EGT/CHT and other instrumentation

[BarelyAWake]

I was a little surprised to notice that no one seems to have any instrumentation, other than the occasional reference to TinyTach (a great lil tachometer) I've not seen any posts regarding such things... maybe they're just buried lol

Anyway, when I was flying ultralights I started out w/o a single gauge but that didn't last long. There's a plethora of instruments available to retrofit to any small engine, most if not all of these can use "clamp on probes" so no drilling or fittings are needed.

They can be on the expensive side, but I figure all that would be needed other than the usual speedo is an CHT (cylinder head temperature), an EGT (exhaust gas temperature) and a tachometer. As most ultralights are two strokes, the ranges are about appropriate for our chinagirls - a little bit of red paint/tape can be used to mark if needed, there's also custom red/yellow/green stickers too if you wanna get uberprofessional.

or dual CHT/EGT >

Now it's true these things start at about $50 each, but I love me some gauges lol and I thought these might be of some interest to those running out of things to mod on their bike and/or interested in performance monitoring. There's even fuel gauges with bendable/cutable probes for custom fuel tank sizes and of course pods to mount all these treasures in (the gauges are of course weather resistant).

If you're interested, the following is a link to a product page at 'California Power Systems' a inexpensive but reputable company I did a bunch of business with when I was still flying, there's a ton of stuff there that could cross over to our bike world.

Search Results - 800-Airwolf Rotax Parts Online Store features Ultralight Parts and Accessories.


Feel free to gimmie a shout about these things if you wanna - I've had/installed most of the relevant ones. Just don't blame me if you blow yer budget on these toys lol BTW - these are all 2" - they also have "micro" ones at a higher cost of course, or there are 3" ones available for those that need the ol' reading glasses heh

Now it's true these things won't make yer bike go any faster - but they just might save you from blowing up a motor if you need an excuse to use with a "significant other's" budgetary concerns.

[xlite]

Inspired by the E.I.S. panel in my MX I designed and built an AVR based LCD with thermistor CHT and tach off the white wire. Whole thing less than $10 in parts. After screwing around with various battery power and packaging issues the project kinda petered off. It did work and I put a few hundred miles with it but not robust or as they say "warm and fuzzy".

[brandongordon2002]

Hey guys i have been wanting a tachometere on my bike for somewhile so yesterday i decided to take an instriment cluster from a dash and remove the tachometer, my plan to put it on my bike! So i get the tach out and take off the circuit board so i am left with the 3 terminals. Next step was to solder 2 wires on the cdi and one on the white wire for the purpose of figuring out which went were. I tried it out most of the ways just instantally killed the engine but one position actually brought the tach up to 1 but it never moved just sat there and shook. Anyone know how to properly hook a tachometer to one of theses bikes? I know it wont be accurate but it will keep me happy! THanks guys

[BarelyAWake]

heh xlite, MXers are cool - seems like everyone agrees as they are still common to see lol

brandon - what didja get the dash/tach outa? Few tachs are the same and most factory ones are reliant on sending units, sometimes in the distributor - more often these days dependent on the puter... I don't know of a factory tach that would let you set the number of cylinders either.

Odds are ya can't make the switch - but never fear, tachs aren't all that expensive. I may be wrong about yours - I'd love to be corrected if anyone knows somethin' I don't!

Good luck to ya tho

[freewheeling frank]

hey barely will that tach they have work on these engines?that would be way cool

[BarelyAWake]

yessir - you'll wanna call em and double check that the one you like will read as single cylinder (there's a bunch to choose from) - else you'll need do the math in yer head (if set to 2 cyl minimum). Don't fret - they're friendly and they'll prolly LOVE what yer using it for!

Both the ones I had (TinyTach and a VDO) could readout for a single. Best yet the "sending unit" is just a wire wrapped around the plug wire a few times


You might wanna check these out while yer at it;


$13.95

or

$21.49

Search Results - 800-Airwolf Rotax Parts Online Store features Ultralight Parts and Accessories.

There's multigauge ones too - but I dunno if CPS has em, I'll look around if yer interested.