Electromotive ignition stupid questions

B

bfloyd

Well-known member
What can cause a random ignition drop with a HPV-3 set up. At any rpm in garage cold or warm it will shut off completely. Will restart with an occasional backfire.

Any pointers would be appreciated will be checking the following

Battery charge
Grounds
air gap

What else should be looked at.

Bryan Floyd
GTL Nissan 44 & 70
 
The Electromotive crank triggers gave me fits, especially the 3/8" diameter ones. I bought a 1/2" trigger from Huffaker and haven't had any issures.
 
We had some initial, problems with the trigger and it was replaced by Electromotive. Also grounds are critcal. We ground the unit and both coils directly back to the battery ground. Also, make sure the trigger or trigger mounting do not vibrate.

Have had no problems since trigger replacement.

Rod Hahnemann
 
Non emi suppressed plug wires.

I once put a set of really pretty, expensive 12 mm plug wires in my. Gt3 car. It would miss, pop, sputter, and generally not run at load.

Put in a set of uber cheap rf suppressed plug wires and the issue went away.
 
Thanks for the help, I have 8mm Taylor wires, soldered all the grounds but think it is probably either the pick up (old 3/8" type) or the unit itself. Ordering a pickup today so we'll see.

Bryan Floyd
 
air gap is .016 but I have an old chart from Electromotive showing dia of wheel and recommended air gaps to be greater than this. Any input?

Bryan Floyd
 
Going from memory I believe that they now call for something like .010 per inch of wheel. I use .030 on a 5" wheel and it works great on the 1/2" pickups. I also believe that the 1/2" pickup is available from Electromotive as well as Huffaker. The 3/8" pickups are junk.
 
It seemed to me to be too small an air gap, I wonder what the symptom might be from it being to tight?

Bryan
 
The major symptom from too large an air gap is that the engine won't start. If it does, the magnitude of the voltage swings from the sensor will go up with engine speed. I've seen engines that started and ran with an inadvertent gap of .100", but anything in the .020-.030 range is generally fine. I don't know of a penalty from having an excessively small air gap, except possible mechanical contact of wheel and sensor, which could be bad. New wheels should be trued on a lathe when fastened to the piece they mount to in the car. I have had many failures of 3/8 and even 1/2" sensors supplied by Electromotive, but zero with the first 1/2" Huffaker I bought that is now many years old, and has even been through a broken trigger wheel event. The Electromotive failures were many years ago and I don't know the quality of the sensors they now supply.
 
It is pretty easy to check the sensors. All you need is a cheap multi-tester that can measure resistance. I check and make a note of the reading when they are new, and then check them periodically over time. They will slowly degrade.
 
FWIW I contatced Huffaker to check price and availability of a 1/2" sensor. The response was that they carry a 3/4" threaded unit and a 3/8" round (smooth-face, not chisel). They suggested I adapt a 3?8" to fit my application. Not gonna do it, wouldn't be prudent - guess I'll pick up another Electromotive unit as a spare (the only failure I had was after a crank trigger wheel separation).
 
mmacquee":2xuef5fo said:
FWIW I contatced Huffaker to check price and availability of a 1/2" sensor. The response was that they carry a 3/4" threaded unit and a 3/8" round (smooth-face, not chisel). They suggested I adapt a 3?8" to fit my application. Not gonna do it, wouldn't be prudent - guess I'll pick up another Electromotive unit as a spare (the only failure I had was after a crank trigger wheel separation).
Click to expand...

When I spoke to Uwe @ Electromotive last week I asked about the alternative OEM sensors. He said they are good options. Has anyone tried one of them?

Thank you,
Larry
 
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