Electronic tach?

Geeto67 wrote:

I guess I should give you the run down on my bike.

The bike is a 1976 kz900. The previous owner converted it to a "drag bike" for use in our local street bike class. It was a budget built bike and it shows. I don't have a gauge cluster because he had an autometer setup with a mini speedo on the bike which he kept when he sold me the bike. He also hardtailed the frame (welded - ick) but left the engine alone because as a brackets bike it needed to be consistent more than it needed to be fast. I normally run a h1 kawasaki as my brackets bike but it was starting to get inconsistent when I dropped into the low 12s with it and the motor needed to come apart anyway so I bought the kz900 so I could go 11s and also I wanted to shift back to 4 strokes and run in a different class. Since this is a street bike class, I do plan on running the bike on the street occasionally (though it is loud). MY racing budget is pretty thin right now (as is everybody's) so I am trying to get an electronic tach on the bike so I can make a pass or two before the track closes for the season next week, just to sort it out.

I have a cluster from a 1986 zx1000 (I own one so I bought a spare cluster), do you think I can rig that to make it work until I can find a better solution? I think my local shop has a ZL600 tach from the 1990s on the shelf and it looks like it is electronic, will that work?

Please deffer to my first post. $20 at Harbor freight. Or use the ZX1000 splicing into the black coil wire. This is all presuming you have an electronic ignition in the bike. If not than forget all the recommendations from everyone until you get one. You cant run an electric tach directly from points.

I ran electric tachs on points cars for years, You just need a control box to do it. I was told the bike has a dyna S in it right now but I have not checked (I just got the front end back together, the P/O started to rebuild the front and when I got it it was all apart). If not I can get one, but the ignition is not really something that I am worried about.

for the first 6 years i raced iused a drl-200 high end single stage rev limiter i set it at 10,500 and i launched the bike off the high end. i tried to use a tach but i found i was way more consistent launching right off the box. in fact i've often thought about going back to this system on my little drag bike because of the consistency. i use a drl-400 with a shift light and i find it's to easy to play with the launch rpm. never satisfied don't you know.

otakar wrote:

... You cant run an electric tach directly from points.

The bike-specific tachs should work with points.

The car-specific tachs are designed to work with points, but on the KZ, it would require a slightly more elaborate adapter circuit to combine the two coil signals.

It is, however, definitely a lot simpler to make an adapter for car-specific tachs if your KZ is electronic ignition.

Also, the simple adapter is different if you have a Dyna S versus a KZ electronic tach.