this on my Rapide, which has bigger cams than normal Mk 2's).........You can fabricate a simple bracket to mount the coil next to the oil filter chamber, and this keeps the lot all nicely behind the mag cowl.........I used the 1st position of the headlight switch for my ignition on/off and this worked well.........I ended up re installing the BTH mag to stop the spitting back problem. These newer ignitions are quite efficient and only draw a small amount of current from the charging system, perhaps a little over 1 amp whilst riding at normal speeds.

So my machine with 8:1 and mk2s might be a bit of a problem with a tri-spark?

Are the new BTH mags any better than the predecessors?

Thanks for the information Greg.