TCI Replacement 2020 It Works

Yeah, I get that. At this point, all I could do is say I've replaced parts. I don't really feel like tearing my bike apart to check a bunch of boxes.
Maybe I could eventually work up a bench-test simulator rig, but, like everyone else, I have a day job, a kid, a wife, and still wanna ride motorcycles. ;-)
Well, when you hang out a shingle for a $20 turnaround on the TCI boxes, let us know. You'll prolly get some interest. Until then, I'll press on with what we're doing here.
 
^no reason you would hurt each other's business. i think you will find you're doing conversions where there's no tci to fix. But if you intended to replace a broken tci, if it's as plug and play as you're hoping there;s nothing for you to sell except possibly an adapter
 
Well, when you hang out a shingle for a $20 turnaround on the TCI boxes, let us know. You'll prolly get some interest. Until then, I'll press on with what we're doing here.

Yup - I concur. One concern I would have about a refurbed TCI is that whatever failed in the first place - is still in there. Yes, it would be new, but the fundamental design remains the same. The new Suzuki box would likely be more reliable as well as smaller and lighter.
 
^no reason you would hurt each other's business. i think you will find you're doing conversions where there's no tci to fix. But if you intended to replace a broken tci, if it's as plug and play as you're hoping there;s nothing for you to sell except possibly an adapter
We're not doing this as a business venture. This is all open source for anyone to try and I've no plans to try and make money from it. So there's no business for Ernie to hurt. If he wants to start a TCI repair business, more power to him. My point was, we'll press on with what we're doing here regardless of what Ernie does.
 
Yup - I concur. One concern I would have about a refurbed TCI is that whatever failed in the first place - is still in there. Yes, it would be new, but the fundamental design remains the same. The new Suzuki box would likely be more reliable as well as smaller and lighter.

Electrolytic capacitors (the cheap/high capacity kind used here) dry out and stop working with age.
1980-vintage solid state diodes of the type they used in this box weren't great anyways. 40 years later, the replacements are bulletproof.
As long as the main chip is solid, there's really nothing else in the box that can fail. Maybe a resistor or something, but those are easy to find with a meter.
 
As long as only 20° of timing advance works OK. The stock idle timing is 15° BTDC and once you add in the 25° of stock advance you end up at 40° BTDC. The new box would only give 35° BTDC for full advance. I guess road testing will be the only way to see if that's OK. Or maybe the difference could be split. The old points systems gave the acceptable idle timing as a range, from 13° to 17° BTDC. If we bump the idle timing to 17°, that would bump the full advance to 37°. Simple slotting of the pick-up mounts would easily allow that.
 
We're not doing this as a business venture. This is all open source for anyone to try and I've no plans to try and make money from it. So there's no business for Ernie to hurt. If he wants to start a TCI repair business, more power to him. My point was, we'll press on with what we're doing here regardless of what Ernie does.
right, but my point really was i don't see you interfering with each other, in response to your statement implying you might quit if ernie got into fixing them. iow, keep going :)
 
As long as only 20° of timing advance works OK. The stock idle timing is 15° BTDC and once you add in the 25° of stock advance you end up at 40° BTDC. The new box would only give 35° BTDC for full advance. I guess road testing will be the only way to see if that's OK. Or maybe the difference could be split. The old points systems gave the acceptable idle timing as a range, from 13° to 17° BTDC. If we bump the idle timing to 17°, that would bump the full advance to 37°. Simple slotting of the pick-up mounts would easily allow that.

Yup - that could work nicely and Ernie - I applaud your idea and am certainly interested in seeing all of these initiatives come together.

Cheers,

Pete
 
The new Suzuki box would likely be more reliable
Pete think about it. These are not OEM Suzuki boxes. The are from Amazon. Care to guess where they are made and to what price point.

That being said I think this is a great endeavor and hope it works out great.
Good job gentlemen:thumbsup:!
 
One thing that caught my attention was how many 250's Suzuki sold in the rest of the world (see Pete's post in the Harley thread). The replacement parts are readily available. After all the years of making this exact part it looks the company producing them should have it figured out by now. How reliable will these be. I dunno. But I will carry a spare. People with running oem tci boxes maybe should carry one of these as a spare

3 years ago I bought a 82 engine but had no tci box. So the search was on for something that would work culminating at where we are now. I'm very happy a gent has turned up to do board level repair. Wish I had one to send you to fix.

As long as only 20° of timing advance works OK.

Advance curve
There is a thread here abouts that discusses modern fuels vs the fuel these bikes were originally designed for and it's effect on the amount of advance Seems the conclusion was 35 degrees total advance was the best place to be. . The timing chart I included here came from that thread and shows the recommended timing from twomany, the oem timing and the gonzo box.

Open Source

Just a note
If I were trying to make a fortune the first anyone would of heard about this thing would of been a advertisement for it.

I have lurked on this board for around 5 years and have enjoyed not only the technical info but the just general life's little discussions.
I posted all this so anyone could duplicate it and it is making me happy that other people might benefiting from this.

Glad to see the thread up to 130 posts. If nothing else it gave everyone something to ponder.

Cheers
Jack
 
There is room for everybody. Purists who will never stray from points or TCI because Yamamamma designed it that way, Boydsen(spelling?) because they just like it, PAMCO because it was designed and produced by one of us, Gonzo because it's the latest thing and it's not expensive. Then there are those who have little to no loyalty and just want to improve their XS so they will do anything to cure their ride and get her back on the road. I'm in the last 2 categories.
 
I got an inadvertent look inside Gonzo when trying to disconnect the 6 pin connector. Inside the connector goes to discrete wires to a circuit board. Bet if someone bought 1000 of them the manufacture would probably be able to rewire the connector to match 80-81 bikes for a plug and play sort of thing. Wonder if someone in Florida has seen this thread.
 
After giving it some more thought, 35° may be fine for full advance. The very early bikes had a slightly different timing spec, more retarded than the later bikes. The early idle timing spec was 10° to 15° BTDC. If set to the low end, to 10°, that would put full advance at 35°.

LHseEFl.jpg
 
Yeah, pretty sure 35°-37° will be fine, otherwise I wouldn't be working on it. ;) About the only down side I can see is if you're mixture is on the lean side you might not get complete combustion... and power would be down slightly. That's easily fixed though with jets and needle adjustments.
 
Perhaps the copper could take the form of a press fit sleeve around the magnet - Then drill hole to size of sleeve??
Been thinkin' on this. I think we'll be OK with nothing, but if we do need to block some magnetism, I just ordered this. Cut some to resemble what's on the TCI rotor and go over it with some clear epoxy to make sure it stays affixed.

71FpNvU-fOL._AC_SX679_.jpg
 
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