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Old 12-27-2007, 07:38 PM   #1
Xtreme Cartz
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Default Equus Tach trouble??

Anyone here have any experiance with the p/n 8068 Equus 3 3/8" tach? I'm trying everything possible to make it work on my Kawi engine. The first one was crazy and would hardly work. When the power is off, the tach would show 2000 rpm and then when it received 12 volts via a toggle switch, the tach would show 0. (normal for this type of tach to do) The problem is when the engine was running the needle would just sit at 0. Occasionally, if I wiggled the inductive pickup the needle would jump to anywhere from 1000 to 5000 rpms. Desperate to try anything and thinking maybe just maybe the Kawi's plug wires were playing a trick on me, I decided to hook the tach up to my Chevy truck with a V8 engine. After recalibrating it for the 8 cylinders I started the truck up and the tach did the same thing as when it was on the Kawi. Fresh out of anymore ideas, I go to O'Reillys and swap the tach for a new one. After wiring in, calibrating and mounting the new tach I fire up the engine. OMG what a surprise it doesn't work either. Needle goes to 0 and stays there. I say thats ***** ok lets just install it on the truck again, I dont know maybe if the gods are shining down upon the truck it might work. The reason for putting it on the truck was in an attempt to determine if it was the tachs fault for not working or the 2 cylinder engine's fault. Anyway, I start up the truck and the tach is working absolutely beautifully. No sporadic needle jumping and it showed a legit rpm. Baffled, I think so maybe this tach is not compatible with the V-twins. To rule this out, I recalibrate and install the tach onto my lawn mower which has a 23hp Kohler V-twin engine. Start it up and the needle is acting like a mexican jumping bean but at least it is working! Confident it must be in the calibration and reassured from the truck experiment that the tach is in fact not the problem, I remove it from the lawn mower and wire it back up to the Kawasaki determined to make it work. 3 hours later I am cussing and throwing everything in my reach across the shop. You guessed it, the tach continues to reject cooperation. Quickly running out of connectors and wire, yet still energized from the mild stroke of luck received earlier when the tach at least registered something besides 0 when installed on the lawn mower, I decide one last time to hook it back up to the mower. See the inductive pickup has a magnet U shape looking thing inside the plastic clamp which I assume is the thing that senses the plugs pulse, the plug wire is not thick enough to touch both sides of the U at the same time. For this last test I push the plug wire just against one side and clamp it down beyond belief.
Fire it up and surprisingly had an interesting result. Now the interesting part is the tach seems to be more accurate than before. The tach showed a steady 1000 rpms at a slow idle (thank goodness we're getting somewhere ), then it starts sporadically jumping to 0 and then back to 1000 over and over again. I then increased throttle and it seemed to go up smoothly and accurately eventually hitting 3600 rpms but the entire time constantly hitting 0 and then going back to the accurate rpm.

Is this normal for these tachs to do? I let the engine run for about 15 mins and as it warmed up the tach seemed to jump less but never completely stopped doing that. This made me think there might be a loose wire in the tach? 2 bad tachs in a row?
If it will help explain what its doing a little better, I can get a vid of it tomorrow.


God bless anyone who was actually able to maintain focus long enough and read through this entire post.




Thanks!!
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Old 12-27-2007, 07:40 PM   #2
azboo
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Default Re: Equus Tach trouble??

Wow !!! That was quite a novel
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Old 12-27-2007, 07:57 PM   #3
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Default Re: Equus Tach trouble??

When I installed the same tach on my '04 EZGO, I had some of the same problems with the inductive pickup.. The readings were very erratic, I ended up "hardwiring" the tach into the ignition harness.. I connected the "sense" wire to the red wire on my stock 295's ignition coil.. The tach now works great and has a very steady readout..

The other problem I have with the inductive pickup, you can't splice in extra wire if the supplied isn't long enough.. The wire is similar to a piece of coax cable, very difficult to splice...
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Old 12-27-2007, 09:42 PM   #4
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Default Re: Equus Tach trouble??

Do you have it set for 2 cyl?? It's adj for several engine combinations. Just a thought.

Glen
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Old 12-27-2007, 11:45 PM   #5
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Default Re: Equus Tach trouble??

CC-John, that's very interesting. I would much prefer hard wiring it in like you described. Did you use the green wire that came with the tach? I didn't think it was possible to hard wire the tach to these smaller 2 cyl engines.
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Old 12-28-2007, 01:46 AM   #6
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Default Re: Equus Tach trouble??

I would shim up the clamp first. If it's set for 2 cyl you should be fine.

Glen
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Old 12-28-2007, 07:38 AM   #7
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Default Re: Equus Tach trouble??

What type of ignition does your Kawi have, 12V or magneto, one coil or two???? That will determine whether or not you can hardwire using the green wire supplied with the tach.. The stock EZGO ignition is a 12VDC "wasted spark" system with a single coil.. It works very similar to a GM HEI system.. I connected the green wire to the negative side of the coil, the same as you would on an automotive ignition system.. I had to program the tach for a 1 cyl. engine, since the coil fires both plugs every rotation (one plug fires on the power stroke, the other is firing on the exhaust stroke), this was the only way to get an accurate reading..

If your Kawi's ignition is similar to the stock EZGO setup, you can likely hardwire the tach.. If it is a "self-supporting" magneto type, you're stuck with the inductive pickup.. Something else, the inductive pickup wire is sensitive to outside interference.. Do not bundle it with other wires.. Also the placement of the pickup along the plug wire (too close to plug, or too close to coil) will have some effect on the quality of signal it sends to the tach...

Good Luck!!!
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Old 12-29-2007, 10:28 PM   #8
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Talking Re: Equus Tach trouble??

I have used a bunch of them, Only problem I have ever had was on my 29 kawasaki. It worked simular to what yours did. On mine it turned out to be the coils they have 2 triggers one for spark one for EFI computer. I removed induction pick up and connected to EFI computer and it worked great. The 27 and 29 are the same except for the injection, Yours may use the double pulse coils like mine.
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Old 12-29-2007, 11:30 PM   #9
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Default Re: Equus Tach trouble??

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xtreme Cartz View Post
God bless anyone who was actually able to maintain focus long enough and read through this entire post.
i was starting too... then it went blurry on me once i figured out that i had absolutely no clue what to tell you to do.....
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