CDI on ebay.... someone else wants in on the game

66sub said:

pardon me and thanks. no needle in rt thank you!

i must stress the cns seems logical but..... its not the most popular? i should have said nothing

Click to expand...

Oh no.... 66sub, I just thought it may have been a miss type and you meant NT.... you said nothing wrong at all, you're right about the cns not being very popular, most people have always had a lot of trouble ever getting them to run right on a china girl engine, who knows I may end up beig one of those people myself...lol

But I will try it and see what I can get done, good or bad.... no biggy either way since I have a box of NT carbs and two or three more new in the box RT carbs as well.

Thanks for the input.

And now back to the cdi stuff.....

Well, setting up m camera on th side of th road seemed to be a bad idea after all, I did mount camera on bike bars and went for a test ride after hooking up the Rocket CDI, my results were simular to what I got with the same run I made yesterday with the Lightening CDI but the Rocket CDI did fall a tad short on top speed performance.

Lightening CDI 49.8 MPH

Rocket CDI 48.6 MPH

This is what my test has yielded in the way of top speed between the two so far, next test will be with a stock cdi unit and I will add that result here as soon as I make a run after getting it hooked up .

Map

On the filter subject I just give all my pod type filters a good spray down with K&N Filter oil to start with and then of course these open port 2 smokers keep a good oil film on the filters from then on from what I can tell on mine.

Map

OK ladies and gentlemen.... Results for tops speed comparison on my little 1963 Western Flyer with 24" wheels and a 30T rear sprocket are as follows.

Lightening CDI: 49.8 MPH

Rocket CDI: 48.6 MPH

Stock CDI: 49.8 MPH

Ok, the Lightening CDI performs good on the engine, no sputters and engine revs good and the CDI allows this particular engine to reach its maximum RPM that it is capable of with its current set up.

The Rocket CDI.. well honestly it is the one that fell short a tad, it runs good on the engine, bike started easy, actually may have been a bit smoother from idle to top RPM when jacking the throttle for a quick rev, this may have something to do with how the timing is being affected with this unit, not sure and cant swear by this point, just seemed this way whne I would give it a quick rev with no load on engine, problem with the Rocket CDI is it would not allow my engine to reach its full RPM potential and the top speed was 1.2 MPH less with it that with the Lightening CDI, I even used the same coil with both CDI's to make sure that could not be a factor in the test.

Now for the info that some will be glad to hear since they already has this opinion, and the info others may not want to hear because they want to think otherwise....

The Stock CDI I installed on the bike was Brand new still sealed in the package, it came with a BGF kit I bought 2-3 years ago and was just a spare I had, I wired it in with good spade type connections like the other CDI's have and even used the exact sspark plug wire and boot that was used for the other CDI's, (7mm accel solid copper core wire), took the bike on the same exact ride and run it on the same exact area of the road as the other two for the same distance and my results were identical with the stock CDI as what they were with the Lightening CDI, I cant say that one will accelerate better than the other since I have not tried to time the bike between two points to see if one offers a little more umph in a certain distance or not, I can't physically tell any difference in how quick the bike gains speed from 10-12 MPH up to top speed, what I do know by checking between all of them with my GPS is that the Stock CDI gives me the identical top speed as the Lightening CDI does on this bike which has shown to be exactly 49.8 MPH with both units and the Rocket falling short of that and only reaching 48.6 MPH.

Overall, I have to say that my personal opinion of the three CDI's is a good one as far as what I think the average engine build up to a moderately modified engine will do when running any of the three, I find that the stock unit is hands down the best bang for the buck however, so I say if you want to spend the extra money for a custom CDI and that is what you really want on your bike, buy it but don't expect, felt power or top speed to increase, a custom CDI is NOT a magic bullet that will add speed or power performance above what you will get from the plain ole simple Stock unit, if you want more power and more speed, tyou will need to focus on other things for an increase.

I think it's pretty safe to say that there aren't many out here that have a bike that is pulling a 215 lb man at .2 MPH under 50 MPH on a bike with 24" tires running a stock exhaust pipe that only has had the guts removed, the exit hole enlarged after little stinger pipe was cut off and the flange port matched as close as possible to the engines exhaust port, an expansion chamber exhaust might get me up to speed a little quicker with this bike if its the right set up and in time I may experiment with that a bit, but this Dax Gen IV lower build with no mods to the lower and all mods being to jug, piston and stock exhaust pipe, manic shorty aluminum intake and with a Puch 70cc HI HI head that has only had mounting holes drilled from 6mm to 8mm, I think I have a pretty good combination going on here being a rough figure is that I roughly have just $200 invested in building this engine up.

I did shoot a video with camera mounted on the bars on a camera mount when I had the Rocket CDI on the bike today, its not good since wind noise is horrible on it and since camera was mounted on bars it bounced around really bad and caused video to be kind blurred unless I was was running under about 25 MPH, its about 12 minutes long and I will post a link to it here in this thread if I'm able to get it uploaded to youtube, it really sucks but if you can bare to sit through it you will be able to hear a little bit of how my engine winds up and see some of the back roads out here in the stick were I live and ride the most.

I have been as honest as I can be with what I have said in this post and I am not saying everyones results will be the same as mine, but what I have posted here is solid and truthful results from my fastest bike while running the three different CDI units.

I have no doubt that from now on I will be using the $10 stock cdi's on my bikes, I find no advantage to the custom units other than they look like a custom unit, the Rocket CDI is not even slightly appealing to the eye and honestly looks like a thrown together mess, but it does work good and could be housed in another little box or conatainer of some type to make it look a bit better on the bike.

The Lightening unit is the best looking unit, and it also works great, its better than the Rocket as for as allowing a modified engine to rev as high as it will with a stock unit, but other than cool looks it did not add any noticable performance gains on my test bike, it just looks good, if you like the seperate coil and ignition look on your bike.

although they all work, the clear winner for the money and for it good performance is the plain inexpensive little stock CDI, thats one thing that the Chinese did right with these little engines for sure along with the little NT carb, I've proven with this bike that a stock CDI and a simple normal size carb can provide enough of what these engines need to do close to 50 MPH and it may be that with a better set up than I have they will likely do more as far as top speed goes, better exhaust and a bigger carb that is tuned right would probably get my bike to its top speed quicker and probably increase the top speed a little, but all the fancy stuff isnt needed if the engine itself is right and has the right mods done to it, my little bike has proven this to me clearly and the Dax Gen IV engine is the only engine so far that I have been able to get anywhere near this kinda performance out of...

Sorry for the long post here guys and gals, just wanted to let ya'll know what I have found to be the honest results to be between the three CDI's on my fastest bike.

Peace, Map

http://youtu.be/8LRzTlR_fTw

The first 4 minutes of the video is of the top speed test all the rest is just bad quality cruising around and then back home, should have turn camera off way sooner but had no idea the quality was going to be so bad.

This is link to horrible video I made today, first time I tried to do one with camera mounted to bars, way shaky, and the only way its even tolerable at all to watch is with video quality set to highest level on youtube, (720P HD)

This was the test run I did with the Rocket CDI, wind noise is terrible also in this video, I put a piece of take over where I thought the Mic on the camera was, but obviously I put it on the wrong place....LOL!

anyway, as horrible as it is at least you can here how this engine was winding up, I ran it so hard so many times today.., I'm really hoping I didn't hurt it, my plan now is to put a larger sprocket on this bike and slow it down and give it better acceleration, pushing 50 MPH is just to dang fast on my old bikes, the scarry thing that happened to me today is that after all those high speed runs, I had come home and had the bike parked under tree while I was tinkering with part for my next build and I heard a loud pop like a gun shot, when I went to see what that loud noise was I found that the front tire on the Western Flyer that I had been doing these high speed test on had blown out... ouch.... that will pucker a fella up.....!!!!

I had cheap tires and tubes that were a bit small in diameter for the tires so that is no doubt what the problem was, it now has a new Kenda Kiniption and heavy duty correct tube on the front, I changed it out this evening, and next I will need to replace the rear tire also, I think I will wait until I get a new sprocket for the bike, I think I'm gonna try a 36T, that should really boost acceleration and get my top speed down to 40-42 MPH which is plenty fast enough on that bike, I might try to get a 34T for it.

Anyway, the video stinks guys but I said I'd post it so here it is.

Map

SchwinnStingray said:

I have to say a big thank you for taking the time to share your findings, as I expected, stock parts, when in serviceable order and installed correctly, will function, a worked motor will most probably benefit from a high performance ignition system.

JMHO Without scrutinizing every installation, I would have to guess that SOME people experiencing higher gains than you may infact have non serviceable or poorly installed stock CDI's to start with.

Even a bad earth or failing or incorrectly installed magneto coil will give reduced spark.

Click to expand...

Oh yes there can be variables to many things, the engine on this bike has a lot of work done to it and is the reason it will run right at 50 mph with 24" wheel with a 215lb rider, the point of this test was to see if a "performance ignition" would make a differencr in how this engine would run, my testing shows clearly that the " performance ignition" has no realized advantage over a stock unit.

Even on a modified chinq girl like mine the stock unit provides all they need to reach their high rpm potential and top speed potential, I can buy more brand new stock ignitions for $7 or I can buy a " performance ignition" which makes no difference on my engines for $80, hmmm.... I dont have to think long about which route Ill be going from now on, I spent over $100 to get the parts to do this test, and there is nothing wrong with the cdi's I bought, they work just fine, just not a bit better than a stock unit in my experience and I have proven that to myself with my testing, all of this was to confirm what I already knew but I just wanted to share my a tual results.

Map

Pablo said:

Your stock bike went 49.8 mph? Since you used GPS I am not doubting that.

Please list all the mods. Gear ratios, engine, engine externals, etc. in bullet/outline. Thanks.

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Hello Pablo, one thing I want to clear up first off is that the bike or engine is NOT stock as in Box Stock.

Ok, I'll try to be a thorough as I can here Pablo.

1. Bought a "Gen IV" lower from Thatsdax last year, I do NOT do any mods to lower, crank rotated very smoothly and there was no detectable wobble in counter weights so I decided to use this one of the three lowers I had bought from him for this project.

2. I ordered a jug from mainland China that showed to have larger than average ports, turned out to be a nice clean looking jug, but port size was average, so I used my Dremel and carbide bits to slightly widen and work out ports, enlarged transfer ports and cleaned them up as good as I could to help flow but did not raise or lower them, I did lower intake very slightly and raise exhaust very slightly, probably no more than 0.5mm, I lapped the jug deck just enough to make sure it was true, but didn't remove any material.

3. I used two base gaskets between jug and case that measure 0.030" I make these myself.

4. The serious work I did internally was to the piston itself, I drilled 12 holes in the piston skirt, each hole is approximately 6mm dia. each area that is drilled is a vertical line which is directly between exhaust and transfers and intake and transfers.

5. Ramps on piston are ground and tapered 0.065" down from top edge of piston and the ramped area ramps from edge of piston toward center of dome, from edge to where tapper stops it graduates in length from edge to nothing at a distance of about 0.300" and each ramped area is the width of the port it aligns with. also used high quality upper needle bearing from bearingsdirect.com

6. Manic Mechanic shorty billet intake

7. Dax "RT" Carb, Dellorto Clone with jet 70 that came in it, runs a tad rich until engine warms up and then gives a perfect plug chop when engine is warm and has been run at high rpm's

8. HD's Lightening CDI & Stock kit CDI produced exact top speed result when checked multiple times with GPS on same stretch of road which included some slightly up hill, flat ground and slight down hill, the slight down hill area is where max speed and rpm was reached and flat land speed was a 1- 1.5 MPH less in my test, my digital tach went out so I did not get any RPM readings but I had seen 9400 RPM's on it before this engine had 25 miles on it, so I honestly do not know what my rpm's were at the GPS'd speeds, but it was really screaming that is for sure.

9. the Exhaust I found to give me the highest top speed was a modified stock type pipe, this pipe came from BGF a couple years ago and never had the catalytic mess in it, it just had one of those ugly diverter pipes in it which I removed and then cut off the little 3/8" ID stinger pipe and drilled the hole out with a 17/32" bit and replaced cap, I also worked the flange out as much as I could to get it port match as good as possible to the cylinder exhaust port.

10. OK the bike, its an old 1963 Western Flyer Strat Liner frame, it is a 26" frame, I have 24" MTB forks on it with simple but functional V Brakes on the front, the wheels I purchased at my local bike shop, not high dollar wheels but they are Whell Master steel wheels with 12ga spokes they turn very true and the rear is a Shimano E-110 coaster brake hub'd, wheels greased with high quality grease and bearings adjusted properly.

11. Current tires on bike are Kenda Kiniption 24x2.35 and tubes are Kenda Thorn resistant HD Tubes.

12. Chain, KMC 415 rear sprocket is a 30T chromed steel sprocket I purchased from you Pablo, its one that is designed for use with your shift kits, I used an old kit sprocket as a template so that I could drill the correct holes for a rag joint set up, I have purchased a couple of your sprockets for making them up like this, they hold up really nice.

13. I run Opti2 at 100:1 in this bike from the first time it started up until now, that is all I run in all my bikes and all I plan to ever run since I get excellent durability from my engines with it.

Well, Pablo not much else I can think of to say about the bike or the engine accept it has just worked out nice for me, the piston ramping has no doubt hurt the low end torque of this engine some, but it has enhanced the ability for it to really wind up and scream, I have consider putting a stock unmodified piston in it other than a notched skirt and removing one of the base gaskets to limit rpm potential and increase low and mid power a little and this will like detune this engine enough to put me at a max speed in the low 40"s mph range and I may need to jet the carb down a bit if I do those things.


Well, this about covers it Pablo, hope this answers your questions good enough.

Pablo here is a video I made a while back that shows the piston I actually have in this engine that has been drilled and ramped on top, the video is long and was mainly done to show a weight comparison between parts, but you can see the work I did to the piston in this video.
http://youtu.be/ggfJVPQbzhI

Map

Techbiker said:

Map,

Your results are what I suspected all along. Thanks for posting! Is there a way to convince you to add the "magical" Jaguar CDI to your test list? Then someone can post it on the other forum?

"Jaguar" seems to be making a killing selling a CDI that is probably no better than stock.

Click to expand...

Well, I tell you what I have done, and this is what I make my claim about the Jaguar CDI from.

Huffydavidson made up some CDI's in the very beginning that he told me were exact jaguar clones and had the same timing set up as the "jag" CDI, HD had emailed me about it and I agreed to purchase one from him, the bike I put it on was running a solid 43-44 MPH using the stock CDI unit, but after installing the Jag Clone CDI I had purchased from Huffyd. my top speed dropped to 37 MPH and it would not do a single bit more period, and the CDI went out on me in less than 30 miles of running on the bike, when I contacted Huffyd and told him that the CDI had quit on me and also that I had lost 6 mph off my top speed, he told me that he was working on a "top secret" design that would not linit timing at high rpm's and that he wanted me to send the bad unit back and he would ship me one of the new "unlimited" CDI units, he told me that the first one was an identical jaguar clone that he had actually used a Jaguar CDI he had to copy from and that was why my top speed had dropped due to the retarded timing from the "Jag clone CDI".

The current "unlimited HD's Lightening CDI has worked fine without any issue since last year for me, and as soon as I put it on that same bike I had my 43-44 MPH top speed back, this is when I started thinking about the fact that it worked just fine but actually added nothing in the way of detectable power and no increase in top speed over what the stock unit had always given me on that bike... the ????? marks were set in motion and I had plans for a good while to do some testing between it and the stock unit just to see what I came up with, then I found the "Rocket CDI" on ebay and figured since this fella was making claims of better performance and all the usual hype I needed to add it to the mix just to see what it was all about.

The bike I have that does a GPS's speed of 49.8 MPH was built the way I did it for the purpose of getting as much out of it as possible and this is the bike I wanted to test all the CDI units on since it is capable of turning much higher RPM's than the average bike and capable of much higher top speeds, I wanted to see if the "custom CDI units would add any noticeable performance gains to this engine over what the stock CDI would offer on it, I am completely and totally convinced that for almost all if not all china girl builds the stock unit will provide everything it needs and the custom CDI's don't make it more powerful or faster, at least that is the results I have found to be the case with my engine.

To honestly answer your question, I have no plans to purchase a jag CDI because I feel strongly that it is actually inferior to the HD's Lightening CDI and to the stock unit as far as performance is concerned, the HD's Lightening will give the engine the correct timing and it will give the same top speed performance as the stock unit but adds a bigger stronger coil, that might be better on very high compression engines and of course the Lightening CDI does look nice, gives the bike more of a custom build look and has a key switch to deactivate ignition if a person like that feature.

Map