car timing light on yamaha?

[mrbsyammy]

Can you hook a car tach dwell meter to a XS1100 Yamaha and how to hook it up?
Till then

[TopCatGr58]

Yes you can.

Stick a wire/metal probe into the back side of the gray or orange wire where it plugs into the TCI, then connect the (+) sensor wire of the gauge to that wire, and then just connect the (-) to a ground. The readings of the speed will be 1/2 IIRC. I'll find my thread about the Automotive Race Alternator I attached where I show checking the Rpms with an analog type dwell/tach/voltmeter! Gotta go to dinner now, though!

T.C.

[TADracer]

And on a further note to what TC said, if you are going to use the meter often then I would install a wire 'take-off' and route it to the right side by the fuse panel then you can simply plug your meter in. Sorry, I do not have a picture.

[mrbsyammy]

Yes you can.

Stick a wire/metal probe into the back side of the gray or orange wire where it plugs into the TCI, then connect the (+) sensor wire of the gauge to that wire, and then just connect the (-) to a ground. The readings of the speed will be 1/2 IIRC. I'll find my thread about the Automotive Race Alternator I attached where I show checking the Rpms with an analog type dwell/tach/voltmeter! Gotta go to dinner now, though!

T.C.

its an old balkamp NAPA auto parts meter it was the best they had back in the days, I kinda remember using it on a bike with points so that was easy to figure out, I just don't want to hook it up and burn out something. A picture would be a great help so I don't screw it up .
Thank you Mr.Bill Till then

[DAVINCI]

Yes, on my SUN tach/dwell, the red lead goes on the + batt terminal, the black lead goes to the TCI, Orange OR Grey.

[TopCatGr58]

Mr Bill,

Here's the photo showing my old Actron Dwell/Tach/VOM,



The RPM scale for the 4 cylinder is the top white scale....but it's showing 1/2 the actual rpm....~1200 instead of the shown ~2500 of the OEM tach.

And Randy/Davinci and I had this discussion before. He connected his meter's (+) to his battery positive, and then his meter (-) to the gray/orange lead. This allowed the orange/gray lead to act as the trigger for the meter to count.

I connected the (+) of the meter to the gray/orange wire....because it HAS voltage in it coming from the coils into the TCI, which also was enough juice to power the gauge, and so my meter (-) was just on ground. As Davinci has pointed out, providing a separate/second path for the grey/orange wire to travel could weaken the actual signal which might cause a misfire...but mine seemed to work just fine. SO....you can probably connect it either way. Not sure how much DC current will come from and thru the meter if connected to the battery and how much will get into the TCI connecting the way he did??? YMMV, try whichever method/connections you want, just be aware that the gauge will read 1/2 the actual rpm speed on the 4 cylinder mode.

T.C.