Ignition and Charging System Upgrades

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DewCatTea-Bob
Posts: 2897
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 10:53 am
Location: Near SE side of Lake Michigan

Re: Ignition advance curves

Postby DewCatTea-Bob » Mon Jul 26, 2010 1:03 pm

" Again, I appreciate your input however I do not appreciate your tone/response in this last paragraph. "

____ Well it seems that I need to clear-up some things...
__ First, it's always my intent (naturally) that my posts are to be taken pretty-much fairly-neutrally, and thus any "tone" is only in-the-eye-of-the-beholder and if any reader takes any of my wording in any negative-light at all, then that was not intended & is the reader's own fault. _ I can only say I'm sorry that my wording has left any particular person (unintentionally!) upset in any way.
__ Also, it needs to be realized that my response-postings are almost never directed back towards the poster himself who's words I've quoted, and that his words were usually just quoted for the purpose of being used as a spring-board to introduce what has inspired me to carry-on about.
And whenever I do intend to 'reply' back to the person who's words I've quoted, I then use the word "you", as opposed to "ya" - which is meant to be directed at the general-reader (rather than any particular person!).
__ So I'm sorry that it seems that you did not seem to realize these things.


" The intentions were to answer questions and gather information from users that have either used the setups above or could identify more through word of mouth, personal usage or someone they know currently using the setup to give at least myself or other readers firsthand experience if they wanted to so chose this route. "

____ I did understand that that was the spirit of your intent for starting this thread, and since my old self has nothing to offer on that, I can only wait & hope for some enlightening-info to come & get posted on such desired (modern)- subject-matter ! _ And I sure would not disagree that it's fine to seek any experience that others may have discovered from THEIR choices of all there is of such to be found out-there !
__ I certainly do indeed agree that the science of ignition-timing must have come a long ways since the '60s (or even over the last 20-years), and that it offers genuine improvement. _ And it would be quite nice to be able to apply any of it to our DUKEs !
__ It was just your later follow-up posting that inspired me to offer my OPINION that any differences out-there between all the various alternate ign.advance-curves, is relatively quite insignificant. _ Since ANY one of them is not likely to provide much more than 2% more efficiency than a stock DUCATI's at any particular RPM. _ So to be concerned about which one of them would be best for a DUKE which employs the smaller-type valves -(for example), is simply 'splitting-hairs'.
If there was some magic ign.advance-curve out-there which provided some new kind of great-gain of any kind, then I'd be all-over-it and would be telling ya all about it !
__ I have lots of experience from (the old-days) when I'd also be excited about new things which were supposed to make my DUKE run better in some way or another, but, everything ya try-out just ends-up with such a small change, that ya coudn't really tell any difference and would probably need to do before-&-after dyno-testing in order to confirm whether or not there was indeed any real improvement.
I know of the feeling of the high-hopes for improving my DUKE to become better in some neat way, but I'm just no longer able to get much excited that way anymore.
Sorry if MY found reality has tended to burst-your-bubble !


" Not imply within the thread that only some expert would be the only one to carry the weight necessary to continue the discussion in regards to your timing response.
and the point of these threads and website in general is to leave them open to discussion and input and not come away with a last statement so close minded where only a "And if there's any REAL -( bona-fide/bonified) " expert can continue. "

____ WOW! _ Now here I really feel the need to point-out that you've certainly got me WRONG on that (way off-base!) notion of yours! ...
I had absolutely no intent what-so-ever to cap-off (or even slightly subdue) any further discussions within this thread by proclaiming that the subject need not be discussed further by anyone other than experts !! _ Furthermore, I can't really understand how ANYone could've come to that conclusion or even the notion of such an idea ! ...
I was simply seriously-trying to prod any such expert to come forth & try to educate us about even the smallest advantage that any non-stock ign.advance-curve might possibly provide !! _ As I myself also would really like to KNOW, as well ! - (And not merely accept manufactures' [ likely exaggerated! ] 'claimed' statements.)
__ It never seems to fail to amaze me how written-English continually fails to prevent so many people as it does,, from twisting/inserting their very own-spin, somehow taken from the original written-wording which had been written by another !
We should all try to realize that when-ever we read something for the very FIRST-time, which SEEMS to be making a statement that doesn't quite make perfect sense, that we should then consider that possibly our 'mind-set' may be out-of-sync with whatever is actually trying to be conveyed by the writer's choice of wording,, and try reading it again later (or have someone-else read it to ya), so that ya don't jump-the-gun (with your first-impression), before ya get a chance to PROPERLY understand the correct jest/drift of what the writer of what you've read, had actually meant to state & convey !
(Although I must admit that during these-days [while I myself am still trying to help improve on our written-word so as to hopefully increase correct-understanding], there's so many writers who's written-English is so very,very-poor, that it's a wonder that anyone properly understands anything that's written by anybody, anymore ! _ (I think it's likely been caused by so many people these-days who use so much 'chat-typing', that they can no longer grasp/understand sentences with more than a half-dozen words.) _ It's a SSOAs!


Hopeful-Cheers,
DCT-Bob
PLEASE NOTE... If this-post is not-yet signed-off with '-Bob', then I'm still in the process of completing it,, and if not also included with 'DCT' near bottom as well, then I may edit this post's wording at a later time. - Dct.Bob

miken5678
Posts: 113
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2009 4:28 am
Location: Jax

Re: Ignition and Charging System Upgrades

Postby miken5678 » Mon Jul 26, 2010 8:27 pm

I appreciate your responses and clarification and please note this was not a post that would come from me normally. I read it more than a few times but things just did not sit with me and I will agree it is easier than said to convey things in writing these days.

Thoughts have crossed my mind as well in terms of adapating an old throttle body injection setup or an aftermarket injector setup similar to the wal phillips.. just havent had the time to do the diggin with the bike work and work occuring at the same time.

ccambern
Posts: 53
Joined: Fri Apr 16, 2010 5:18 pm

Re: Ignition and Charging System Upgrades

Postby ccambern » Tue Jul 27, 2010 1:11 pm

I'm currently using a 4420 sealed beam, which is 30/30 watt, I think. Rear bulb is a standard dual filament taillight... can't remember the wattage. Light output on high is adequate for night riding, but not as bright as I'd like. At some point, I'll probably give a 60W bulb a try and see if the charging system can still keep up. I never ran the bike with a 6V system, so I can't comment on relative brightness, but I can tell you that the bat stays charged and the lights never dim as I've heard they do on many of OEM systems.

The retaining ring and bucket are 130mm, designed for a separate reflector. The sealed beam bulb fits fine and stays in place with a piece of rubber wedged between the bulb and the ring.

DewCatTea-Bob
Posts: 2897
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 10:53 am
Location: Near SE side of Lake Michigan

Re: Ignition and Charging System Upgrades

Postby DewCatTea-Bob » Fri Jul 30, 2010 10:09 pm

" I'm currently using a 4420 sealed beam, which is 30/30 watt, I think.
Light output on high is adequate for night riding, but not as bright as I'd like.
At some point, I'll probably give a 60W bulb a try and see if the charging system can still keep up. "

____ In this particular case, (which I've been lead to believe that it's alt.system has been wired-up so as to be forced to use 4/4ths/100% of it's output [instead of 1/4th + 1/4th, like stock], at all times), the only advantage begotten from it, is a lowered break-even RPM-point (which may only be needed for constant in-city night-riding). _ Since under normal-riding/RPM conditions, the original-50% (of the total possible alt.power) could've ran this particular simple low-wattage 12v-system, (without it's now wasted excess-power) !
__ This particular charging-system (as it's understood to have been set-up), has had it's power-output doubled (compared to stock), but yet it's load-system still just consumes only about the same amount of power as the stock 6-volt system does! _ So not only should this modified-system be able to handle twice the (stock)- load, but, it's also a waste for it to not be doing so ! _ Since ALL the excess (thus wasted) power has to then be dealt with by it's voltage-regulator -(without which, the system's-battery would get fried!).
__ Thus with a 60w head-light, the break-even RPM-point should still be (slightly) better than stock.


" I never ran the bike with a 6V system, so I can't comment on relative brightness, "

____ The 12v-30w sealed-beams seem to be a bit brighter than the 6v-30w units, as no doubt the 12v-versions employ filaments which produce more lumens of light. _ It's reasoned that less power is absorbed by the wiring, (with 12v vs. 6v), thus letting the light-filament have more to itself !


" the lights never dim as I've heard they do on many of OEM systems. "

____ Guess you've "heard" incorrect-info ! - (Unless for some non-related reason referring only to the alt.powered lighting-systems.) _ As the stock -(battery-powered)- lights have always been at least adequate with all stock 'BATTERY-POWERED' lighting-systems ! _ And such stock-systems never let-down their (good-condition)- batterys, either, (so long as normal-RPM riding was maintained) !
__ I firmly believe that our old DUCATIs developed their 'bad-reps' for electrical-workings, mostly due to ignorance/misunderstanding of their actual-workings by their past users, (& nonDucati-made switches).


DUKE-Cheers,
DCT-Bob
PLEASE NOTE... If this-post is not-yet signed-off with '-Bob', then I'm still in the process of completing it,, and if not also included with 'DCT' near bottom as well, then I may edit this post's wording at a later time. - Dct.Bob


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