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My rear tire has been on back order, but I'm finally picking it up mounted today! I can get back to tuning. I've done a few more neutral sweeps from idle to redline in the meantime. I've run it from stock (5 @ 1100 to 25 @ 3500+) timing, all the way up to 11 @ 1100 to 31 @ 3500+ timing. Keep in mind, none of this was at anywhere close to WOT.
Below 5000, I saw improvements up until 9-29 advancement range. Anything past this amount of advance shows no measurable improvement or even a loss. It looks like above ~5500 or 6000, there's no measurable difference between 28 degrees and 31 degrees, and only a slight improvement between 25 and 28.
But 5500 is 80 MPH anyways. I don't spend a lot of time at that speed. It's the 4000-5000 range that I was really looking to improve on.
I'll make one more ignition table and start riding it. Once the weather is consistently warm and I can be certain the gas stations are no longer running winter blend gasoline, I'll get another A/B test of MPG. I will also make an ignition table for people that just want to replace their ignition controller, don't want to pay the $500 for an OEM controller, and want stock settings.
I changed out the resistor used for my shift light LED. I was using 1K, driving the LED at ~13 mA. It wasn't very noticeable in sunlight. I'm now using 300 ohm, driving it at 43 mA (max rated current is 50mA) with a 15 volt supply. It's driving the LED very hard, but it's only on briefly so I'm not worried about burning it out. Now it's quite visible even in bright sunlight. I noticed it glows very dimly when the key is on and the light is supposed to be off, but it's only noticeable in low light (similar to how the "headlight" light on the instrument cluster glows dimly all the time).
The LED I am using is the "Super Yellow" LED.
More generally, it's a 5mm yellow LED rated for 20,000 mcd at 20mA and 2.1V with a view angle of 28 degrees. At 43mA, it puts out about 30,000 mcd. You can find brighter ones, but this seems sufficient.
I'll eventually draw up a wiring diagram, and add it to the very first post in this thread.
EDIT:
I also looked at the dwell time (the time the controller spends charging up the ignition coils). On a stock bike, it dwells 14.9 mS at 1,100 RPM and 2.7 mS at 8,000 RPM and is linear between those two points (9.8mS at 4,000 RPM). The new controller automatically adjusts the dwell as needed. It runs ~9 mS at 1,100 RPM and 2.7 mS at 8,000 RPM. However, it isn't linear, as it will lower dwell to compensate for rising battery voltage. By 3,000 RPM, it's already below 4 mS and by 4,500 RPM it's around 3.3 mS.
This equates to less power draw, and less heat in the ignition coils. In terms of actual numbers, the stock ignition draws 4.7 amps at 4,500 RPM whereas the new controller draws 1.8 amps at 4,500 RPM. This is less than half of the heating load on the ignition coils, keeping them cooler. Cooler coils give more spark energy, so this SHOULD help the hot start issue. That will be hard to prove, as the auto-dwell feature alone might help the hot start by greatly increasing the dwell time during cranking. Results still pending.
Stock dwell time (Red) compared to actually measured aftermarket dwell time (blue dots) on the vertical axis, VS RPM on the horizontal axis.
Below 5000, I saw improvements up until 9-29 advancement range. Anything past this amount of advance shows no measurable improvement or even a loss. It looks like above ~5500 or 6000, there's no measurable difference between 28 degrees and 31 degrees, and only a slight improvement between 25 and 28.
But 5500 is 80 MPH anyways. I don't spend a lot of time at that speed. It's the 4000-5000 range that I was really looking to improve on.
I'll make one more ignition table and start riding it. Once the weather is consistently warm and I can be certain the gas stations are no longer running winter blend gasoline, I'll get another A/B test of MPG. I will also make an ignition table for people that just want to replace their ignition controller, don't want to pay the $500 for an OEM controller, and want stock settings.
I changed out the resistor used for my shift light LED. I was using 1K, driving the LED at ~13 mA. It wasn't very noticeable in sunlight. I'm now using 300 ohm, driving it at 43 mA (max rated current is 50mA) with a 15 volt supply. It's driving the LED very hard, but it's only on briefly so I'm not worried about burning it out. Now it's quite visible even in bright sunlight. I noticed it glows very dimly when the key is on and the light is supposed to be off, but it's only noticeable in low light (similar to how the "headlight" light on the instrument cluster glows dimly all the time).
The LED I am using is the "Super Yellow" LED.
More generally, it's a 5mm yellow LED rated for 20,000 mcd at 20mA and 2.1V with a view angle of 28 degrees. At 43mA, it puts out about 30,000 mcd. You can find brighter ones, but this seems sufficient.
I'll eventually draw up a wiring diagram, and add it to the very first post in this thread.
EDIT:
I also looked at the dwell time (the time the controller spends charging up the ignition coils). On a stock bike, it dwells 14.9 mS at 1,100 RPM and 2.7 mS at 8,000 RPM and is linear between those two points (9.8mS at 4,000 RPM). The new controller automatically adjusts the dwell as needed. It runs ~9 mS at 1,100 RPM and 2.7 mS at 8,000 RPM. However, it isn't linear, as it will lower dwell to compensate for rising battery voltage. By 3,000 RPM, it's already below 4 mS and by 4,500 RPM it's around 3.3 mS.
This equates to less power draw, and less heat in the ignition coils. In terms of actual numbers, the stock ignition draws 4.7 amps at 4,500 RPM whereas the new controller draws 1.8 amps at 4,500 RPM. This is less than half of the heating load on the ignition coils, keeping them cooler. Cooler coils give more spark energy, so this SHOULD help the hot start issue. That will be hard to prove, as the auto-dwell feature alone might help the hot start by greatly increasing the dwell time during cranking. Results still pending.
Stock dwell time (Red) compared to actually measured aftermarket dwell time (blue dots) on the vertical axis, VS RPM on the horizontal axis.