BD125-8 ZS190 swap and EFI conversion

[glavey]

Just another 190 swap into a Vader/Baodiao grom copy, except this time I will hopefully have it converted to EFI as well.

I already have the 190 engine, new exhaust (https://www.ebay.com/itm/381524528567), and a Microsquirt ECU (https://www.diyautotune.com/product/microsquirt-engine-management-system-w-30-wiring-harness/). I am still waiting for EFI-supporting hardware such as throttle body, fuel pump, injector, etc from here (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/microsquirt-II-based-EFI-motorcycle-Motorbike-Motocross-ATV-scooter-small-engine-Electronic-Fuel-Injection-kit/32786077851.html) (kit 4), as well as a wideband o2 sensor and controller (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076BCB4LP/) from amazon.

The parts from the Chinese seller also included another ECU, but this one is supposedly not compatible with the software that is used to tune the microsquirt, and will only work with the software that the seller gives you with the parts. Also, it states on the Chinese seller's product description, that wideband 02 sensors are not supported, however the option to use either a narrowband or a wideband is still selectable in the software.

If it turns out that the software truly doesn't support wideband, I'll just skip right over using the Chinese ECU and software and use the genuine microsquirt and tunerstudio. I'm sure I could eventually get a decent tune on an engine with just a narrowband sensor for ECU feedback, I've seen a few videos of people with this same kit or one very like it get an engine running and rideable; but this is my very first foray into EFI conversion and tuning, so I want the experience to be as good (easy) as I can make it so I won't have a sour taste left in my mouth from a bad first experience with tuning.

I already have 90% of the bike taken apart and will probably drop the engine sometime between tomorrow and Wednesday. Trying to drop an engine, even one this small, without an platform jack is... painful. I'll probably end up using a combination of trolley jacks, jack stands, and rope to drop the 125 and lift the 190.

Unless something unexpected happens, I probably won't document the engine swap part too heavily as it's quite straight-forward; take stuff off of your bike until you can remove the engine, disconnect anything that is connected between the engine and the frame or wiring harness, remove front sprocket, remove the right rear set to get access to a bolt, remove engine mount bolts (that's where I am right now), drop (hopefully not literally) the engine, new engine install is reverse of removal. I think there is one or two wires that I have to move/swap, if you were going to stay carbureted, you'd be 95% done.

I'm not good at wrapping up ideas, thoughts, and posts.

[Whisky]

I'm going to be doing this swap as well except I will be staying with a carb setup. There is a member on here that went EFI with the zs190 but he hasn't been active for over a yr. I don't know anything about the efi but keep me informed with how the swap went. I won't be doing anything until it warms up some in a couple months.

[glavey]

With some juggling of engine support bolts, trolley jacks, and a hammer I managed to get the 125 engine out. Looking at the 125 and the 190 side-by-side I'd guess the 190 is... about 20% bigger externally; the longer stroke, 6-plate clutch, 5th gear, and overall increased beefiness are probably the reasons why.

I drilled out the 190 mounts and the mounting tabs on the bike to 3/8 in. If I, or anyone else wanted to, they might be able to drill out the mounts even larger if it turns out that this engine shears bolts as well. Although if you look at the location of the crankcase breather nipple and the angle it goes into the case, it seems to be very close to the top mounting hole.

I'm hearing a creak from around the swing arm pivot when moving the bike, so I figure this is the best time to check that out and make sure nothing is broken or about to break around there.

I tested the microsquirt as much as you can with only power and a serial connection - some readings fluctuated a bit since their input pins were left floating, everything I looked at and tested seemed to work.

I got an update from the seller on aliexpress - the order has now shipped and should be at my door in 5-8 days with a refund in it doesn't show up in 21 days. When it arrives I get the arduous task of wiring the 190 into the 125's wiring harness and combining the harnesses from the microsquirt and the aliexpress seller.
I think I'm going to keep all of the EFI-related wiring in its own separate loom and harness - if for some reason the EFI doesn't work out It'll be much easier to just disconnect the EFI harness and remove it than taking apart the entire wiring harness to take out just the EFI-related wires.

The exhaust I bought does seem to fit the 190, but it is very close to the starter motor, and I'm worried about all the heat that will be going into it. Exhaust wrapping may be in my future.

Apologies for the lack of pictures and video; a build thread without pictures is quite lackluster, but I am doing all of this in my bedroom and I'm afraid if I take a picture, I'll have a prescription bottle or a butt plug in the background. Not to mention I don't have a very high standard for household cleanliness.

[wheelbender6]

" I am doing all of this in my bedroom"
So how is your wife enjoying that?

[Whisky]

I just might have to make room in my house for this project but it certainly won't be in the bedroom.

[glavey]

" I am doing all of this in my bedroom"
So how is your wife enjoying that?


You mean my right hand? She's having a blast finally getting to hold on to tools bigger than a golf pencil. In all seriousness, no wife, no GF, no significant other (unless you count cats); I'm just working from home while living with a family member. I'm too conditioned to the single life at this point that unless something INCREDIBLE happens, I'll be single for the foreseeable future.

Honestly, there isn't much in my room in the way of furniture, there's just lots of crap in lots of piles on the furniture and in shelves. Screw it, here (http://oi63.tinypic.com/2znvdcp.jpg)'s a crappy distorted panorama from the perspective of my computer chair. Go ahead, blast me for being messy.

Another small update on the aliexpress order - it should arrive Wednesday.

[RedCrowRides]

Screw it, here (http://oi63.tinypic.com/2znvdcp.jpg)'s a crappy distorted panorama from the perspective of my computer chair. Go ahead, blast me for being messy.



Lol, that looks great compared to the current state of my craft room ,and dont even get me started on my mechanicing space simply known as "the shed" .

[Whisky]

Right there with ya. I wish I had that much room to work on the bike in the house.

[glavey]

Had to buy a longer 3/8 drill bit to really get the mounting holes on the 190 bored out properly; new hardware was slightly larger. You really want the bolts to easily slide through the mounting points on the frame and on the engine, when you're lifting a heavy engine into place, all of the weight and any slight misalignment will make pushing the bolt through incredibly difficult.


Last night I was doing some probing with a multimeter on the 190 engine and made a discovery - the trigger coil for the CDI (not the spark plug coil) has one lead grounded to the engine case. That just won't work when I switch to EFI, everything else that is returning power through the engine ground (sensors, pumps, heaters, relays, switches) will add interference to the trigger signal.


I took off the stator cover to get a good look at the trigger coil and the stator itself.


http://oi66.tinypic.com/2wp2vq8.jpg


Oh look a token gesture of lubrication!
http://oi63.tinypic.com/5ye0ox.jpg


There is only one ground wire coming out of the engine, but there are two green wires going into the wire covering. Me thinks the wires are soldered together somewhere inside the black wire covering.


http://oi66.tinypic.com/29fs4gi.jpg
http://oi63.tinypic.com/2ylrd6u.jpg
http://oi64.tinypic.com/dxk0hx.jpg


As I thought! Now, If I (or anyone else) wanted to run a carb and a CDI instead of going EFI, I wouldn't need to do this. The stock CDI (at least on my 125 that just came out of the bike) can still get a good signal with the ground going through the engine. I am going for EFI, so I am going to unsolder the green wire coming from the stator at the point that it is soldered to the green wire coming from the trigger coil, leaving the green wire from the trigger coil connected to the green wire going through the black wire covering. I still wanted to have a wire coming out of the engine connected to the green wire coming from the stator, so I got a spare piece of wire,soldered it to the green stator wire and ran the wire through the black wire covering. Now, there is no continuity between the engine case and either lead coming from the trigger coil.

The 190 stator is sized and wired very similar to a 139qmb engine. This is a good thing... kinda. I have a 50ish cc scooter that I have installed a trail tech regulator/rectifier on. I had to modify the wiring on the stator only a little bit (I think I moved one wire from one solder point to another and disconnect another) to get it to work and now the scooter has a great charging and lighting system.

The 190 stator being sized similar to a 50cc one is slightly worrying. I'm honestly wondering if I'll have enough juice to run a fuel pump, (maybe) o2 sensor heater, a headlight/taillight, and charge the battery.

I put the stator back into the engine and everything still fits as it should with an extra wire.

Since I still don't have an engine in the bike, I took this chance to clean and lube the steering head bearings since it will be easier to get and keep the bike supported without the majority of the weight it usually has.


http://oi64.tinypic.com/2lc4b54.jpg
http://oi63.tinypic.com/2yn5u6a.jpg
http://oi64.tinypic.com/2j130i0.jpg
http://oi64.tinypic.com/2wh3sp2.jpg


I don't know enough about grease to know what kind of grease was on the bearings or if it was bad, worse, or abysmal. At least the ball bearings were caged. I cleaned the bearings and races and re-packed them with some waterproof marine grease.

I noticed a little bit of rust pitting on one of the struts.


http://oi65.tinypic.com/33a8bis.jpg
http://oi67.tinypic.com/21e9p5i.jpg


Uh Oh. Hopefully this won't get too much worse too fast, but this is from china...

I might leave the fork tubes out for a few days - depends if I can find a local B&M that sells shock oil. I want to try that "$15 fork mod", however, I have heard that our bikes (the Chinese ones, as opposed to the grom) are missing something or something is different inside the tubes that prevents us from doing said mod. I at least want to replace the oil that is in the tubes now.

That's all for tonight.

[Weldangrind]

That token gesture of lubrication was about as much grease as Dan's Hawk had on his steering bearings.

[glavey]

After a few blood sacrifices, bruises, and many cramps, I got the 190 into the bike frame. The top mounting tabs on the frame and the mounting... tube on the engine fit perfectly, however...


http://oi65.tinypic.com/newcoo.jpg
http://oi65.tinypic.com/2u56djq.jpg


The rear mounting points didn't line up perfectly - the welds on one side on the frame were hitting the mounting points on the engine, so I ground that down as well as right in the middle of the rear mounting points on the engine, right where the two case halves meet (not shown in pics). The frame and the engine still didn't line up quite perfectly, but enough that a hammer would persuade it into place.

I didn't want to go out to the hardware store today - old man winter dropped a slushy mess 'round my parts over midnight, so I used washers instead of buying a spacer. I used this same method when I replaced the engine bolts on the 125 and both bolts stayed right in place.


http://oi68.tinypic.com/2rzywkz.jpg


One minor mod that is mandatory when swapping in a 190 is grinding, bending, or otherwise removing the rear brake return spring and mounting tab on the rear brake pedal arm. I just bent the top part of it off with pliers, but I still need to grind off a little bit more.


http://oi67.tinypic.com/2wrn12t.jpg
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The clutch cable is a bit close to the engine mounting bolt, but I think it'll be fine.

The stock intake manifold for the 190 looks as if it was designed to have an injector in it. If you drill a hole in the center of the larger semi-circle, it will be pointed exactly at the intake valve and the smaller semi-circle on the flat could be drilled and tapped for a bolt to hold the injector in place.


http://oi65.tinypic.com/103ddme.jpg


I'm not sure if I'll try putting the injector directly in the intake manifold, I sincerely doubt I could drill perfectly perpendicular to a small flat spot like that. There is (at least) one metal-working shop in town that I could ask to drill a hole as-perpendicular-as-possible, but they mainly do welding and sheet metal work. I may ask them to weld in the o2 sensor bung instead of going to a muffler shop, it just seems like I would get a better quality weld going to a sheet metal specialist.


http://oi64.tinypic.com/34pgbbb.jpg


The stock mounting location for the spark coil isn't going to work, nor is the piece of metal it is bolted to. The 190 came with another spark coil with a different mounting scheme so I'm not too worried about that. I probably won't even use either of the spark coils that I have now in favor of a logic coil also called a smart coil. All I have to do with one of those is send it a logic-level high to start charging the coil and a logic-low signal to release the spark.

The weather delayed the aliexpress package until tomorrow.

I have a question for those who are reading this thread - what method of posting pictures do you prefer? IMG tags like I have been doing? attachments? text links? It seems like using IMG tags with large pics makes it difficult to read my posts.

[Whisky]

I wonder if this will work with this engine?
https://www.steadygarage.com/store/chimera-throttlebody-intake-manifold-clocking-flange-ssr-razkull-125

[Weldangrind]

I have a question for those who are reading this thread - what method of posting pictures do you prefer? IMG tags like I have been doing? attachments? text links? It seems like using IMG tags with large pics makes it difficult to read my posts.

Thanks for asking. When you say IMG tags, are they from another site that is hosting them? If so, I'd recommend uploading directly to the forum from your device.

[glavey]

I'm uploading and hosting my pics on tinypic. If I upload the pics directly to the forum (I'm assuming you mean attachments to a post), won't that cost you a lot of bandwidth to serve them?

[Weldangrind]

Uploading to the forum is encouraged by the Admin. Here's how we do it: http://www.chinariders.net/showthread.php?t=14422

[glavey]

The aliexpress package arrived!


The was packaging on-par with 90% of the other orders I've had arrive from China. Everything was there and everything I've tested works. I have yet to test fuel pump because I self imposed a rule of no fuel indoors (gas tank and carb are out in the garage).


The CDI that came has a green LED next to the 4+2 pin connector. I'm assuming and hoping that LED blinks when the CDI gets the signal to fire the spark coil. I'm also hoping that the CDI has either no ignition advance or fixed ignition advance. That will make troubleshooting and diagnosing problems much easier.



The ECU connects to the software provided and all of the readings look good. The wires are potted into the case, BUT! it is a soft re-enterable potting compound similar to pure silicone or liquid electrical tape (not like the rock-hard kind that is used on CDI boxes) AND the case is screwed together, not glued or ultrasonically welded! I think my chances of at least getting the case open without destroying the PCB and/or case in the process are good.


In one of the pics you can see a size comparison to a microsquirt and its harness. The MS uses better, larger, more, and labeled wires. Of course, it's not really a comparison between the two as the MS can control up to 8 cylinders.


I'm jumping around between testing out the software, mentally running wires, and looking for places to mount the ECU, relays, fuses, fuel pump, spark coil, oil cooler, you get the idea.


Before I start going wild cutting, crimping, soldering, and swearing, is there anything anyone wants to know about the EFI kit? Honestly, as much as this project is about converting my engine to EFI, I see that there are a lot of people on this forum and all over the internet that would like to get a kit like this, but aren't sure if it will work at all, if it will work with their particular engine and bike. I want to share as much knowledge about this kit and project as I can so maybe someone will come across this thread or one like it, read it and get the information that they were searching for, or be encouraged to try out a project on their own and have all the support that this forum and most of the other forums around the internet.


Demon cat (Nollie) says FEED ME!

[glavey]

Didn't do much today, but made some discoveries, both good and bad, and made some mental planning headway.

Discovery #1 - ...this one is all my fault. The flange on the throttle body doesn't line up to the 190's manifold bolt holes. I checked the 125's manifold and sure enough it bolted up and fit perfectly. I should have asked for the clamp mount TB. Heck, the 190 even came with a flange-to-clamp adapter for the carb! Oh well, mistakes just mean you learned something new. I can still drill and tap new holes in the 190 manifold, so all is not lost.

Discovery #2 - The throttle cable that came with the bike, the choke cable that came with the bike, the throttle cable that came with the 190, and the throttle cable that was harshly salvaged from my scooter either don't have enough cable throw or don't have the correct barrel-end. I kinda expected to have to do something to the throttle cable since I'm going from a carb to TB. Tomorrow I will probably trim the sleeve on one of the throttle cables carefully with a dremel and find some way of making a crimp/termination on the sleeve end.

Discovery (more like a dream project) #3 - If I put an ABS-style slotted rotor on both wheels, put new rearsets on with a sensor in the linkage to the shifter, and convert to ride-by-wire, I could have a crom with traction control, launch control (kinda pointless on a bike), power modes, ABS, and quick-shifting up and down with auto-throttle-blip. I think I just wet myself.

Activity #1 (and only) - Wired the 190 stator output into the 125 wiring harness. The black/red wire is/was the power supply for AC-powered CDIs. The one that came with the aliexpress kit is DC-powered. I will be keeping the 125 harness 90% as it is, most of it is lighting-related. I'll run the aliexpress-ecu/microsquirt harness separately. I'll start out using the aliexpress one to see if it is a viable option for a cheap EFI kit. Then I'll go and wire in the microsquirt harness, which will take considerably longer than putting in the aliexpress one. I may even have to cannibalize the aliexpress harness for all the connectors, but not before I at least try and crack the case open and see what is in there.

[Whisky]

Moving right along. Very good information.

[glavey]

Successfully shortened the sleeve on a throttle cable using a dremel without nicking the cable! Throttle grip now feels just like it did with a carbie. Turns out I will need to buy the intake manifold rotator/adapter from steady garage. I could use a ~1/4" sheet steel spacer instead, but cutting through that with hand tools... nope.

Terminated all the remaining wires from the engine, and started mounting the fuse box and main power relay. Instead of the ignition switch having all of the current from the battery go through it, I decided I would wire in a main relay and use the ignition switch to toggle the relay on/off. It just seemed like a good thing to do. Plus, the fuse box is literally right below it, so wiring is a bit easier. One bad thing, though. The fuse box and main relay took up all of the half-sandwich-sized-storage underneath the seat. I can still tuck the little tool pouch and tools that came with the bike in-between the frame and the rear plastics.

There is going to be one main fuse between the battery and the main relay, then, from the fuse box, there will be separate fused circuits for lighting/CDI/dashboard/controls, fuel pump and heated o2 sensor on a shared relay circuit, and the injector. I may not be able to use ALL of these relays with the aliexpress ECU, as I haven't yet tested to see if the injector and/or the fuel pump are high-side or low-side switched.

I confirmed that I have the neutral correctly wired when I did a quick electrical test before I started gutting the 125's harness. There is a video on youtube that shows/tells you to connect the green wire with the red stripe coming from the 190 engine to the red wire on the former-gear-position-connector in the top-right corner. This is partially correct. The wire in the top-right corner of the gear connector is red with a green stripe. This is the wire you want to connect the neutral wire to. The wire in the bottom-right corner is red with a white stripe, so be careful to connect to the correct one. I'm sure the guy in the video just didn't see the green stripe on the wire at first, I didn't either.

Part of wiring in the main relay is connecting to the switched +12v (black) wire in the harness. There was a black wire on the security/alarm connector that was switched +12v, but the wire was such a small gauge, I couldn't in good conscience have all of the current going through that wire. I peeled open the harness and searched for the spot closest to the relay that had a solder/crimp joint on the black wire so I could run a thicker, beefier wire directly to that point. As you can see in one of the pictures, the crimp is about as good as you would expect from china. Serviceable, but just barely hanging in there. I flooded the whole crimp and the new bigger wire with solder for a better connection.

The relay for the fuel pump/o2 sensor heater will have to be somewhere besides the under-seat area; I'm using harnesses with pigtails for the relays and they about double the room a relay takes up.

[glavey]

Finished the main relay wiring, had to run a power wire into the 125 harness for the same reason I did yesterday - wire gauge was too small. Confirmed the relay works as it should by testing everything except the horn. With as many of the lights turned on as I could, I measured roughly 500 mA through the lighting circuit. I don't know how much current a horn uses and I don't want to pop a fuse every time I honk at someone, budgeted another 500 mA for it. So at max that circuit should pull about 1 A, so I think a 2 A fuse will be sufficient.

I placed and semi-permanently mounted the aliexpress ecu and began running wires, crimping connectors, finding wiring routes, etc. I should only need to splice into/modify 6 wires on 3 connectors; power/ground for the fuel pump, injector, and o2 sensor heater.

I was looking online at vacuum-referenced fuel pressure regulators - youch! Unless you want to go with a REALLY cheap $15 regulator that has poor reviews, the cheapest ones start at around $100. The manual for the microsquirt does say that a vacuum-referenced regulator is and I quote, "Essential". I'm positive the people who designed the ECU and wrote the manual for it have done at least hundreds of EFI installs between all of them. This is my first one. I'm going to trust them.

I took a closer look at the little regulator/pump assy from the aliexpress kit. There are two holes on either side of the metal diaphragm housing and one on top. I think if I seal the two side holes shut and epoxy or JB weld a hose barb on the top one, I could turn this into a vacuum-referenced regulator! Even if it doesn't work, I'll still have the top hole open so it should still work as a fixed pressure regulator.

The two next big-ish things to do are to drill the holes in the 190 manifold for the TB, and get the bung welded on the exhaust. I'll definitely get the former done before the latter as I just have a puny little 80 A buzz box and all of my experience in welding adds up to about 10 crappy welds done on sheet steel. Also, there is a snow storm a-coming tonight and I expect to be slow-blowing a foot of snow tomorrow or the next day.

I'm also uploading a copy of the tune that was on the aliexpress ECU when I received it, I changed nothing on it. You can view it with the software posted here (http://www.chinariders.net/showpost.php?p=249534&postcount=30), I'm nut sure if I have a high enough post count that external links won't look like spam. When you start the software for the first time, go to File -> Offline. The software is constantly looking for a connection to an ECU, slowing down the program and it will keep looking until you go click offline in the file menu.

[JerryHawk250]

Thanks for posting such a detailed step by step. :tup: I'm been following this one.

[glavey]

No problem, I'm just glad I am able to do this at all. If you or anyone else wants more info on anything or if I didn't explain something well enough (I'm a scatter-brained airhead with limited attenti- SQUIRREL!) go ahead and ask, I'll be happy to try and explain further.

[glavey]

I think I found a very good mounting location for the fuel pump. I took the starter solenoid off the two mounting tabs and out of the rubber holder, cut the bottom flange off of the rubber holder and slid it over the fuel pump. Nearly a perfect fit. I moved the starter solenoid to the tab above the rear brake fluid reservoir. I had a spare rubber holder from the extras that came with the 190. The pump is a little tight between the tabs on the frame, but that is better than too loose. I'm still going to secure it with some zip ties.

I drilled and tapped two new holes in the 190 manifold for the TB mounting points. I wanted to use a metric thread so I could keep almost all things of the hardware on the bike metric, but the closest I had was a 1/4-20 so I went with that. The holes and threads are a wee bit off-center, but still very usable. Even if they end up too crooked or I strip the threads, I can just use a nut on one side.

I ordered the intake clocking flange from steady garage. It seems almost mandatory to have some way to either raise and/or rotate the intake if you want to use the flange TB from aliexpress. You might be able to squeeze the clamp TB in, but it will be difficult. I still might attempt to put the injector directly into the manifold on the flat spot...

I tested some of the wiring on the aliexpress harness - the heater circuit for the oxygen sensor is directly connected to battery voltage and ground, no control from the ECU. The fuel pump is connected to battery voltage and switched to ground via the ECU. This means I can wire two relays to both turn on when the fuel pump is supposed to run, while still having two separate and fused circuits. So whenever the fuel pump is running, the o2 sensor will have its heater on. I can turn off/disable the o2 heater if I find that it is drawing too much current or the exhaust is heating the sensor enough/too much. I might wire the CDI to turn off whenever the fuel pump is off as well, it seems safe to disable the ignition when it isn't needed.

[glavey]

The wideband sensor and controller arrived as well as some exhaust gaskets. I'm glad I haven't got around to getting the o2 sensor bung welded in yet, because the wideband sensor uses a much larger diameter thread than the narrowband that came with the aliexpress kit. I'm going to be starting with the aliexpress ECU and hardware so I wanted to start with the narrowband sensor as well to keep my experiences as similar as possible to someone who just ordered the aliexpress kit and nothing else. However, since the wideband and narrowband do not the same thread size/pitch, I am going to use the wideband from the start, but I will be using the simulated narrowband output from the controller to emulate the experience I or someone else would get if using the narrowband sensor that came with the aliexpress kit.

The exhaust gaskets are nothing special, they look like standard metal crush-type gaskets.

After I read this (http://www.chinariders.net/showpost.php?p=256408&postcount=96) post by someone who was using the same kit as I am, I knew before I even ordered it that I would need to run a relay for the fuel pump, but I didn't realize just how anemic the power wires for the pump would be and are. I had to cut and discard the waterproof connector for the fuel pump on the harness and on the pump itself. I now have power going straight from the fuse box to a relay, from the relay directly to the pump, from the pump directly to the same grounding point as the battery negative is connected to. I'll be doing the same with the heater for the oxygen sensor.

As I said in my last post, I wanted to put the CDI/ignition system on a relay as well, but unless I start drilling into the frame, I am out of room to mount another relay.

I also discovered that the high-pressure outlet on the fuel pump isn't meant for connecting directly to a fuel hose, it is a quick-connect fitting. You can see here (https://www.amazon.com/Koauto-Coupler-Release-Connect-Connector/dp/B07J597ZD4) that the single barb connector is for the quick connect and the standard-looking barbs are for hoses. I might use a quick-connect as the project gets closer to the first-start-up phase, but since I don't even have the fuel tank on the bike, I'll worry about that later.

[Weldangrind]

Too bad about the pump power wires. Looks like they took the time to use a Weatherpak-style connector. The good news is that you can make new ones for cheap.

[glavey]

Yep, already priced out replacements for whenever the EFI harness gets final and permanent. I had to cut half of another connector off today, this time it was the harness-half of the oxygen sensor connector. The aliexpress harness had the same... I'm guessing 20 gauge wire for the o2 sensor heater. Not enough for me to feel comfortable. I wired the wideband controller directly to the relay that shares the same input as the fuel pump, so whenever the fuel pump is running (only when the engine is running, or for 2 seconds on initial startup), the o2 sensor heater will be able to turn on. You can kind of see the two black/white wire pairs connected together in one of the pictures, that's the fuel pump power from the ECU wired to trigger both relays.

Here is a quote from the wideband sensor user manual:
"Do not install the Lambda Sensor in such a manner that the unit is powered before your engine is running. An engine start can move condensation in your exhaust system to the sensor, if the sensor is already heated this can cause thermal shock and cause the ceramic internals inside the sensor to crack and deform."

Also;
"While the Lambda Sensor is in an active exhaust stream, it must be controlled by Spartan Lambda Controller. Carbon from an active exhaust can easily build up on an unpowered sensor and ruin it."

So I can either not have any o2 sensor, or I have to have a powered o2 sensor. Kinda sucks, but I get it. The wideband controller has separate grounds for the electronic signals and for the heater. Since I can't (yet) directly access the connections directly on the ECU board, I had to settle for the ground wire that was for the original o2 sensor connector.

I placed the wideband controller on the right side of the frame, opposite the voltage regulator/rectifier. There aren't any mounting points on the controller, its just a PCB with wires coming out of one end and a connector on the other, covered with thick heat shrink tubing. At the moment, it is temporarily zip-tied in place. I want to either secure it with at least one more zip tie or move it somewhere else on the bike (there aren't many more places) where it can be more securely attached to the frame.

The big yellow cable with red tape on it is an old ethernet cable all but two wires taken out of it. The wideband controller has an output for an LED that will tell you through the speed of light blinks or by steady operation if the sensor is too hot, too cold, or goldilocks. The amount of heat contained in the exhaust is going to change based mostly on throttle position, so it may be too cold at idle and good at the top end, or good at idle, but bad at the top end. Being able to monitor whether or not the sensor is "happy" is a good thing to me, especially since I am going to basically be making an educated guess as to the distance from the exhaust port the sensor is going to be. I have heard plain vehicles should have them placed around 2 feet from the port, some say closer, some say further away. I have read ONE anecdote from here (https://www.wbo2.com/lsu/LsuInstal.pdf)that says,

"The more cylinders that feed the exhaust pipe, the more heat goes to the sensor. It’s possible to locate a sensor 300 mm (12”) from a single cylinder runner pipe (such as on an air-cooled motorbike), although we would suggest a little further back (500-600 mm = 20-24”) if the sensor is under bonnet."

I think I'll try right around 12 inches from the port, maybe 18; the exhaust header and the o2 sensor are going to be exposed to fast moving cool air 99% of the time. If that doesn't work, I'll just have to get another bung welded on elsewhere. I do have one small concern about the exhaust and wideband - from the document I linked to earlier:

"If you have any kind of exhaust leak out of the exhaust pipe then it’s also possible there is a leak into the exhaust pipe too. Eliminate all exhaust leaks without resorting to sealing compounds as these can often damage the sensor through silicon contamination. Even small leaks may result in meaningless lambda readings..."

The exhaust system I bought is connected together with slip joints. I don't see a way those joints won't leak if I don't use some sort of sealant.

In the picture of the right side of the bike, you can get a better idea of the location of the fuel pump and the wideband controller. I left myself plenty of extra wire connected to the controller in case I have to move it to a different location. Not pictured is another 6 FEET of cable that I cut off of the controller. I'll be saving that wire for when (if) this project nears completion and I'm wiring up everything for the final time.

You might not be able to tell, but in the second picture it shows the area between the reg/rec and the relays is just filled with wires. I am going to try my best to keep most of the wiring running along or just below the frame, and the small area between the ECU and relays is going to be for all of the fuel lines, filters, connections, gauges, etc.

I'm really trying to think ahead as far as I can, and doing this project during the winter has been a blessing in disguise - normally on any project I'm working on something I really love (no exception here) so the whole time I'm working/building/modding/fixing/fixing previous fixes, I'm not able to USE the thing I'm working on. Right now, If I even tried to start the bike, I'd freeze my nuts off outside before it warmed up. Knowing that I'm not wasting any valuable riding time trying to get everything as good as I can get it is great.

The intake manifold rotator should arrive tomorrow, and once that is installed, there isn't really much to do except plumb fuel lines, tidy up the rat's nest wiring, test what can be tested without go juice, and maybe sit on it for a few hours making vroom vroom noises. Oh, and I want to add some reflective tape/stickers/reflectors so that from 3, 6, 9, and 12 o'clock, there are at least 3 reflective items that can be seen with a rider on the bike.

I will probably slow down the posting once I've done all I can do indoors. I'll probably continue to check daily for questions and what-not.

[Weldangrind]

IIRC, blue Permatex is sensor-safe.
I appreciate your writing style, and I had a good giggle at the Goldilocks comment. I'm stealing that one. :D

[glavey]

Thanks for the info and the kind words, I bought some permatex ultra copper right after I started this project, but wasn't aware it was sensor-safe. Well, there goes that worry... for now.

The intake clocking flange arrived and fits beautifully. At first I tried mounting the manifold pointing out toward the right side of the bike, but either the throttle cable mounting point hit the bottom of the frame, the clutch cable was pushing and rubbing on the injector housing, or the air filter would have gotten in the way of where the oil cooler will live. Right now I have it pointing out the left side, perpendicular to the bike frame and engine. The wires will be tied up to the frame on either the left or right side, so they won't get in the way of the throttle operation. The throttle cable itself does sit at an odd and possibly uncomfortable position; it exits the throttle body pointing about... 2'clock, but then goes through a 90 degree bend and points downward toward the cylinder head. It's difficult to explain, you can kind of see what I mean in one of the pictures. Everything else has plenty of room around it, the idle air screw, the worm-drive clamp for the air filter, the fuel injector hose barb and electrical connector. The air filter even clears the red side-fairings.

A note on the air filter though - as you might be able to tell in one of the pictures, the air filter that comes with the 190 will not fit on the TB from aliexpress, the fiter is too big. The filter size that the VM22 uses DOES fit, I think it is 38mm, but I'm not sure. I'm going to be using the filter that I used with the VM22 when it was on the 125.

The stock bolts that are used to mount the intake manifold to the intake port are too long to use with the clocking flange, well one of them will be. One of the bolt holes on the intake manifold has more distance in the manifold to go through. I probably didn't explain that very well. What happens is one of the bolts will fasten as expected, but the other one bottoms out on the cooling fins before clamping the manifold down. No big problem, just grind and cut away some of the bolt and it'll be right.

I bolted the coolant (cylinder in out case) temp sensor to a hole near the bottom of the cylinder jug that was already threaded. I assume there mounting points are for those chin fairings I see on some of the croms. I'm going to wrap the wire in something to protect it from the heat and abrasion of rubbing against the engine case.

Since I had already run a cable up to the dashboard area with an LED indicator for the wideband, I thought I might as well run the LED indicator that the ECU has up there as well. Not much to explain here; I just lengthened the wire that the LED was connected to.

I connected all the electrical connectors except for the fuel pump and the wideband controller, connected a battery to the bike, connected a laptop to the ECU, and turned on the switch. Woo Hoo! No magic blue smoke! MAP, manifold temp, cylinder temp, throttle position, battery voltage, and both relays connected to the fuel pump enable signal worked and displayed correct readings. One word of note that I should mention - make sure the wire that connects the CDI to the ignition coil is connected to the coil and not disconnected or touching anything that is grounded to the bike's battery. Sweaty hands, dry air, and high voltage mix together with... shocking results. If you touch or hold the output from the CDI while grounded, you will become the coil and spark plug. Another way to say this is don't include yourself in the ignition circuit!

There are only one or two somewhat big things still to do, but lots more tiny things to do and some things to buy or think if I really need to buy them.

So far I have to:

sync ECU and engine timing
lube all cables
vasoline/dielectric grease on all connectors prone to corrosion
maybe buy trailtech R/R
replace front brake hardware (one of the bolts and nuts are starting to rust)
loc-tite all bolts
adjust valves
JB weld vacuum nipple (tehehe) onto fuel pressure regulator
maybe purchase or fabricate fender eliminator
replace firefly-in-a-test-tube headlights
weld o2 sensor bung
maybe extend exhaust down 1/4" - 1/2" to help clear starter motor
shield starter motor from radiant exhaust heat somehow
fabricate exhaust hanger
get different bolts for exhaust studs (the long "cap" kind don't fit the new exhaust pipe)
vent gas tank somehow (add a third line or just drill a small hole in the gas cap)
locate and mount oil cooler and lines
buy high-pressure fuel filter
ziptie or otherwise securely fasten fuel pump, starter solenoid, CDI, ECU, wideband controller
maybe buy waterproof connetors
maybe buy crimp tool for ^
maybe buy fork oil
buy hose rated for fuel injection
plumb all fuel lines together
maybe buy quick connect fitting for fuel pump
maybe buy copper tape for EMI shielding cabling and ECU
change engine oil
maybe buy taps and dies for whatever the threads are on the 8mm and 10mm bolts/nuts
make a hole for the seat release cable (the release cable is too long, bunches up, and kinks under the seat. I disconnected the lock and am just going to have the cable end sticking out of the body fairing somewhere)
reinforce battery tray (the tab on top of the piece of plastic that holds the battery barely just rests on the cross bar that is is supposed to)
relocate ignition coil (the ignition coil is right below the ECU. I anticipate signal integrity problems if not flat-out processor crashes if I don't shield the ECU and/or cables from interference)
connect stator ground to engine (I just need to put a bolt in the engine with a ring terminal on it)
silicone ends of electrical connectors
maybe buy a metal project box for the ECU (goes along with the EMI shielding mentioned above)
buy o2 bung (if auto-repair place cannot source one)


Within the next few days is the time I'll start to wind down on the posting because there won't be much to post about, but rest assured I want this project to continue and be completed as much as you.

[glavey]

Done:


Lube all cables
Adjust valves (.006" intake and exhaust)
Replace headlight (I'll wait 'till everything else is working, I never ride at night)
Seat release cable hole
Ground stator cable
Silicone ends of connectors (resist water ingress, keep wires from pulling/falling out of connectors)

There isn't really much to tell, explain, or show with those tasks. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Tomorrow will probably be oil cooler install and oil change.

[glavey]

Install oil cooler
Change engine oil
Tidy-up wiring harness
Paint where rear brake lever was ground down
Wire-in kill switch and tachometer
(re)Discover an old medium-sized problem


I tidied up the wiring and somewhat-finalized the location of the wiring harness, connectors, wire and cable routing, etc. The clutch cable, as it was with the 125, had to be routed between the red fairings and the white gas tank fairing. I tried my best to get every wire or connector that would be just sitting against anything else in a corrugated cable sleeve, spiral strain relief, wrapped in electrical tape, or zip-tied securely in place so the vibrations from the engine won't abrade through the wire's insulator. Everything seems to fit inside the fairings so far.

The oil cooler mounted with only one little issue. I used the bracket that the horn was originally mounted to for the oil cooler, I remounted the horn on the bottom triple clamp. If I bolted the oil cooler on in the order of oil cooler -> mounting bracket -> nut; then the bottom triple clamp would hit the sides of the cooler at full lock in either direction. I ended up bolting it up in the order of mounting bracket -> metal spacer -> oil cooler -> nut. It now clears the triple clamp with about a 1/4" on either side.

I changed the oil. Not much to say here. I used 700mL of valvoline premium blue 8600 es 15w-40. 600mL is the usual oil change capacity (as read from a daytona anima 190fdx engine manual), 700mL is the full capacity, but the oil cooler and lines are empty. I'll check the levels after I get a chance to start the engine, or at least turn it over.

I don't know if I mentioned this in a previous post, but one thing you have to do with a swap to the 190 is cut/grind away one of the rear brake arm return spring mounting tabs. I did that plus about another 1mm from the arm right where it would touch the case. I cleaned and painted the area I ground down with some "toyota white" touch up paint I had.

I hadn't thought of this until a few days ago, with the ECU directly controlling the CDI and thus the entire ignition system, the kill switch on the handlebars isn't going to do anything. I looked online to see how the kill switch is usually wired up and it was different than what I though it was going to be, in a good way. I thought that the kill switch 1. interrupted the signal from the CDI to the ignition coil and 2. did that by just breaking the connection from those two points. It turns out that the kill switch grounds out one lead of the trigger coil inside the stator cover, and since the other lead is grounded through the engine, there can be no more signal from trigger coil, no more spark. This meant that I just had to make a "Y" fitting for the blue wire that was coming out of the engine's stator cover, one end going to the ECU as it was before and one going to the blue wire's terminal in the wiring harness' stator connector. Another thing that I assume uses that signal is the tachometer in the dashboard. I'd hate not having that.

In a previous post, I said the exhaust I bought for the bike would just barely clear the starter motor. I was wrong. It does NOT clear the starter motor. I see a few options here.

1. Get a piece of exhaust pipe welded to the part that goes in the exhaust port on the engine. This would be difficult because any welding/automotive/bike shop probably won't have the size and thickness of pipe I need in stock, and they would, unless they can decrease the size of an exhaust pipe, be butt-welding two pieces together and they'd have to weld it from the inside.

2. Cut the exhaust at a given location and weld in an extension. If I, or they, can cut the exhaust square enough, the ends of the extension could be expanded so there wouldn't have to be a butt-joint, but a (I think) lap joint. I would have to get the exhaust painted or coated again if I did that.

3. Use the old exhaust from the 125, somewhat gutted or a hybrid franken-pipe with the muffler canister part from the new exhaust on the old pipe.

4. Buy a new exhaust and eat the stupid tax.

5. Heat and bend the exhaust pipe. If worse comes to worst...

6. Remove the electric starter, use the kick starter (I'd have to grind away some of the right rear set for fitment). I have heard that the starter chains on these engines have more-common-than-it-should-be rate of failure. Struggling to get the bike started while tuning it to even be able to start isn't something I'm looking forward to...

Decisions, decisions...

Oh, and I might have to remove the right passenger's footpeg to clear the muffler. No big deal; I'm never going to ride two-up on this thing.

The bolt just to the right of the engine temperature sensor looks suspiciously similar to one on a 139qmb engine that I installed an oil cooler/filter on. I think I can unbolt that... bolt and there might be an oil return passage behind it. I can use that threaded hole for a much better engine temperature reading or to get an auxiliary oil temperature reading. I looked at the exploded parts diagram for the 190, but it doesn't show what is behind the bolt, and it just refers to the bolt as a bolt, nothing like a "external oil sensing port" or something that easy to decipher.

I think the MAP/air temp/throttle position sensor might have a small air leak. If I suck or blow through one end of the throttle body and completely block the other, air manages to enter or escape respectively. The bottom of the sensor (the part that faces the throttle body) looks like it may not have been sealed around the edges. I'm hesitant to seal it up completely, because it may need some form of atmospheric pressure inside to work correctly. I guess I can try sealing it with something easy to remove, like silicone, and see if everything still works.

[Weldangrind]

Thanks for the info and the kind words, I bought some permatex ultra copper right after I started this project, but wasn't aware it was sensor-safe. Well, there goes that worry... for now.

I'm saying that I believe blue to be sensor safe; I don't know about copper.

Your firefly-in-a-test-tube comment cracked me up.

[glavey]

According to permatex's webpage on their ultra copper product (https://www.permatex.com/products/gasketing/ultra-series-gasket-makers/permatex-ultra-copper-maximum-temperature-rtv-silicone-gasket-maker/) it is sensor safe.

I actually stole and re-worded that joke from jeremy clarkson on top gear - he called the headlights on a truck he was driving "glow worms in jam jars".

[glavey]

I've been looking at the exhausts that other people are using with their swapped groms and croms, almost everyone is using some exhaust from kepspeed. I've only been able to find kepspeed parts on motorkit.com, but it seems as though they don't ship to the US. I tried to go through the checkout process to see how much the grand total would be, and I couldn't select the US as a shipping destination.


Is there another retailer for kepspeed that I've missed?

[chuck]

Or any other exhaust that fit the ZS190

[bogieboy]

wonder if a "monkey bike" exhaust would work for you? i ran a wide open megaphone style on on my pocket bike that was origilnally designed for a Z50 based bike... cant find it on ebay anymore...it was like 7 yrs ago now, but to give an idea.... had a race cam, VM26, hydro clutch....LOL went 67mph off a 110cc....

https://i662.photobucket.com/albums/uu346/bogieboy01/Screenshot_2012-08-03-23-14-35-4.png (https://s662.photobucket.com/user/bogieboy01/media/Screenshot_2012-08-03-23-14-35-4.png.html)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0TU9qiSyII

[glavey]

The ebay exhaust (https://www.ebay.com/itm/High-Performance-Racing-Muffler-Exhaust-Pipe-For-Honda-Monkey-Z50-Z50R/381524528567) that I bought was advertised as fitting the monkey/z50. In the pictures of the actual item in the ebay listing, it doesn't show a very good view of the piece that bolts to the engine, that piece has a very... early(?) bend on it. I was looking at the picture of the exhaust that was installed on the bike - the 90 degree bend coming out of the engine looks very smooth, sweeping, and mandrel bent.

I attached a picture of a bike that obviously isn't mine that has what looks like the exact same exhaust I bought, as well as a pic of a section of the exhaust I bought. See the 90 degree bend right where the exhaust bolts to the engine? It looks like someone cut off that a bit too early, so the bend is less smooth and tucks under the engine more. Yeah, I really suck at explaining physical properties of items through text.

I need that bend to be long and sweeping, not cut off.

I've been looking at other dax/monkey ebay exhausts and a few look like they might clear the starter. Here (https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-EXHAUST-MUFFLER-HONDA-CHALY-CF50-CF70-ST50-ST70-DAX-STREET-CUB-MONKEY/272284493247) are (https://www.ebay.com/itm/Stainless-Steel-Racing-Exhaust-Muffler-For-Honda-Monkey-Z50-Z50J-Bike-Skyteam-1/153002869152) some (https://www.ebay.com/itm/HONDA-C50-C70-C90-ST70-DAX-CF50-CHALY-CT70-NEW-RACING-EXHAUST-MUFFLER-CHROME/283364025180) examples (https://www.ebay.com/itm/HONDA-C50-C70-C90-ST70-DAX-CF50-CHALY-CT70-MOTORSPORT-EXHAUST-MUFFLER-CHROME/272917685624). I don't think an "over" exhaust system will work with the fuel pump being on that side with no real place to move it to and the plastic fairings being in such close proximity. However, another undertail exhaust might work.

I'm also going to try and return the exhaust I bought, the seller offers free returns for 30 days so I just need to buy or dig up some bubble wrap and send it back to them.

Also, last night I (tried) to test fit the stock/oem exhaust system just to see if I would have that option. Nope. The exhaust pipe just touches one of the bolts on the end of the starter before the exhaust is completely bolted into the engine and frame.

More also. I would have to grind away quite a bit of the rearset to make clearance for the kick starter, so I more or less HAVE TO find an exhaust that fits.

Such is the life of a modder.

[bogieboy]

what about something along these lines?

https://www.motorkit.com/en/exhaust/22218-exhaust-tyga-under-belly-with-short-silencer-for-honda-monkey-125cc-jb02-2018-.html
https://media3.motorkit.com/29656-thickbox_default/exhaust-tyga-under-belly-with-short-silencer-for-honda-monkey-125cc-jb02-2018-.jpg

EDIT*** what about something like this?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Motorcycle-Full-Exhaust-System-Slip-On-For-Honda-Grom-MSX-125-13-15-Link-Pipe/183638546956?hash=item2ac1b5da0c:g:e1oAAOSwaSVcPr2 V:rk:3:pf:1&frcectupt=true

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/e1oAAOSwaSVcPr2V/s-l1600.jpg

[glavey]

Both of those are intended for the grom/ssr razkull - the exhaust port on those engine points straight down. The engines on the vader/boom/croms as well as the 190 point down diagonally toward the right side of the bike.


Edit:


I've found something (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Z50-spare-parts-Stainless-steel-Exhaust-System-Monkey-Bike-Exhaust-muffler/32237210862.html) that I think may work, from aliexpress no less. It's cheaper than the equivalents on ebay, and they aren't on vacation for a month. I'm still at least a month away from a point where the temperature outside is warm enough for a ride, so waiting is no big deal and if anything it will teach me patience.


I thought about the drag pipes they have, but they would definitely be too loud for me and probably not have enough pipe between the exhaust port and the muffler for a warm-but-not-hot o2 sensor placement.


Nevertheless, thanks for offering your help.

[glavey]

I did a bit of experimentation with the ebay exhaust last night and I discovered that if I flip the mid-pipe around and connect the muffler to where the header pipe would usually go and vice-versa, I can just barely clear the starter motor and rear swing arm, but I'll still have to trim or remove the passenger foot pegs. It will still be tricky making an exhaust hanger that not only holds the muffler where it needs to be vertically, but also horizontally.


I'm at the point where anything more I need to do with the bike involves me buying something. Dielectric grease, lots of different nuts/bolts/hardware for many different things, metal vacuum nipple (still makes me giggle on the inside) for the fuel pressure regulator, o2 sensor bung, water-proof connectors, crimp tool for said connectors, fork oil, FI hose and clamps, copper tape, 8/10mm taps, you get the idea. Once the ice thaws and I can make it to a hardware store, I'll get what I can. Until then and after that, we all have to play the waiting game while watching the mercury slowly rise...


Are we there yet?

[Whisky]

There's a guy that goes by "BizMoto" he has done the 190 swap on his vader. look him up on U-Tube, he might mention what exhaust he went with and where he got it. If I find out I will post back on here as Im going to be doing this swap at some point as well.

[glavey]

Yep he's one of the people that said they used a kepspeed exhaust. I believe this (https://www.motorkit.com/en/exhaust-onder/11297-exhaust-stainless-steel-kepspeed-gp1-short.html) is the exhaust that is on his bike. it appears to be discontinued - 9 months ago biz said it was out of stock and it still is. There is what I believe to be a successor to that exhaust system on the same site, here (https://www.motorkit.com/en/exhaust-onder/10844-exhaust-kepspeed-down-gp-2-inox.html), but again I haven't had any luck being able to select united states as a shipping option on their website.


As much as I know it would be too loud and I wouldn't be able to use a wideband sensor, this (https://www.motorkit.com/en/exhaust/8965-exhaust-under-double-twin-for-dax-monkey-pbr.html)system tingles my jingles. Oh well, I'll make the do with what I have available to me.

[Whisky]

So basically the main issue is finding an exhaust
To clear the starter right. Sounds like it needs to be a custom job.

[glavey]

I have only tried the stock exhaust that came with my bike and the one I bought on ebay, there very well could be an ebay/amazon/aliexpress/you-name-it exhaust system that will work with the 190. I would go and ask the 190 swap facebook group, but I sincerely dislike facebook altogether and once they asked me to verify myself with an ID photo, I gave up on my account.

If I had the funds to test out the fitment of many different exhaust systems so you or anyone else wouldn't have to, I would. I wish I could. I am a humble being with a humble occupation, and I cannot do that. If I tally up the cost of everything I've bought on this project so far including the bike itself (granted some of it isn't needed), it comes very close to a new genuine honda grom. All I can do is tell you what to look out for, what I've learned with my exhaust, what has worked, and what hasn't.

On to slightly more upbeat news, I made a fender eliminator/tail tidy/moto-thong-be-gone! I didn't get to the hardware store today, but I did the next best thing; rummaging around all of my junk boxes, tool boxes, tool chests, spare parts boxes, scrap metal boxes, and underwear drawer for useful scraps of metal stock, bolts, nuts, shiny things, etc. I found 2x large 90 degree braces probably meant for holding up shelves, 2x small braces, hardware and mounting brackets for bicycle reflectors, lots of misc. hardware, and a one-way air valve that used to be on my scooter, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting.

There are four screws holding the plastic cover over the metal frame inside the stock tail extension, remove those and the four bolts underneath the seat holding the tail extension frame in place and the tail extension will come right off. Be careful not to yank on the wires for the turn signals and the license plate light. The turn signals come out after you remove the nut securing them in place. The license plate light is behind about 2 or three pieces of plastic just screwed into place.

I bolted the two larger braces into the two rear former-tail-extension mounting holes. I had to drill two new 1/4" holes in the folded metal piece that holds the red reflectors. I also had to (eep) drill two new holes in my license plate so I could use the two same mounting bolts for everything. The holes in no way obscure the license numbers or the reg sticker, they are just about 3/8" inward from the "standard" holes. Where the reflectors used to be held, I drilled out the holes to a little over 3/8" and put the turn signals in there. I mounted the red reflectors on the two smaller braces, which I mounted to the bottom two holes on the license plate.

I wanted to keep the one red reflector that faced straight backward, so I bent one of the bicycle reflector mounts into an "L" shape and bolted one end to an area on the undertail plastics that looks like it was meant to hold a bolt or a screw, and attached the reflector to the other end, facing backward, a little behind the license plate.

For less than about $10 worth of scrap pieces from previous projects, I think that looks pretty good. I will eventually paint the braces black.

I got the silicone out again and REALLY sealed the MAP/IAT/TPS box, as well as went around the injector housing. I'm not sure exactly where the air leak is, but it needs to be gone. I wish I could blow some smoke through the throttle body or submerge it in water to see where the air is coming out, but I don't think that little black box would appreciate being smoked out or dunked in water. I could just take the black box off and try testing the TB without it, but that would screw up the TPS-zero and TPS-100% readings in the tuning software, as well as in the firmware on the ECU. I know how to fix and correct that, but I'm just going to leave well enough alone for now.

I connected the crankcase breather tube to the engine and added a one-way valve to the end of it so the air in the crankcase will always be at least at atmospheric pressure, if not lower, so oil won't get pushed out of any seals when there's a lot of blow-by. I routed the outlet tube from the one-way valve down toward the left side of the rear swing arm, out of the path of the rear tire. If any oil or oily-gasses escape and make it all the way out to there, they will fall onto either the ground or onto the chain. I don't think motor oil can hurt a motorcycle chain. The white spiral wire wrap is so the tubing does't kink at that tight 180 turn.

I found an old but still in very good condition small section of very large gauge wire I am going to use to ground from the engine to the frame. Right now I am relying on the mechanical connection of the engine's mounting holes and the frame's mounting tabs for an electrical connection between them. I works for now, but I don't want to rely on it long term. I'll probably bolt it up to the frame where I took a picture of it with a bolt on the engine right next to an unoccupied bolt hole in the frame, unless I can find a better place.

I also de-glazed my front brake rotor with a scotch-brite pad. I usually rely on engine braking for the first half of my braking force, and then use the front and rear brakes for whatever speed is left thereafter. So, the front and rear brakes get only light to moderate use, which ended up polishing the rotor instead of bedding the pads and rotor together. No biggie, neither the rotor or the pads are ruined if this happens, just scuff up the rotor with fine-grit (about 200 or more) sandpaper or a scotch-brite pad until the glaze is gone. You will have to press rather hard while scrubbing.

Things done: (some not talked about)


Fender eliminator
Zip-tie fuel pump and starter solenoid
Reinforce battery tray plastics with zip ties
Add reflective tape
Seal MAP/IAT/TPS box
Level fork height
Add one-way valve to crankcase breather
Forget where you put that screwdriver you just had in your hand not 3 seconds ago

[Whisky]

Looking good. Looks like your almost done. Will then have to find a new project.

[glavey]

At this point I'm so bolts and nuts deep into this project, I can't see anything else when I'm falling asleep but fuel tables and wiring harnesses. I have no idea what the future will provide me as a project.

I decided to use the shifter arm that came with the 125 engine. The one that came with the 190 was poorly welded and just waiting to break off when I'm 50 miles from home or a hardware store. I may keep it with the bike as a roadside-backup, it's pretty small and lightweight, why not? The shifter that was on the 125 is also about 1 1/2" shorter than the 190's. If I have to put too much effort into the shifts because of the lower MA, I'll just buy a new one off of ebay.

I wanted to know how much all of the stuff I've taken off of the bike weighed and compare the exhaust that I'm hopefully going to be installing in its place. By my hasty calculations, everything I've taken off weighs about 15 lbs and the new exhaust weighs about 4 lbs, so a net bike weight loss of about 11 lbs! Unfortunately, thanks to a new medicine I've been prescribed, I've gained more than that over the last ~6 months. Time to go back on a diet. Maybe.

The silicone on the MAP/IAT/TPS sensor still hasn't fully cured, and probably won't for a few more days; I think I went over the maximum recommended thickness by a factor of at least 2 or 3.

The short section of heavy-gauge wire I found turned out to be too short, so I had to substitute a ground wire previously used on an amplifier. It's 12 gauge, so more than enough to return the power used by one of the relays and the ignition coil.

Not much else to say for tonight...

[glavey]

mockup exhaust/confirm fitment
replace rusty front caliper nut
JB weld vacuum nipple on fuel pressure regulator
new nuts for exhaust studs
hardware for TB - intake manifold mounting
fittings for fuel pressure gauge
tap for vacuum port on manifold
shaved horn button
clip holding crank case vent hose
re-route clutch cable


All that and more, tonight on This Old Thread!

User Whiskey has told me that he(I'm guessing, forgive me if I'm wrong) has contacted motorkit.com and they have said that they DO ship to the US. Moreover, they have the gp1 exhaust (https://www.motorkit.com/en/exhaust-onder/11297-exhaust-stainless-steel-kepspeed-gp1-short.html) is stock and he has bought one from them. I run a number of ad-blockers and script blockers on my web browser; it is quite possible that one or more of those could have messed up the checkout page, making it appear as though they didn't ship to the US.

Meanwhile I, or rather my cat had a bit of bad luck. Nollie came in from being outside with a red front paw a couple nights ago. I'll spare the details, but she seems to be much better now. No limping, no hiding, no pain-meowls, just an occasional lick on her left front paw. I paused for about a day when that happened. Purrs > Vrooms.

On to less sad things! When Whiskey told me that the gp1 exhausts were back in stock, I was originally going to return the ebay one I have and use that to subsidize the purchase of the gp1 exhaust. However, today I finally went to the local hardware store and pickup some nuts, bolts, and washers that let me mock-up the exhaust as if there were another ~1cm of pipe added to the piece that mounts to the engine. I bought 5 washers, I forget what fractional size they are, but they're 32mm OD. I stacked those on top of the bit of exhaust pipe that actually goes into the engine and is held in place with the flange. With all 5 washers, the nuts for the exhaust studs only had about 3 threads to grab onto, but that's ok; I'm just mocking up the location of everything and I'm not going to use all 5 washers. I just bought these washers as an inexpensive place holder for these (https://www.mcmaster.com/97725a113).

With the exhaust in place as it is intended to be used, the passenger footpeg and the whole "arm" that bolts the passenger peg is in the way, but the muffler is (or rather would, if the peg wasn't there) pointed out the back of the bike, not out to the side, and there is about 5mm between the exhaust manifold and the starter motor. With the exhaust installed with the mid pipe turned around, so the end that normally connects to the muffler now connects to the header pipe and vise-versa, the passenger footpeg is no longer in the way and there is still ample clearance between the starter and the exhaust manifold. Unfortunately, the spring clamps loops that hold the muffler to the mid pipe and the mid pipe to the manifold are either rotated and/or too short. So I can either install the exhaust as intended with new rearsets, or flip one bit around, keep the stock rearsets, but have to take the exhaust pipes to a welder and have them make and then weld some more spring hooks.

[glavey]

I'm not sure if this has come across through my posts, but I have quite severe social anxiety. Almost to the point of agoraphobia. That's why I work from home and live with family. I'm already not looking forward to taking the exhaust pipe somewhere to get the o2 sensor bung welded in, adding another thing to do doesn't sound good to me. I'll spare you the rest of the sob story, and just tell you that I'm going to be most likely buying new rearsets and installing the exhaust the "normal" way. Apologies for bringing more sadness into this post.

The hanger that come with the exhaust system is too short to hold the muffler in place. The clamp piece with the rubber in it can be mounted to the loop on the passenger's footpeg, if you choose to flip the mid pipe, but since I am getting rid of the stock rearsets, I'll have to get some metal stock and bend something that can support the muffler from one if not both exhaust hanger tabs on the right side of the bike. No biggie.

One of the nuts on the front brake caliper has started to rust, and I don't like the idea of fighting with rusted-up hardware especially on brakes, so I replaced the rusty nut with a lock nut.

I wanted to use a 90 degree hose fitting for the to-be-made vacuum port on the fuel pressure regulator, but I could only get straight ones. Oh well. I bought a 3/16 hose splicer (back to back hose barbs) and cut it in half, right down the middle. I cleaned up and scratched up the hose barb and the metal part of the pressure regulator, mixed the JB weld, and covered both side holes, and attached the hose barb to the top hole on the regulator. I tried not to use so much of that stuff that I couldn't get the cap/ring back onto the regulator. I'll have to wait 'till tomorrow to see.

In case you wanted to know, the vacuum port on these aluminum intake manifolds are threaded in, not pressed in as I thought. I was going to use the vacuum port nipple from the 125's manifold and put it in the 190, but the hardware store didn't have a (what I assume is a) 1/16 npt tap, only 1/8 and up, so I bought one of those and forgot to buy a 1/8 npt to 3/16 hose barb fitting. Oops. Next time.

[glavey]

I bought some new nuts for the exhaust manifold studs to replace the end-cap ones that came with the bike. I'll probably use two nuts per stud so I can make a jam nut and not have to worry (as much) about them coming loose.

I had to get a bit creative and unsymmetrical with the bolts and nuts I used to fasten the TB to the intake manifold. One side of the TB has the idle air mixture screw right behind the bolt hole, so you can't get a screw driver in there to turn a bolt, and the other side has the injector body right behind the bolt hole, with only enough to use a nut, not a bolt. So on one side of the TB, I have a standard hex-head bolt going through the TB bolt hole and threading into the intake manifold. On the other side I have a bolt with a ground-down head coming from the intake manifold through the TB bolt hole and threading into a nut that miracle-has-it just barely fits on the TB.

I had some fittings from a previous project that I can could use on this one. 4x 1/8 npt to 5/16 hose barb, 1x 1/8 npt street elbow, 1x 1/8 npt plug, 1x 1/8 npt bleed valve, 1x 1/8 npt female to female union, and 1x 1/8 npt 4-way fitting. As in the picture, I am going to have the 5/16 barbs on opposite ends of the 4-way, with the bleed valve on the top and either a plug or a street elbow + pressure gauge. I would like to be able to confirm that the fuel pump/regulator is indeed pumping and regulating and that my manifold-pressure-reference mod did something. I will be securing these hose barb fittings with clamps designed for fuel injection hose, NOT plain worm-drive clamps.

I also did a few small things. I don't know if this happens to other riders, but especially on this bike, with these controls, I am constantly accidentally tapping the horn when I move my thumb from the grip to the turn signal controls. I ground down the bit on the horn button that sticks out on the left side. Hopefully I won't unintentionally honk at so many people now. I also put a hose-retaining clip on the swing arm to hold the engine crankcase vent hose in place. However, the swing arm is going to move independently of the hose so I bent the hose clip so that the hose can still slide up and down in the clip, but not come out. Finally, I re-routed the clutch cable through a hole I drilled in the black plastic pieces on the back of the red trellis fairings. The clutch cable won't get as bent and squished between the tank fairing and the handlebars now.

I had a lot of pics to go with these topics, so I spread them out over the posts; the pictures I have posted in one post may not be written about in that particular post.

[Weldangrind]

Despite knowing nothing about it, I presume that a good antidote for agoraphobia is a really good bike. That's gotta make you want to get out there.

[glavey]

That is very true. I'm hoping my interest in this project will overcome my anxieties and let me be more social. Adam Savage once said that he had a young fan approach him to ask a question, but he (the young fan) was unable to get the words out because he was too nervous, but his love for science and knowledge pushed him through his anxieties and let him ask his question. I'm hoping something like that happens to me.

Or, ya know... amazon delivers pretty much everything now-a-days.

I could go on and on about my problems, but that isn't what you came here for.

The only things I have to do/buy (as opposed to potential additions to the project or just nice-to-haves) before I get to wait a month or more for warmth are:

Buy:

5/16" ID fuel injection hose, at least 2 or 3 feet
5/16" ID fuel injection hose clamps
1/8" npt to 3/16" ID hose barb, for manifold vacuum port
21/64" (Q) drill bit, for 1/8" npt tap
dielectric grease
o2 sensor bung
5/16" hose barb bulkhead fitting, for fuel return into fuel tank
fuel pressure gauge, not absolutely mandatory but I'd really like to know the pressure of the fuel being delivered to the injector
sealing/spacing washers from mcmaster carr
rearsets


Do:

run fuel hoses: tank->filter, filter->pump inlet, pump return->tank, regulated pressure out->4-way fitting (pressure gauge and bleeder), 4-way fitting->injector
drill and tap hole for manifold vacuum port, install fitting
run vacuum line from manifold to fuel pump/pressure regulator
dielectric grease on most connectors
drill hole for o2 sensor bung, get said bung welded-in
drill hole for, and install bulkhead fitting on fuel tank
temporarily install exhaust with sealing washers
fabricobble exhaust hanger
sync timing between engine and ecu, might not be possible without engine running
install rearsets
eat
sleep
poop
wait

[Weldangrind]

Glavey, I'm really starting to look forward to your latest posts.

[glavey]

Thanks, dude! I appreciate that. I just placed an order for most of the small things I need, less the dielectric grease, rearsets, and sealing washers. I'm gonna try and force myself to purchase some items like the grease and a tap wrench locally. Hardware stores and the like are easier to me because they have much more... structured and predictable social interactions; as long as you know the technical terms for what you want to buy, things tend to go smoothly.

I'm going to have to wait, as usual, to drill/mount/install the fuel return fitting on the fuel tank until warmer weather. First, I have to drain all the old fuel out, eliminate as much of the fuel vapor in the tank as possible (drilling into metal = risk of spark, fire, explosion, and free hearing test), figure out where on the tank is a suitable location that is unobstructed by the tank fairings, as flat as possible, near the fuel pump, and if possible around or above the 3/4 full level (the fitting I am buying is sold as a "...Hose Barb Fuel Tank Fitting", but I would still feel more comfortable with my family jewels merely inches from a gas tank with a fitting that is only some of the time submerged in fuel and thus, hopefully less likely to leak and make things go boom).

I'l also have to find out how I"m going to hold the nut on the inside on the tank while tightening the fitting; the normal fuel filler hole has a metal plate underneath it with holes much too small to fit my hands through. I could always take the fuel level sensor cap off of the bottom of the tank and hope my hand or at least a wrench fits up there...

Even once I get the package, I'm pretty limited to what I can do without the fuel tank and warm weather. At most, I'll be able to run the high-pressure line from the pump/regulator to the 4-way with the bleed valve and pressure gauge to the injector, semi-finalize the exhaust location so I know where I can put the o2 sensor bung, get said bung welded in, and drill/tap/install fitting for vacuum port on intake manifold.

I tried to renew my lic plate tabs today, but I would have had to stand in line in front of the "please take a number" for half an hour before I could even sit down to wait for my number to be called. I think there was 80 or so people ahead of me. That's a big fat NOPE. You would think they wouldn't be so busy on a Tuesday during work hours.

That's about it for today.

[RedCrowRides]

-Just as a footnote, I too suffer from mild agoraphobia ,it's a real thing and I totally sympathise with the struggles it causes. Thats kind of the good thing about a bike, it's not the fear of outdoors for me at all, it's the "people" part of it. ,so at least I can still ride since it does not ( usually ) require much social interaction , so less anxiety for me.


That said, i have developed 2-3 good friends that don't ( usually ) stress me too much so overall my being into motorcycles has helped me a lot, i think it will help you too ,just take it slow and dont get overwhelmed by going to a major Bike gathering right off, lol!

[glavey]

The bike has helped me get out of the house quite a bit, even though I usually go ride around 75% of the time with no real destination, just riding around the town for an hour or so and come back.


When I do stop somewhere, even if it is just at a gas station or a barely-busy thrift store, because of my bike's unusual size and style, more often than not I get asked about it. So far all of the encounters have been positive.


Oh geez, a bike rally/group ride. That is FAR in my future if it ever even happens. I'm not this bad anymore, but I used to get a headache and have to change my shirt from sweating too much if I played a multiplayer video game.

[glavey]

I played around with turning over the engine with the electric starter motor while there was no spark plug, exhaust, or intake installed so I could get the maximum speed the engine could turn over. The ECU needs to know when the engine is cranking vs running, so I can set the max cranking RPM a bit above the actual engine cranking speed. Above that RPM, the ECU will assume the engine is running, stop giving the engine extra "startup" fuel, and begin after-start enrichment and warmup enrichment if needed.

I had the intake manifold and TB just hanging from some string on the bike's frame. I needed the injector and the MAP/IAT/TPS to be connected, otherwise the ECU displays a code on its equivalent of a check engine light. I connect everything up along with a 1990-ish vintage inductive timing light I bought some time back. Turn the bike on, wait for the ECU to do its priming pulse and fuel pump prime, and hit the starter button. No tach signal. Doh! I had the kill switch on. Turn the kill switch OFF, and try again. WOO HOO! It was quite nice to see that RPM gauge on my laptop move for the first time.

First thing I noticed was that the decompression valve on this engine lets the starter turn quite fast, albeit with no restriction. Second thing was sparks! The only good kind of sparks in a vehicle; from the spark plug. Big, bright, blue sparks. It appears that the ECU is "talking" to the CDI, the CDI is firing the coil, and the coil is making a spark occur at the spark plug tip, at least in open, atmospheric pressure air. Third noticed thing was my old timing light wasn't working; no flashy-flashy. I forgot to try turning around the clip-on lead, so I'm not sure if it is broken or not but no matter, I have another timing light that connects directly to the ignition coil. Fourth thing I noticed was that the tuning software recorded an ECU reset right after I let go of the starter button, not good.

A reset, in this instance, is the ECU not having enough either voltage delivered to it, or not enough current available to it, resulting in a voltage drop. I looked online and it seems like a starter solenoid isn't an uncommon thing to cause reverse voltage spikes or just bad electromagnetic interference (EMI). I can test this theory by not using the solenoid, but just bridging the two starter contacts, completing the starter motor circuit, but not energizing/de-energizing the solenoid's coil. I can also add a diode across the solenoid's coil to limit the inductive kick-back like I did with the relays. I'll test that in the coming days.

I managed to snag a datalog of the test start. The tuning software saves datalogs in a excel-style spreadsheet. You can view them in any software that can open .xls files. Viewing the files this way is quite... raw and dry. An alternative is to use the software that mega/microsquirt users use to view logs; MegaLogViewer MS (http://www.tunerstudio.com/index.php/downloads). The "MS" version is the free version, that's the one I used to view the logs. It can graph any of the variables the ECU logged, and compare them in the same graph to any other variable. If you buy, I think it is the HD version of the software, you can import your tuning file from your tuning software and the log viewer will show you where in the VE table, spark table, AFR table, etc. the engine is at any specific point in the logs. I took a screenshot of the few seconds I logged while the engine was turning over.

[glavey]

A few more electrical gremlins tonight. First was one of the wires going into the left hand control cluster had come out of its crimped terminal in the connector. There was only about 2-3mm of insulation cut off of the end of the wire; no wonder it didn't stay in the terminal. I had to solder the wire into the terminal since it was already crimped and trying to open it would have destroyed the terminal. After a quick solder and heatshrink treatment, the wire is back in the connector and once again the passing light switch works.

Next, I did some testing and probing and disassembling to determine how the starter solenoid was wired. In case you wanted or need to know how the wires are connected in the right hand control cluster, I took a picture. Switched +12v -> starter button -> solenoid -> clutch switch -> ground. That seemed like a rather odd way to wire the clutch safety switch. I elected to remove the clutch switch all together and do: switched +12v -> starter button -> solenoid -> ground. I also added a diode across the solenoid coil's leads to limit the voltage spike from the coil de-energizing. Now, one lead of the solenoid is permanently connected to ground and the other is provided +12v from the starter button. I'll just have to be careful not to hit the starter button while the engine is already running. As for the clutch switch, I always start the engine with the clutch pulled in anyway. Worst is I try to start the bike with the transmission in gear and the starter very briefly turns then stalls, I feel the bike trying to move forward a wee bit, I let go of the starter, put the transmission in neutral and/or pull the clutch in, and try starting it again. I still have to add a diode to the main relay.

I cleaned, glued together, and reinstalled the clutch switch after I got some very high and erratic resistance readings across it. Even though I'm not going to be using it, I like to keep it in working condition in case I need it in the future. There really wasn't much in the switch, a few pieces of plastic, a spring and two terminals doubling as the switch contacts.

I am trying to have ALL grounds that can be routed or moved terminate at a single location so there is no voltage difference between the ECU ground and any of the sensors' ground. If there are too many more grounds to terminate, I may need to buy an isolated terminal (https://www.amazon.com/Positive-Insulated-Battery-Junction-thread/dp/B009SCSXVO/) to connect them all. The wire I previously installed on the left side of the bike that connected the engine to the frame didn't match my star-grounding strategy, so I moved it to where all of the other grounds were terminated, and connected the other end to the bolt that holds the rear brake fluid reservoir to the frame. You can see in one of the pics, the brake reservoir just to the right of the bolt hole that will hold it and the wire lead in place. It's getting mighty crowded on that side of the bike.

I'm going to go eat chili until either my stomach says "UNCLE!" or my bowels say "NOW!"

[glavey]

This is going to be a multi-post post, I have many pics to share. Pics attached to one post may not reflect what was discussed in that particular post.

I finally got a package from amazon that allowed me to move forward with a few of the remaining things left to do; FI hose, clamps, fuel pressure gauge, fuel tank return hose fitting, Q size drill bits, and o2 sensor bungs.

The vacuum port on the intake manifold was drilled, tapped, and threaded in without much fuss. The soft aluminum really made the process go faster. I chose to install the vacuum port on the opposite side of the manifold that the circular detent is on for two reasons; 1, the walls of the manifold were much thinner where the detent was and 2, the vacuum hose from the fuel pressure regulator was coming from the side of the manifold opposite the detent. Now the hose fits on there perfectly.

I drew on the exhaust where I need the o2 sensor bung welded in. Now I have to find a way to drill a 22mm hole in a pipe with a slippery chrome coating on it. The first way to do that, that comes to mind is to get a square-ish piece of wood a little larger than the diameter of the pipe and cut/gouge/sand out the shape of the exhaust pipe on one side of it, so the piece of wood can sit on the pipe and not twist around, but can still rotate around the pipe (I know, I really suck at explaining things). Then you drill a hole through the middle of the piece of wood, perpendicular to the cut out of the pipe. Now clamp the piece of wood to the pipe with the exhaust pipe in the cut out portion and the hole exactly where you want the hole in the pipe to be drilled. You now have a guide/bore for your drill bit to follow so it won't walk all over the place on the nice shiny slippery chrome.

I soldered on a diode to the main power relay. I have had a bottle of liquid electrical tape for some time, but never used it more than once or twice before. This seemed like a good time to test it out because I only stripped the insulation off of the wires on the main power relay, I didn't cut them and re-solder them back together, so I couldn't put heat shrink on the wires. I also didn't want to just wrap the diode up in the red electrical tape I've been using. I brushed on the thick, noxious smelling paste and let it sit for about 3 hours and then put another coat on. Once it dried completely, it seemed like a formidable adversary against moisture ingress, abrasion, and high voltage arcs.

I, yet again went shopping in my garage for some scraps of metal that might be able to the muffler up and away from the swing arc of the swingarm. I found a pair of angle brackets very similar to the ones I used to make a fender eliminator. I bolted one side of the piece of metal to the holes in the exhaust-side rearset, where the passenger pegs used to be, and the other side, 90 degrees bent, has the muffler support bracket bolted to it. The picture should show what I mean much better. In that picture I am using 4 of the exhaust-spacing-mock-up washers to emulate the height/depth the exhaust will go into the cylinder head. There is about 1/8" between the exhaust pipe and the starter with the exhaust system installed as it is in the picture. With the exhaust as it is now, I'll have to go out and get some exhaust spring hooks welded on at the same time I get the bung welded in. Oh well, I'll just face it. I don't think spreading a post over multiple postings is against forum rules. Mods/admins, if it is, please let me know.

I started to diagnose and troubleshoot the reset problem with the ECU and the starter. I disconnected the starter from the solenoid so that only the solenoid coil would be powered and the reset did not happen. I disconnected the fuel pump and wideband relays and the lighting circuit. The only things powered were the ECU and the main power relay. I still had the power lead from the motor to the solenoid disconnected, so I bypassed the solenoid and just touched the starter wire to the lead coming from the battery. BIG-ARSE sparks and an ECU reset. I think I'm on to something. Many more sparks and resets later, I am ~90% sure that the inductive surge from the starter when the power to it is interrupted is causing a huge voltage spike on the ground-end of the wiring on the bike. A voltage spike to ground, if received by the ECU, will almost surely cause it to reset.

[glavey]

Let's say the ECU needs a nominal 12 volts to operate. The voltage on the +12 wire into the ECU must be at least 12 volts higher than the voltage on the ground wire going into the ECU. The ground wire could have 1000 volts (referenced to earth) on it and if you connect 1012 volts to the +12v wire, the ECU will operate as it should, provided there is no reference to earth ground anywhere on the ECU. If the ECU's ground voltage is pulled up too high from things like stray inductance, a magnetic field collapsing, rapid high power switching, etc, then there won't be enough voltage difference the +12v and the ground at the ECU to let it keep functioning properly and it crashes and resets.

So I need to suppress that inductive spike. This is a bit beyond my knowledge set, since I can't really "intercept" the ground signal like I can on a relay; the starter motor is more-or-less permanently attached and grounded to the engine, so I can't exactly put a diode in-between the motor and the engine. I started a thread on the arduino forum asking for assistance with suppressing the inductive "kick" from the motor. I already have a few things I can try.

That thread on the arduino forum also made me realize that I think the wiring on this from-china ECU is probably its weakest link. ALL the wires are too small gauge to carry enough current and not have dramatic voltage drop and too short to isolate electronically noise components, power hungry components, and sensitive analog components from each other. You can see how small the ground wire is in the picture.

For this EFI kit to work WELL and RELAIBLY, I will most likely have to crack open the case and hopefully be able to solder on some thicker gauge wires, proper grounding wires, and sensitive analog signals shielded all the way to the ECU box (notice I said work well and reliably, not just work. I am sure that this kit will start and run and engine, but it will at some point probably have an electrical gremlin or two that will be very difficult if not impossible to squash without opening the ECU.)

I am going to try to keep the wiring coming from the ECU as close to "stock" as I can so I can test the kit as anyone else who purchased it would have it wired. If it turns out that I cannot reliably control the engine with the stock wiring, I will dive right in to the ECU case and crack it open like a walnut. I don't want to open the ECU just yet, I haven't even tried to start the engine with it yet and I don't want to condemn the ECU because I just thought I would have a problem with it.

The fuel tank fitting, of course, requires drilling a hole in the gas tank. Drilling a hole in metal causes heat, hot sharp shrapnel, and possibly sparks. Gas tanks have... gas in them. Gas + oxygen + spark = the kind of boom you want INSIDE your engine, not outside. I drained out all of the gas from the tank and took off the filler cap. Now I'm just letting the remaining gas and gas fumes evaporate and leave the tank. With the temperature so low, that may take a while. I'm going to have to get all of the vapor out of the tank because I realized that I really do need the tank on the bike to know where I can route the fuel hoses and where to put the pressure gauge so it can be viewed with all of the fairings on. So I can't run the hoses, install the return fitting, or position the pressure gauge before I get the tank nice and empty.

I was able to sync the timing between the engine and the ECU despite the reset issue. One thing that made it much easier was a printed pulley/crank/flywheel degree ruler. This site (https://www.blocklayer.com/timing-tape.aspx) lets you enter the circumference of the wheel you want to degree and gives you a printable degree ruler you can tape/glue to whatever you need. I temporarily stuck it to the magneto so I could see the degree markings through the peep hole on the engine. Of course, I could only do this at cranking speed, not idle. I had to remove the intake manifold and keep the spark plug out so the engine could turn as fast as possible. With the spark plug in, the timing jumped between 10 and 20 degrees BTDC because on one rotation of the crank, the motor had to compress a cylinders worth of air, slowing it down a lot, and on the next rotation of the crank, the exhaust was being pushed out, so very little slow down there.



o2 sensor and exhaust spring hooks welded in
install return hose fitting in tank
plumb fuel hoses
solve or minimize reset issue
permanently mount exhaust
wait

That's it. The last 10% is the longest 10%.

[glavey]

Two steps forward, one (big) step back; that's the current situation with the ECU resetting itself.

To eliminate the possibility that the USB cable was somehow receiving interference from something electrical on the bike, causing the software to detect a reset, I made a bluetooth adapter to use in its place. I had a spare serial-to-bluetooth adapter from a previous upgrade on a 3d printer and a very common chinese buck converter (feed in any voltage up to the chip's limit, it will output a stable, selectable voltage. I just had to buzz out which wires were transmit, receive, power, and ground. Luckily the aliexpress ECU outputs serial data at 3.3 volts, the same voltage that the bluetooth adapter uses so I didn't need to use a voltage-level shifter. Now I just need to package it up, neat-and-tidy in some small box or something... I'll find something.

The adapter works with my laptop's internal BT communicating with the tuning software, on two of my cellphones, but not on a usb-bluetooth dongle I use for my main PC. Oh well, I intend to do the majority of tuning on my laptop. However, even with the wireless connection to the ECU, the resets were still happening...

My initial assumption that the ECU reset was caused by the starter motor were wrong. I discovered that if I turn the engine over using any method (e-starter, kickstart, socket/ratchet on the crank bolt) while the kill switch is in the RUN position, the ECU resets itself. When the kill switch is in the STOP position, it grounds the signal coming from the trigger coil; when it is in the RUN position, it has no effect on the trigger coil. So, it is the trigger coil itself that is causing the resets.

My first thought was that one of the two wires coming from the trigger coil is grounded, when usually in EFI systems both wires go back to the ECU. The manual for the microsquirt states: "...The Microsquirt measures the voltage from the sensor and converts it into a temperature, position etc. reading. If that sensor is grounded to anything other than the Microsquirt itself, then that input voltage will be altered by any external voltage drops. ...Tach input (e.g. crank, cam sensors) will be even worse - they can show false or missed teeth and cause syncloss due to the ground voltage difference..." The aliexpress ECU does not have a ground wire for the trigger coil to attach to. Without an rpm signal, an ECU is worse than a paperweight. I decided in order to give the aliexpress ECU the best shot at working, I had to crack open the case and solder a new wire to a good ground point. Opening the case was quite easy. 6 small screws and some lightly adhesive conformal coating was all that held it together. My first reaction was... Dang, these motoEFI guys (the tuning software and the ECU firmware are both have their names in them) even had a custom PCB created. I absolutely thought that the board inside the case was going to be a clone of one of this (http://www.microsquirt.info/v2index.htm) or this (http://www.microsquirtmodule.com/index.htm). Nope, looks like they (motoefi) have put on the PCB only what is needed to run a one cylinder engine on a particular configuration without many of the extra features like knock sensors, vehicle speed input, flex fuel, etc. Also, the I'm guessing... mosfets? they are using to switch the injector and the fuel pump aren't connected to any heatsink. One of them has a very small piece of metal adhered to it as an added thermal mass and the other one had nothing on it at all. The soldering is IMHO, just passable - the solder joints look very dry (lack of flux), maybe even hand-soldered. The main IC had its name scratched off, as did one of the suspected mosfets.

After having taken a good look at the ECU PCB, considering options, trying to filter/condition/shield the signal from the trigger coil, and many other things, I have decided to stop using the aliexpress ECU if I cannot get this issue solved with minimal extra cost or effort. I still have a few ideas in my head that I think might do something, but if the problem is what I think it is, I and possibly other people who buy this kit will have to buy a $25-$70 circuit board that will condition the trigger coil signal and/or a oscilloscope to see what output the trigger coil is giving in their particular case and filter it as needed. Either way you are spending time or money or even both. Sorry dudes, but at least in my case it looks like the ECU from aliexpress won't work without monetary or time investment that is equal to buying a real/genuine/brand-name ECU. I hate to stop using the ECU before I even get to try and start the engine, but as I said above, without an RPM signal, an ECU is worse than a paperweight. The other hardware and sensors from the seller seem to be working fine. This kit may still be a viable option if you just need everything except the ECU, as I did. I had a heck of a time searching the internet for a small-engine-sized throttle body. There were only a few sellers and most of them had odd/different mounting points where the TB bolts to the intake manifold. Ecotrons is an option, but their small engine EFI kit is $600, the tuning software is, in my experience, difficult and unintuitive to use, and I doubt you could purchase all the supporting hardware minus the ECU for less than the aliexpress kit.

After I try all that I can to get the aliexpress ECU to accept a trigger coil input and mapped out which wire goes to what thing, I'm going to need to re-run and maybe re-wire most of the EFI harness. At the time I wires the bike, there were no thoughts given to keep high power wires and sources of noise isolated and apart from low power signal wires, the wires from the ECU were to short to have anything but a rats nest. I'll also have to try and keep electrically noisy parts like the regulator/rectifier, wideband controller, ignition coil & lead, fuel pump, CDI, and relays to one end/side of the bike and the sensitive stuff on the opposite side/end. I'll also need to get proper water-resistant connectors and wire whose gauge size is suitable for how much current it will carry. And a crimp tool. And wire shielding sleeves. And heat shrink tubing. And a "real" fuse/relay box. And blackjack. And hookers. Time to save up...

So much for that teeny tiny little left to do/buy list.

I'm actually starting to wonder if I will get this done before warmer weather starts to appear...

[glavey]

Seeing the internals of the microsquirt as compared to the aliexpress ECU gives me much more confidence about switching to it. The build and soldering quality are much better and most importantly to me, it has a hardware filtering circuit for the trigger coil built-in. The wiring loom also has much longer, higher quality, labeled wires.

The only place that wasn't electrically noisy and had enough space to hold the ECU was where I had installed the fuse box originally. I moved the fuse box to right in the 90 degree corner of the frame, where the front-half meets the back-half, right below where I mounted the relays. The ECU didn't completely fit without modification - I had to cut off the four mounting tabs on the case and secure it with zip-ties. I swear zip-ties have helped me more in the last few months than duct tape has throughout my whole life. There really isn't much space between the bottom of the seat cushion and the top of the frame bars where I mounted the ECU. I had to butt the ECU right up against the little pillar the holds the screw for the battery hold-down, I had to cut off the little plastic pieces that on the real grom hold spare fuses.

I'm going to try my best to separate the power wires from the signal wires; I'm going to run wires for the lighting, fuel pump, R/R, ignition coil, wideband controller, and injector on the right side of the bike, and keep all of the lower voltage sensitive signal wires on the left side. I'm going to have to find a way to move the R/R to the right side of the bike, as it is now it's right where the sensor harness will be.

I had previously purchased an automotive ignition coil, GM "truck" coil (acdelco part# d585, gm part#10457730) to use when I installed the microsquirt. Well, the time is upon us and it was installed. The old ignition coil was RIGHT next to the TB and probably would have caused interference. I installed the gm coil on the right side of the bike, using the nuts on the frame that originally held up the air filter. The coil hasn't really moves that much farther away from the TB, but the whole bike's frame will be in-between the coil and the TB and sensor harness.

I took the wiring harness that came with the bike and un-did all of the electrical tape and soldered all of the points where they used a crimp to join wires. If done properly, crimping wire ends together works very well and will be very reliable. However, this is a Chinese bike, and we all know that the wiring on these bikes is sub-standard. I didn't bother to remove the crimps, I just flowed solder over all of the wires and the crimp together. Taking the wiring harness to pieces also lead me to find out that the connector that plugs into the 125 engines and tells the dashboard what gear you are in is, except for the neutral wire, is just one miniature wiring harness. The wires go from the connector on the 125 engine, to one of the dashboard connectors, to the dashboard. So, if anyone swaps in an engine without a gear indicator and doesn't want that connector just flapping in the breeze, you can take the harness apart and remove the mini-harness completely and tuck the wires from the dash behind the headlights.

The next amazon order will be things for the wiring harness; insulated battery post, heat shrink, waterproof connectors, crimp tool for said connectors, and braided metal sleeving.

[Weldangrind]

Interesting choice on the GM coil. What prompted that?

[glavey]

As much as I would like to be as frugal as possible during this project, re-using the CDI and coil from the aliexpress kit seemed to be a bad decision. As I said in one of my previous posts, I wanted to give this EFI conversion every chance at success. One of my character flaws is that I get discouraged very easily. Anytime (example: now, with the wiring harness) I have to go over something I've already done and put much effort into, I get the mental thought of,


"Oh come on! I just got everything together and I was 10 minutes from starting you up, and now I have to tear you back down again and re-do what I've already done."


I can foresee possible problems with the aliexpress CDI, causing me to have to tear down the wiring harness for a third time; using a possibly never-used-before-with-a-microsquirt ignition system, only having presumably one person a continent away for support with a small bit of a language barrier (he/she responds in english, but it can be a bit broken, but understandable at times), having the same person be the only source for a replacement, the CDI and coil are separate and larger in comparison to the gm coil, seeing the soldering quality in the ECU, the CDI is suspect, you get the idea.


If I use the GM coil; it is widely used with the microsquirt, probably available at a local auto parts store, has lots of technical community support, the microsquirt's hardware manual lists it as a possible ignition system option and gives the pinout for the connector, the coil ignitor and ignition coil are together in one small package.


TL;DR I think that the GM coil is the best bet for a reliable, replaceable, and easily diagnosed ignition system.

[glavey]

Update time!

Packages have arrived, items have been installed, tools used, blood sacrifices made multiple times, and sensors "talked" to the microsquirt. Ok, I'll see you in the next post.

Just kidding

The package from mcmaster carr came first; the aluminum sealing washers for the exhaust and a 12" length of 3/16" dia. stainless steel rod, for making the exhaust spring hooks. The exhaust washers (sounds kinda weird doesn't it? like a muffler bearing or headlight fluid) fit perfectly and I can't see how they could introduce any measurable restriction to exhaust flow. I'll be using 5 of them to get the spacing between the exhaust and the starter where I want it to be. I bought the same diameter stainless steel rod that was already welded on to the exhaust system. I figured I'd just stick with what size they use since it seems like it will be bendable with a bench vise and a hammer.

I also started (haven't completed) drilling the hole in the exhaust for the o2 sensor bung. I had my doubts about the exhaust system really being stainless steel until I started to try to drill into it. I think I snapped one drill bit and dulled at least 2 more. The largest HSS twist drill bit I have is 1/2', so I incrementally drilled through the exhaust with each ascending drill bit size. I had some metal rotary rasps that I was going to use to enlarge the hole to 7/8, but they dulled almost instantly. It seems the internet's general consensus on drilling sheet stainless steel is a stepped drill bit, so that's what I ordered. The bit arrived today and I'll drill out the hole in the coming days with the bung and hook installation coming probably a week or 2 after that.

Next was the package from amazon; tinned copper wire shielding sleeve, scope probes, scope probe adapters, manual vacuum pump, terminal crimp tool, 2-way connectors, 4-way connectors, 5x 10k NTC thermistors, strain gauge drivers/interface circuits, handheld oscilloscope, rs232 to TTL adapter, 50x strain gauges, and injector connectors and terminals. Yep, 90% wiring stuff. You already know what I have to do next...

The copper wire sleeving is for shielding the sensor wires going into the ECU. The scope, scope probes, and probe adapters are for diagnosing electrical issues. As you can see, I am expecting at least SOME electrical issues. The manual vacuum pump is to enlarge my di-... uh... calibrate the MAP sensor to the blank tune on the ECU and to test if the vacuum-referenced mod I did on the fuel pump is working. The connectors and crimp tool are for neatening-up and weather-resisting the wiring harness. The thermistors were a bit of a last-minute addition - I have a few temperatures like oil temp and CHT I'd like to log and adding them to the bike should be easy, plus I"m always playing around with arduinos and having more temperature sensors is never a bad thing. The strain gauges and the strain gauge drivers are for an attempt at making a quick-shifter switch by measuring the strain of either the shifter arm or the shifter rod. If all goes to plan (it won't) I should be able to measure the force my foot is exerting on the shifter and at a given amount of strain, send a signal to the ECU to cut the ignition for a fraction of a second so the tranny can unload and shift into the next gear. The rs232 (serial port connector) to TTL (microcontroller-friendly voltage levels) adapter is for adding bluetooth to the ECU. The bluetooth dongle I have requires 5v MAX transmit and receive voltages, I think rs232 uses up to 24 volts (+12v for positive signal, -12v for negative signal). The adapter will allow me to pass the serial data coming from the ECU to a bluetooth dongle and allow my laptop, smartphone, or almost any other bluetooth enabled device to log data from it.

The main Idea I had for the wiring harness, connectors, electric component placement, and general layout of the bike was front-to-back; more electrically noisy devices like the ignition coil, wideband controller, and the regulator/rectifier, power hungry devices like the fuel pump, and then the ECU under the seat. On the left side of the bike is the sensor/sensitive electronics and wiring side; most of the sensors are on the left side of the bike and it is always a good idea to keep electrically noisy and power-hungry devices away from sensors that use low-voltage, low-current wires to send their signal to the ECU. The right side of the bike is the power side, with the starter motor, starter solenoid, fuel pump, and ignition coil. I realize that there is only a small piece of metal between all of the sensors and the noisy/hungry devices, but given the size of this bike there isn't much more I could do.

There isn't much to be said about putting the 2 and 4 way connectors on. I noted where each wire went and what it did while still using the normal connectors, cut the normal connector off, (where necessary, almost everywhere) trimmed one or both ends of the wires to be connected so there wouldn't be connectors everywhere with 12" tails on them, crimped the new terminals on, and installed the terminals in the connectors.

In one of the pictures, you can see a detail shot on a star-ground point I made and am using. Everything minus the stator and the ECU sensors ground to that point. Hopefully this will eliminate or at least reduce voltage differentials between the ECU and anything else.

The wires that came soldered to the crank position coil (VR sensor) weren't shielded in any way. I wanted to make sure that those wires were shielded as much as possible from the sensor to the ECU. The copper sleeving wouldn't stretch enough to fit the connectors in, so I had to leave that part unshielded. I removed the factory wires from the VR sensor and soldered in the shielded wires that came with the microsquirt ECU, you can see a shot of the VR sensor in the pics.

The kill switch, as it was, would kill the engine by grounding out one of the leads coming from the VR sensor. This isn't really the "correct" way to stop and engine while keeping the ECU on. The more common method is to disconnect power from the ignition coil. To disconnect power from the ignition coil, I would need the kill switch to be normally closed (when in the run position, the wires coming from the kill switch will be connected; when in the stop position, the wires will be disconnected), but since the bike originally stopped the engine by switching a wire to ground, that means that the kill switch was normally open (run position = wires not connected, stop position = connected). I was very fortunate and happy after I opened up the right control cluster to see that there were 3 points for wires to connect to on the kill switch. One was common, one was normally open, and one was normally closed. From the factory the wires were connected to the normally open and the common points. I just switch one wire from normally open to normally closed. Now I have a kill switch that will stop the engine and keep the ECU on.

In the last pic you can see some of the progress, from top to bottom, of the wiring harness being made.

[glavey]

Smallish update today.

Since I had already wired up the bluetooth module I have for the aliexpress ECU, and I'm now using the microsquirt, I had to undo part of the wiring I had done. The connector that the aliexpress ECU used for tx/rx data had four wires going into it; switched +12v, tx, rx, ground. The microsquirt only has tx, rx, and ground so I had to source switched power from somewhere else. I decided to tap into the switched power wire that controls the lighting and dashboard. I ran the wire from where I tapped into the wiring harness along with a ground wire to just behind the ECU under the seat with some leftover length just in case. Now, I didn't want to just bundle up the bluetooth module, the voltage regulator, and the rs232-ttl adapter in a ball of electrical tape; I have been trying throughout this project to do things better than I would normally, and try and make things look... better. Not good, just not a, well, a ball of electrical tape. It turns out that the case that the aliexpress ECU came in would perfectly house all 3 modules and still be able to close. One of the pics shows how I laid out the modules and another shows the case back together with hot glue doing its best to seal it.

It turns out that the spot that I wanted to mount the, lets call it a BT case, right behind the ECU wouldn't work, the seat would come down and press on it. I decided to mount it to the inside of what I am calling the bike's left side quarter panel. It's the black plastic fairing piece with a wire mesh "vent hole" that's above the rearsets. The wires for the power would still reach, thanks to the little bit of extra length I gave myself. Thanks, past self! The serial cable for the ECU is probably 4 or 6 feet long; more than enough to mount the BT case anywhere on the bike. I opted for the good ol' faithful zip ties to mount the case to the fairing.

One of the things I had to redo since I switched ECUs is re-sync the ECU timing to the engine's timing; essentially making sure that the engine is at a given timing degree when the ECU thinks it is. I had trouble getting my timing light to flash on every spark. When the engine was turning over at a constant speed, the timing light would only flash about once every 2-5 sparks. I took the spark plug out and grounded it against the engine case and tried cranking the engine again. I noticed the first 2-3 sparks right after starting to turn the engine over were big, bright, blue-purple sparks and then only once every about every 5 sparks. Between the big sparks were tiny little pissant sparks that I'm guessing weren't enough to trigger the timing light to flash. I am still using the battery that came with the bike from china, and all the attempts at turning the engine over to get the timing correct had dragged the voltage down to near 11.9v (charged 12v lead acid batteries are usually ~12.6v) . Time to put the battery on the charger and go solve another issue somewhere. A few hours later, with the battery at ~13 volts, fresh off the charger, I tested the timing light and the whole ignition system using the tuning software's ignition/injector test mode to eliminate any cranking-related problems. This mode lets me fire the spark plug with a given dwell time, at a given RPM-emulating speed manually. It appears that the low battery was at least contributing to the weak spark, because I got every time big, bright, audible sparks.

I hooked up the timing light to test it again, but the usual mild hum that normally comes from it when the trigger is pulled was absent. Jiggling the power leads didn't help any, so I cracked it open and spotted what looked like a place where two insulated wires were touching and had probably shorted together. I replaced one of them, the other seemed good enough to continue to use. That fixed it right up. Bright flashes from the spark plug and the timing light! The blueish-purple wire in the pic was the one that I put in as a replacement.

One thing that had come to my attention when I was re-soldering the kill switch is that since I had to re-wire the kill switch, the tachometer in the dashboard would no longer receive a signal because the kill switch and the tach used the output of the non-grounded wire from the trigger coil. The trigger coil/VR sensor is now directly wired to the ECU and I'm not going to compromise the integrity of the signal by splitting it to other devices. Luckily the microsquirt has an output just for such an occasion. I can designate one of four spare outputs to give a dashboard-friendly tach signal. It would have been rather odd to just take pics of the dashboard with various RPMs displayed on it, so I shot a video showing a few different test frequencies sent to the dashboard.
shot a video (https://youtu.be/99BzAAwXuJU)

One of the other outputs I am going to use as a warning light for either the cylinder head temp, overall cylinder temp (where the engine temperature sensor is bolted to the engine in my previous posts), or oil temp. Another I might use as a warm-up indicator - if the ECU is feeding the engine extra fuel because the engine is still not up to operating temperature, this light will be on. The possibilities for setting(s) what will cause an output to turn on/off and under what condition(s) are nearly limitless.

That's about it for now. In the coming few days, I will try and take the exhaust to get drilled (the step bit I bought didn't work out) and welded. I cut the SS rod I bought from mcmaster carr into short pieces and bent them into hook shapes with a bench vise and a hammer. If the shop I go to isn't able to drill out the hole in the exhaust to the size I need, there's no way around it, I'll need to buy a drill press and a GOOD ($50+) cobalt-containing drill bit, be it twist, step or otherwise.

[glavey]

The unusual sparking issue has persisted so I went and asked on the megasquirt forum what could be causing it and/or if I didn't have the settings right in the tuning program. Turns out in the case of the zs190 engine, the ECU needs to think that it is controlling a parallel twin engine. The ECU, as it is configured, thinks the signal from the crank VR sensor is coming from the cam/distributor (spinning half the speed of the crank), so it thinks the engine is spinning twice as fast as it really is. The ECU needs an RPM input signal once per 720 degrees (4 up/down strokes) on a single cylinder engine. I can tell the ECU that the engine is a parallel twin (which would need a RPM input signal once every 360 degrees, which is what the 190 does) and just ignore the spark output for the second cylinder; that way I'll be running wasted spark on just one cylinder. It does seem like a bit of a work-around, but my particular use case is probably very rare for these ECUs, they are mostly for 4+ cylinder engines. I have yet to test and confirm what I've been told to do on the megasquirt forum, but I'm positive they won't mislead me.

I noticed from the first day I had this bike that on the LCD dashboard there was a section that was there, but not being used with the abbreviation "TEMP". It's to the right of the word "total" and above the odometer numbers. Curiosity got the better of me and I took the dash off the bike and took it apart as much as I could. luckily there was some silk-screen labeling next to the main connector that seemed to match what wires went to those connectors. I didn't write down all of the wire <-> PCB connections, most of the important ones are clear like power, ground, ignition, neutral, right turn, left turn, high-beam. There were also 6 pins, all together in a line, labeled oddly enough 1-6. Thats where the stock engine's gear indicators went. But... there's 6! Assuming you have an engine up to 6 speeds that has gear indicator outputs for each gear, this dash will display your current gear. Of course, this does me no good, all I have is a neutral indicator. Oh well.

I tried probing around the two unused connector pins, but got no reaction from the dash. I did, however, discover two more... enticing things about this dash. First, above and to the right of the neutral light and above and to the left of the high-beam light, there are two more indicator light "channels" WITH an LED for both of them already soldered on the PCB! There are also icons (a thermometer for temperature and a generic check-engine-light) already engraved in the black plastic piece that covers the dash. So, theoretically, even though I haven't been able to get one of those LEDs to light by probing the main connector, I could just drive one of those LEDs with an output from the microsquirt directly (with a resistor). One problem with that is that I would have do de-solder all of the LCD connector pins to be able to get to the side of the PCB where the LEDs are mounted. I don't think I can do that.

The second thing I discovered is how to change some parameters on the dashboard. I don't know what the parameters are for and I don't know what I would be changing them to, but I can (won't though) change them. With your bike off, press and hold the "CLR" button while turning on the ignition. Something like what I have taken a pic of should be displayed. I THINK that one of these numbers is a calibration for the speedo. I'm not positive what the other number(s) are. I'll look into it.

A few more parts and services; non-chinese fuel lines all-around, tap and die for the most common bolt thread pattern on Chinese scooters/bikes - M6x1, and I finally got the exhaust bung and hooks welded on. It could look better, but it appears to be air-tight and that is what matters. I had them drill out the hole for the bung, that saved me from having to buy a drill press and a very expensive bit.

Ironically, I also bought a drill press. I decided that paying the price of a drill press to not have to hurt myself trying to hold a drill straight AND press it into the work was worthwhile.

I know I've said this before and I'm gonna jinx myself even thinking this, but there is very little left to do;



Ignition gremlin squashed
new sensors installed and connected (I'm most likely going to swap the coolant, air intake, and map sensor with genuine GM parts, for piece of mind)
wiring harness finished
fuel lines plumbed
final exhaust installation
wait for warmer weather

[JerryHawk250]

:tup: Excellent documentation of the process. I've read through this thread a few times.

[bogieboy]

interesting dash... looks like a clone of the Trailtech Vapor with their snap on "dash" for indicator lights...
'
https://www.trailtech.net/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/v/a/vapor_022-pda.png

[glavey]

:tup: Excellent documentation of the process. I've read through this thread a few times.

Thanks, dude. I'm just trying to give as much info as I can in the hopes it helps someone else.

interesting dash... looks like a clone of the Trailtech Vapor with their snap on "dash" for indicator lights...

That could very well be true. It is also strikingly similar to a genuine grom dash.

While were talkling about dashboards, I found out what all or at least most of the pins on the main dashboard connector do. I take no credit for discovering this information, I just found what others have posted on the internet.

From what appears to be a Japanese person's project blog (http://www.rvf-rc45.net/wordpress/?m=201509), I found this picture:

http://www.rvf-rc45.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/SS182_Manual.png

showing the pinouts from a similar universal type dashboard and most of the silk screen labels match. I also discovered another kind soul that took pictures of the instruction manual that comes with the grom-style dashboards. On this product page (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0716TGCRT/) a reviewer posted the manual that is shipped with a universal dash. It describes how to get into the settings menu (the same as what I described in my previous post) and more crucially, what those numbers mean. I couldn't figure out how to directly download the images posted from the reviewer, so I took screen shots and I'll attack them to this post. Again, I take no credit for taking these pictures, I am just re-posting them here in case that amazon product page goes 404. The images are very small and grainy, so I'll try and transcribe the important bits.

The first set of three numbers in the configuration menu (after you press and hold the CLR button and power on the ignition) is the circumference of the front wheel divided by the number of magnets used for the vehicle speed hall effect sensor. I REALLY don't know how I was getting a nearly correct speed reading with that set at 021. Someone else who reviewed the dash said,

"...I have a 21in front wheel, started with a setting of 005 and worked up to 008 and that setting seems to be the closest to the GPS speed..."

So perhaps some trial an error is needed to get a good, accurate speed reading.

The second set of two numbers is setting the resistance for the "oil level" (I think they mean fuel level) and the number of ignition events/engine cycle. The first number is the resistance for the fuel level sensor. The manual says 1 represents 100R (100 ohms) and 5 represents 500R (500 ohms). I just measured the resistance of the fuel level sensor in my tank and when empty, it reads 100 ohms +/- 2 ohms; full it reads 10 ohms +/- 2 ohms. That matches the number "1" in the pic I took of my dashboard settings. The second number is the tachometer setting. "2" is for single cylinder engines and "4" is for 2 or 4 cylinder engines. Again, this matches what was shown on my dash.

It appears that this dash is quite suitable for a range of bikes. I suppose that isn't very surprising considering Chinese manufacturers are very good at re-using existing parts in new designs.

[wheelbender6]

Phenomenal thread. I wish the 190 engine had been available when I still had the Honda S90.
I would definitely stick with a good old carb.

[JerryHawk250]

Thanks, dude. I'm just trying to give as much info as I can in the hopes it helps someone else.

This thread is now a sticky. :tup: To much info here to get buried in the forum.

[glavey]

Phenomenal thread. I wish the 190 engine had been available when I still had the Honda S90.
I would definitely stick with a good old carb.

When I first read about the existence of the 190, EFI wasn't even on my mind. I think all the reading up on people doing swaps with them triggered something in my mind to think about all of the engine-related projects I haven't yet had the chance to do. I think I came across a youtube video of someone with an FI 190. That put EFI in my head. I remembered back a few... wow, more than a few, maybe 10 or 11 years ago I was reading a book about either turbocharging or EFI tuning (neither of which I could even dream of doing at that time, but I was and still am information hungry) and the author mentioned megasquirt. That put megasquirt in my head. Then I read a post on a forum, it may have even been this forum, that there was a seller on aliexpress offering small-engine EFI kits inexpensively. That put the aliexpress kit in my head.

After that, my future project was set in stone.

This thread is now a sticky. :tup: To much info here to get buried in the forum.


Ah shucks, my first stickied thread. All of you are going to make me blush :hehe:. In all seriousness, thanks dude, I really appreciate that.

I got to trying the new 2-cylinder settings today. There are a few combinations of settings in the ECU that could give me the amount of fuel and number of sparks I need. For now I'm settling on "2" cylinders, one injector, wasted spark, one injection per engine cycle, engine and injector size stay the same. From my understanding, these settings will tell the ECU that there is a single injector shared between two cylinders in a parallel-twin configuration. Spark is shared between the "two" cylinders; when one cylinder is on it's compression stroke, the other would be on it's exhaust stroke, so the spark can happen on both cylinders at the same time. We only have one "real" cylinder, but the spark output from the ECU will still work.

In the real world, on the bike, the electrical gremlin was still there with the new settings. I had also noticed that the tachometer signal was wildly jumping around. There was a setting in the ECU to filter out rogue crank speed signals. I can choose one or a combination of noise rejection settings based on the width of the tach pulse, dead time after tach pulse received, and time between pulses. I started with using the width-based rejection and after a bit of tuning, I have it almost acceptable. Within a few days, I'll try using the time-between-pulses (they call it tach period rejection) setting with and without the width-based filter.

I have been giving thought to staring out with going fuel-only ECU control during the first part of the tuning adventure. Unless I had a really lean mixture, I have never had a scooter/motorcycle CDI cause knock. The spark advance map I have now is a copy of what was sent on the aliexpress ECU. I have no idea if it is good, let alone safe. If I use the CDI and CDI coil, I only have to worry about a lean mixture blowing up my engine, not over-zealous ignition advance. Luckily I had the foreskin... I mean forethought to keep the crank VR sensor usable by a CDI and kept the stock CDI connector wired into the harness as well as the CDI coil's power feed and ground wires. I haven't yet made the final decision to use the CDI or not, but as long as I can send the crank VR sensor's signal to BOTH the CDI and the ECU with little to no signal degradation, I will be leaning toward the CDI.

Back to the dashboard. I used the pinout diagram I showed previously and mapped functions to all of the pins on the dash's main connector. The only differences in the PCB labeling was; the +5v to the front wheel speed sensor is marked "H+" on the dash, not "5V", the check-engine-light was labeled "F", not "DP", the fuel level input was labeled "EF", not "FUEL", and the tach signal was labeled "ZS", not "REV". Nearly all of the wire colors are different along with the pin positions in the connector, but ALL of the connections were there!

The main connector the dash uses is almost universally used as a power connector for motherboards. Google "ATX 20 pin connector" and you'll see billions of results. I happen to be a hoarder of extra/surplus wire, as well as all things electro-mechanical. I had on old power cable from a modular power supply. I extracted two wires with terminals from the cable and plugged the terminals into the two vacant spaces in the dash's connector. Now I had easy access to those inputs while the dash could be fully connected to the bike. I love when stuff like that just falls into place.

On one of the pictures I posted before from an amazon reviewer had resistance vs degrees points for the temperature input pin. It looked like the resistance went from about 80 ohms (120 degrees C), up to about 500 ohms (60 degrees C). I got a 1000 ohm potentiometer and connected it between the dash's temp input and ground. I didn't hook up a multimeter to see what was happening at what resistance, sorry. If I turned the pot all the way to one side (less resistance), the temperature indicator eventually turned on. If I turned the pot all the way to the other side, eventually the indicator light would go out. If I turned the pot to the middle, and then clicked through the display modes on the dash (odometer/trip), a temperature would display on the dash! To avoid confusion and increase compatibility, the dash will just not give you the option to view the temperature if it thinks that either nothing is connected to the temp input, but it will turn on/off the temp indicator without the temp display if you connect the temp input straight to ground. I heavily suspect there is some hardware or software smoothing of the temperature signal. I measured a 14 second delay between grounding the temp input and the indicator light coming on, and a 8 second delay when letting the temp input float (not connected to anything). Not exactly a basic on/off light, bit still perfectly usable as a indicator. Also, the temperature display on the dash goes from 0 degrees C to 71 degrees C. At >= 46 degrees C, the displayed temp starts to flash, and the indicator light turns on steady. At 71 degrees C, the temperature stopped rising as I was still turning the pot, and eventually the temp display went an odometer, but the temp indicator light stayed on.

The input for the CEL is just a basic light connection. Just ground the CEL wire from the dash and the indicator turns on instantly and turns off instantly when left floating. Both the temp and CEL light are red, though the CEL looks orange in the pics.

With the dash on the bike and connected to the wiring harness, all the indicator lights still worked and the temp display could be summoned if needed. Looks like we have two more free indicator lights. Almost.

The clear acrylic that covers the dash has a black plastic backing piece glued to it that is blocking us from seeing the two "new" lights. I don't think I could drill precisely enough to only go though the black plastic and not the clear. Unless I think of a better way, the current kinda-planish-thing is to just drill straight through the back and clear plastic, get some CLEAR silicone/silicone alternative/epoxy/glue/resin, and fill the new light's holes up to the thickness of the arcylic piece (guesstimate ~ 1.5mm). Although I don't intend to ride in rainy weather or to store this bike out of a garage, keeping the dash as water/weather resistant as possible is something I want to do.

I think that is it for tonight.

[wlfpck]

Your factory dash looks a bit different than mine. I think the Ice Bear Fuerza has a dash that is closer to the Grom's.

Here's the wiring for mine. Not sure if this helps or would be useful info for you.

http://www.chinariders.net/showthread.php?t=21374

I'd like to swap to that Trailtech. Looks really nice. :D

[glavey]

Yeah, it looks like the icebear's dash is more of a copy of the grom's dash, whereas mine is I guess "inspired" by the grom.

From a cursory glance at the colors and pinout, it appears that both of our dashboards are compatible with each other; they use the same color wires for functions and might even have the same LCD, just in a different case.

Even though I don't immediately need the information you posted, I am always ravenously eager to learn and discover new information.

I might be a computer.

I just got done painting the small metal pieces for the license plate holder and the muffler support as well as making the two hidden indicator lights in the dash visible while riding. It isn't pretty, but it works. I'll do a full-length post within the next few days showing what I did.

Yesterday the high temperature outside was around 66. Darn you mother nature, taunt me no longer!

[glavey]

Taking a break from stuff like a rats nest of a wiring harness and settings like crank trigger offset angle to doing something comparatively mindless like painting is a welcome reprieve. I took all of the angle brackets I used for the license plate holder and the exhaust hanger bracket outside (it happened to be a warmer-than-average day), ground them down to bare metal and primed, sealed, painted, and attempted to clear-coat. All of the paint I am using is left over from previous projects, and all of the cans were at least half-empty. I had enough primer and primer-sealer and EXACTLY enough black paint, but just a few spits of clear coat. I don't think any of these pieces will see any real abrasion except from being bolted/unbolted, so no real worry there.

Next I tackled getting the two holes drilled in the dash for the two newly found indicator lights. What a perfect job for a drill press! The previous day, I traced the outline of the white plastic light guide piece of the dash with all the indicator light holes. I then taped the outline to the front of the dash and lined it up as best I could. The drill worked as it should and gave me two very straight, smooth-ish holes where I needed them.

I wanted to keep the dash as water/weather-resistant as possible, so I needed to seal up the holes I just drilled with something that would let light pass through it. I would have liked silicone, but 1. it is too viscous to settle into having a flat surface and 2. it isn't completely clear, it's more like trying to look through a few mm of milk. I settled on epoxy; it flows well enough to have a smooth-enough surface and dried clear (but with lots of tiny bubbles). I put a piece of scotch tape over the top of the drilled holes on the front of the dash to keep the epoxy from leaking out, then flipped the dash over and filled each drilled hole to the point where the surface of the epoxy was flush with the plastic of the dash, and let it set for a day. You can clearly see the indicator light's color, although the "icons" in the dash are distorted. That doesn't really matter to me, I use the color and location of the lights for recognition; red light on the right side of the dash? temperature. Red light on the left side of the dash? engine is still warming up (or whatever condition I set for that light).

I attempted to make a engine block temperature sensor using one of the 10k thermistor and a ring terminal crimp (pictured). It did not work. I did successfully solder the ring terminal to the temp probe, but the probe short-circuited internally when I tested it afterward. I made another one that I jb-welded on. I'll let you know how it works once it dries.

I was trying to use the 10k thermistor instead of the 100k one that came with the aliexpress kit because when using the 100k one, the difference to the ECU between 60F and 100F is only 0.127 volts .With the 10k thermistor, the difference between 60F and 100F is 0.757 volts; greater resolution in the range we need it. The ECU can detect (I'm kinda guessing on the exact numbers) 0.005 volts change on the temperature input; each 0.005 v is one "step" of resolution. If there is only 0.127 volts between the numbers we gave earlier, the ECU only has 25 steps of resolution, or a resolution of (100-60)/25 = 1.6 degrees F per step. Whereas with the 10k thermistor, using the same 0.005 v step and 60-100 range, the ECU has 155 steps of resolution or 0.25 degrees F per step.

I'm still going to try and use the GM temperature sensors; they are much more robust than the quite-flimsy thermistors, but they are also MUCH bigger. I was intending to put one of the thermistors in the air filter to measure the IAT (intake air temperature), but there is just no way one of the GM temp sensors would work there. I asked on the megasquirt forum about remotely mounting the IAT sensor since I have essentially NO intake plenum or piping to speak of, it is literally air filter -> throttle body. I was told that remote mounting of the IAT sensor would work in my case (no under-hood area to trap heat and increase charge temperature; IAT essentially always equals ambient temp).

The place I have ear-marked for the IAT sensor is around about where I put the CDI when I had the aliexpress ECU installed. It shouldn't get heat soaked from the engine back there, and it will get some airflow over it when riding at speed. As for the engine/coolant temp sensor, I have three possible places in mind:

1. The same location the 100k thermistor is bolted to (look at my previous posts to see where I installed it). Problems with this location are I would have to drill out the threaded hole in the cylinder to a larger size to fit the tip of the temp sensor in, and then I would have to hold and secure the sensor there somehow. I really don't want to jb-weld anything to the engine. I could also make a ring terminal fit the sensor's tip and NOT SOLDER, but epoxy or jb-weld it on there. I would still have to secure it in place somehow; the sensor is too heavy to be left secured at only one point, especially on something as violently shaky as an engine. Pros are easy to access and replace, and reading the temperature of the cylinder, not the oil.

2. The oil channel access bolt next to the position mentioned in place 1. Problems with this location are having to thermally connect the temp sensor to the bolt, having to thread the tip of the temp sensor (I don't even know if there is enough meat on the tip of the sensor to be safely threaded), or having to find and buy multiple pipe thread adapters to go from the threads on the engine block to 3/8 NPT on the sensor, while having enough clearance for the tip of the sensor. Pros are easy (though not quick) access and replacement.

3. The spark plug hole. Make a CHT sensor with a ring terminal and put it between the cylinder and the spark plug. Problems with this location are, again lots o' vibration, having to jb-weld a ring terminal to a sensor, rendering it useless in any other situation, and lots of airflow over the sensor body while riding at speed, possibly cooling it below the temperature of the cylinder head. Pros are this would probably be the most accurate reading of the temperature we want, it can aid in tuning, and easy (though not quick) access and replacement.

I'm really not sure which location I'm gonna go with. Maybe a slight lean toward the current temp sensor location.

There were quite a few wires left over, unused coming from the ECU. Since I installed it (the ECU), I had a plan to wrap the unused wires together in a circle and tuck them behind the ECU. I tried to do this once by just stuffing the wires into the plastic wire loom sleeve in a circle, but that didn't work well. I had straighted the wires and tape them together about every 6-8 inches, then wound them on top on one another and taped them to each other, then finally putting the plastic sleeve over them. I seat does slightly press on the sleeve when installed and with a person sitting on it, but no where near enough to damage the wires inside.

I have been (and still am) wondering if the 125's and the 190's CDI is DC or AC. I can easily see that the 125's CDI got its power from the black switched +12v wire, but it is also comparatively smaller than most DC CDIs I have seen (from what I have read, DC CDIs need to be bigger because they need room for additional circuitry). It is only 1mm smaller than the 190's CDI. The 125's CDI has four wires/pins; trigger, ground, power, and output to coil. The 190's CDI only has one more ground pin. The wiring harness that came with the 190 would have the CDI getting AC power, and the 190 stator has a high voltage winding, the 125's stator (pictured) does not. At this point, since the 125 stator didn't have any HV windings, I am relatively certain the 125's CDI is DC (or at least works with DC). The 190's CDI... the wiring harness connections point to AC, but being the same size as the 125's CDI points to DC. I guess I'll have to try the 190 CDI on DC first (DC first because I am guessing that feeding 12 volts into something that usually needs 100+ won't hurt it, but doing the opposite will make the magic smoke escape). If it doesn't work on DC, then its on to AC. If that doesn't work, then I screwed something up.

I think I broke my cat.

[glavey]

We're getting close dudes and dudettes, we're getting close.

I got the gm map sensor installed without much trouble. One thing I did have to do was cut out key ways in the map sensor connector (pictured). As odd as it may be, it was cheaper to buy a clearly knock-off sensor + connector rather than just buying a connector. I bought the cheap senor/connector just for the connector, but it turns out there are different connectors for different sensors; mainly for 1 bar, 2 bar, and 3 bar sensors. The cheap sensor was a "3 bar" sensor and so was the connector. The genuine GM sensor was a 1 bar sensor. Nothing an xacto knife can't fix.

The "genuine gm" map sensor I bought did come in a acdelco box, but not the usual kind with the hologram on it. Either this is just an old-stock part and box, or the overseas sellers are getting more crafty at selling counterfeit parts. I have tested the sensor, and it does work and read as it should, so no worries thus far.

I attempted to make a holder/adapter for one of the gm temperature sensors, but failed miserably. I had a short piece of very thick gauge wire with two copper crimps on either side. I cut off the wire from the crimps and pounded the remaining bits of wire with a hammer and a punch in a vise. Then, I TRIED to re-open the two "jaws" that held the wire in place, but the copper was too work-hardened from being crimped, and I just mangled the whole thing. Oh well, I tried.

The temperature probe I jb welded on to a ring terminal worked out very well, and until I find a good way to mount the gm sensor somewhere to the engine, I'll be using it as the engine temperature sensor.

I also bought 5' of 3/16 and 5/16 fuel hose to use for all the low-pressure fuel runs, along with a fire extinguisher, gasoline-resistant sealant, various ratings of fuses, a bar clamp phone holder, and a 5/16 quick connect to 5/16 hose barb adapter. The fuel hoses are self-explanatory; I don't have an anti-gravity pump so I have to use hoses to move fuel to and from the gas tank. The fire extinguisher is, I hope, even more self-explanatory. I want this engine to remain an INTERNAL combustion engine. The fuel-resistant sealant is because when I took the fuel level sender off of the tank, I noticed that the rubber sealing washer was put in incorrectly and pinched (pictured). I don't know if that will cause a leak, but I am going the safe route and adding sealant. Fuses; so I only have the good kind of sparks. The phone holder is so I can connect the microsquirt to an app on android that gives me a choice of a few dashboards with most pertinent information easily read while I am riding. Don't worry, I have an old pre-dropped phone I am going to use for the dash display. The quick connect to hose barb is for connecting to the high-pressure side of the fuel pump. I mentioned in a previous post that the outlet on the fuel pump is supposed to be used with quick connect fittings, not with bare hose. The adapter is the necessary piece to go from the fuel pump to the high-pressure fuel hose. Note that they are called quick CONNECTS, not disconnects. You either need a special tool to disconnect these, or do what I did and buy one with a button you can press to release the adapter.

I was going to use the existing barb on the top of the fuel tank for the fuel return, but I just couldn't stop thinking that since the fuel hose going to the pump from the tank and from the pump back to the tank are the same size, if there were even a little bit of flow restriction on the return hose or the fittings, the fuel wouldn't be able to go back to the tank fast enough and cause higher-than-intended pressure on the high-side of the pump. Using a larger size hose along with larger fittings on the return route gives lots of room for high-flowing fuel. I chose a location on the tank that wouldn't be too far from the pump and not interfere with the plastic tank fairings. Mostly because of the inability to reach any other place in the tank, I chose to drill a hole near the rear of the tank, about an inch above where the tank fairing ends. Drilling the hole went without problem. I used a 1/8 npt female-female coupling, 1/8 npt male close nipple (yes, that is the correct term), a female-female 1/8 npt 90 degree elbow, and a 1/8 npt male to 5/16 hose barb adapter to make a clamping bulkhead fitting that hopefully along with jb weld will make for a leak-proof fuel tank return connection. I had to sand some of the paint off the tank to get a good bond with the jb weld. I ran out of black paint when I painted the license plate and exhaust brackets, so I had to use white touch-up paint (not pictured). The color mismatch doesn't really bother me, it is under the fairing so it won't be seem unless the bike is being serviced and the paint color wasn't chosen for aesthetic purposes, it's just what I had laying around.

I mounted and connected the gm temperature sensor that I am going to use for the intake air temperature. I chose the place I mentioned in the previous post, where the aliexpress CDI was installed. I had completely forgotten that there was an open-mesh air vent in the fairings right there. That means that the sensor will be getting at lest some airflow while riding at speed.

I connected the two "new" dash lights and they are now controlled by the ECU. The temperature light will come on if the engine/coolant sensor reads above 190F/~87C. The check engine light will come on when rpms are > 0 and the warmup fuel enrichment is >100% (100% is the calculated required fuel; 200% or 300% would be fuel added for a cold engine).

I still want to use the ignition advance inside the CDI box that came with the 190, but it is looking like almost every way I can think of using it is met with an problem that prevents me from using it.

Way 1. Go back to carb and CDI. Hahahah NOPE.

Way 2. Use the microsquirt in fuel-only mode and let the CDI control the spark timing. This one is the most promising, but there is one major problem; the crank VR sensor is the only way I have to sense the engine's position and speed. The CDI needs to use the sensor as its trigger, but the ECU also needs to use the senor to determine rpm. So both need the sensor's output, but the ECU cannot share the signal with the CDI; the CDI has a shared ground connection with the spark ground, power ground (circuitry to drive the CDI), and trigger signal (VR sensor) ground. So one lead from the VR sensor will be grounded (inside the CDI) to the same point that the spark plug and EVERY other power device grounds to. In the microsquirt manual, they warn about letting this very thing happen. It WILL cause bad interference with the rpm signal. Until I find a way to either split or isolate the VR sensor's signal, this option is no good.

Way 3. Give the microsquirt a completely flat ignition map, EVERYTHING set to 0, let the ECU output a signal exactly when it gets a signal from the VR sensor, and use that signal from the ECU to trigger the CDI to fire the spark plug. This would work, except the 190 CDI and every other CDI I have except for the one from aliexpress doesn't respond to logic-level inputs (usually 3.3v to 5v, low current) from the ECU. So unless I can find a way to drive the CDI from an ECU output, this option is not good.

Way 4. Extract the timing information from the 190 CDI and use it in the microsquirt ECU. The only "real" input the CDI has is the trigger from the crank and the only output it has is the ignition coil drive wire. The closer the trigger pulses from the crack are to each other, the faster the engine will be turning. If the engine is turning faster, it will in general, up to a point, need more spark advance, so the spark will happen closer to when the CDI gets its trigger input. By measuring the time between the input pulse (crank VR sensor) and the output pulse (ignition coil) at a given frequency, you can calculate what the spark advance will be for that given frequency.

In practice and as mentioned above, the CDI units do not respond to logic-level inputs. Also, the voltage signal from VR sensors goes positive and negative (above and below 0 volts). By themselves, the ECU and the arduino I was using to produce the frequencies, cannot drive a pin to below 0v. I do not have the necessary circuitry to make a negative-going signal, not to mention that the trigger circuitry inside the CDI might not even be driven by voltage, it maybe driven by current (as some of the earlier megasquirts were).

Unless I find a way to make the ECU and CDI cooperate and/or successfully extract the timing information from the CDI, I will have to use a pulled-out-of-my-ass, very conservative spark map on the ECU.

All that is left before I can do a test fire is to route the fuel hoses, take the bike outside, test/leak check all hoses, tank, pump, and fittings, and mount the exhaust.

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday are supposed to be above 60 degrees. I am cautiously and reservedly crapping my pants with anticipation and excrement. I mean excitement.

[bogieboy]

on the positive/negative signal, is it possible that the signal is going negative due to the inductive field collapsing, and causing a reverse voltage spike?

[glavey]

Yes, VR sensors by design, use that collapsing field and reversing voltage to give a very precise, short, sharp polarity change exactly when the center of the little "magnet bump" crosses the center of the sensor. A microcontroller with signal conditioning circuitry can use that zero-crossing point as a very accurate timing trigger.

[glavey]

Small update.


My ADHD-induced fyper focus (focus on something so much, so hard, and for so long you literally forget to eat) has already made me miss a meal, not realize that my hands are so cold I cannot type very well or fast. That is how much I am simultaneously drooling with excitement and pooing my britches with anxiety.


I got the bike out of the house; had to go through the patio door and the backyard. I got the tank filled with fuel. No observable or touchable leaks. Lots of fuel odor, so finding a leak with my nose will be impossible. Fuel pressure gets up to about 40 psi and stays there while the pump is running. When the pump shuts off, it instantly goes back down to about 25 and then over the course of about 5 minutes goes to 0. There is definitely some air trapped in the high-pressure side; that is going to be a recurring issue with the dead-head fuel line to the injector.


With my laptop recording, fire extinguisher nearby, but not within fuel-leaking range, fingers crossed I turned the engine over.


BANG!


An air/fuel charge was ignited within the engine, but with the intake port still open some amount (or opened shortly after). Sounded like what I imagine a gun shot sounds like. My guess is incorrect timing, a spark that was triggered by noise on the crank VR signal, the ECU unable to correctly calculate engine rpm, and fired the spark plug sometime when it wasn't supposed to, or the ignition coil going into "save the coil mode" where it will fire the spark plug if the ignition coil has been charging for >~8ms.


Through some change-something-and-see-what-happens troubleshooting, I got the noise on the crank VR signal reduced quite a bit. I tried cranking the engine again.


The engine turns over, but doesn't fire.


The spark plug is firing (and yes, I did remember to screw the plug back into the engine). I noticed that the MAP sensor is only showing about 67 kPa. Either the decompression valve in the 190 might be messing with the MAP reading, or the way the ECU is calculating the MAP signal is wrong (since this engine has effectively no intake plenum, the pressure/vacuum inside the intake manifold changes with every stroke of the engine, with next-to-no mechanical smoothing that a large volume of space would cause.


I'll have to mess with the ECU's MAP sensor readings tonight/tomorrow.


I have been cranking the engine over quite a bit as well as restarting the ECU. That means a lot of "priming pulses" of fuel were sent into the intake manifold. Maybe enough to flood the engine. The microsquirt has a flood clear mode which I have enabled; it will not inject any fuel into the engine when the throttle is held above 70% while cranking. I held the throttle wide open and cranked the engine.


BANG!


Apparently in flood clear mode, the spark plug still fires. That seems a little... odd.


At this point I realized my stomach hurt, my hands were shaking, and I couldn't think straight. There's the hunger and cold my body has been trying to get my mind to realize. I went inside and made a sandwich and sat down to write this post and do some research on if there is ANYWAY to get a CDI to work with the microsquirt.

[bogieboy]

From the sounds of things, could your timing be 180° out? I forget what all you are using for timing, i know most megasquirt builds in the car world use a crank and cam signal to verify engine timing... are you using just the crank trigger or? Im not too familiar with the microsquirt and what all it wants to see... its been a few years too since i was investigating MS for my truck...LOL

[bogieboy]

Also, i dont see why a cdi WOULDNT work with MS... how many people run aftermarket ignitions in thier cars with MS... most of them run accel or msd ignitions... however, i wonder if the built in timing curve of the cdi for our motors is throwing things out... i wonder if you need to just run a coil driver off the microsquirt, straight to the coil... or like previously mentioned run the ms for fuel only, and use the cdi somehow isolating the signal between the 2...

[glavey]

A few things happened; good and bad. Problems; good and bad, were mostly sorted out.

1. I realized that the injector and/or the throttle body were poorly made (mostly the part where the injector in seated) and the spray from the injector (if it is even spraying and not dribbling) is hitting the walls of the TB and running past the throttle vane and right out to the air filter. After seeing that for the first time, I took the whole intake/TB assy. off and felt the bottom of the intake - bone dry. If there is fuel getting into the engine (there must be to get a BANG out of it), it is dribbling off of the walls into the intake port in no controlled manner. To remedy this, I will need to buy a new throttle body without a injector seat glued to it as well as have a hole in the intake manifold precision drilled and honed for the injector to sit in, so it can spray fuel directly on to the back of the intake valve. Both of those will take a considerable amount of time and some money as well.

2. I under-estimated the NEED to go out and ride in warm weather. This is my first motorcycle, I bought it last year around July. This was my first winter project and this will be my first spring where I have something to look forward to when the weather gets nice, instead of doing yard work and getting bitten by mosquitoes.

3. This is my first attempt at an EFI conversion and attempt at non-oem EFI in general. I should have started with something that had FI to begin with, then I would hopefully be able to focus on tuning (which is what attracted me to EFI in the first place - tuning, not circuit diagnostics and parts compatibility) instead of troubleshooting.

4. You all have seen how many things I have had to order for this project. I am very near the limit of what I want to spend on this project, this year

5. I am working on something that I love to use. When I get frustrated with something in the EFI system, I want to be able to go out and have a good ride to clear my head; I can't do that if the EFI system is ON by only bike. Having the bike be unrideable for large portions of time while waiting for parts to arrive is no good.

6. (a bit emotional) This thread, while I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing my findings, discoveries, and insights, has caused me some anxiety; I feel like I have to do something so I have something to post about and I have to post about what I have been doing. I know I don't really have to, no one has a gun to my head, but I started this thread and if I stop posting to it, I'll feel like I let people who browse this forum down. I realize this is all in my head and isn't correct, but I am mentally unable to let go of those feelings.

It is for these reasons that I am suspending, NOT CANCELLING the EFI portion of this project. To get the EFI system into good working order as described in #1 above, I need to either buy all of the things that will allow me to drill a precise hole in the intake manifold for the injector AND buy another TB (or remove the injector seat and patch the massive hole that is left in its place) without a injector seat AND wait around 1-2 weeks for everything to arrive AND then spend time installing everything. That is no fun when there are roads out there waiting to be torn up and sunshine waiting to make me feel nice and warm while giving me skin cancer.

Luckily, I made the EFI wiring harness in such a way that I can and have removed it from the bike along with most of the supporting parts in an evening (~4 hours) and installed the carb and CDI back on. Since it only took about 4 hours to take off, it should only take 8 hours to re-install, now that I know where everything needs to go and all the connectors are already there in the correct location.

I will still probably keep an eye on this thread (for things specific to this bike) and on the forum in general (for everything else) and answer questions and post my usual lengthy review/walk-through/write-up on things that I am doing or have done to my bike. I still have a few more somewhat inexpensive things I want to do like re-pack the exhaust with a quality packing material, not the wafer-thin sheet of fiberglass that they have in them from the factory, the $15 grom shock mod, and replace the rear-shock-shaped-object with an oem honda grom one.

bogieboy; I am using wasted spark on this engine. There is only a single tooth on the flywheel/magneto that triggers once per 360 degrees, so the ECU and CDI can only fire the spark plug once per 360 degrees (at the end of the compression stroke and the end of the exhaust stroke), not once per 720 degrees, as would be needed for non-wasted spark. Also, I have had the engine spinning using the starter motor and have synced the timing that the ECU says it should be and what it is on the engine. 10 degrees BTDC on the engine matches the ECU's 10 degree base timing.

Those aftermarket CDI boxes for automotive engines probably have a tachometer output wire that can give a signal to the ECU and they probably don't mess with potentially shared signals like crank speed by grounding one of the leads. The 190's CDI could be used with the microsquirt if I could build a small circuit that could duplicate the crank VR sensor's signal into two separate, isolated outputs. But, I don't have the skills to do that; I already have difficulty with arduinos, making something that is used to assist in the control of an engine is way beyond me.

Also, those ignition boxes will probably accept a 5v square wave input from an ECU or sensor; our motorcycle CDIs need a signal that goes high, crosses 0 volts, and goes negative (again something that I could build, but my lack of skills are stopping me). The microsquirt only has logic-level outputs for sparks; you cannot directly drive a coil from it without hardware modifications.

Sorry to stop progress on this so abruptly, but I must ride, be it with injectors or carbs.

If anyone has any questions that they wanted answered with regards to anything I did or said I was going to do with my bike, please go ahead and ask.

EDIT: Just had the bike started up for the first time. Loud even with the silencer in. Vibrates like a harley at idle. Big-ass smile on my face. I'm gonna miss the counterbalancing the 125 had. I'm letting it cool down so I can do an oil change and then take the new engine for its first inaugural ride. I'm keeping the wideband controller installed on the bike; once I get/make a gauge that will display the AFR, I'll add the sensor back into the exhaust to aid my tuning. I'll try (no promises) to take a short video showing how the bike sounds.

[bogieboy]

hope all goes well with the bike Glavey, totally understand wanting to ride it.... on the coil driver side of things, i wonder... if you went to a junkyard and found an automotive coil, say an LS1 coil-near-plug setup, that would get its own 12v supply, and would only need a 5v trigger from the microsquirt, and just use the MS for everything, bypassing the CDI all together....

just bouncing ideas right now...LOL

[glavey]

Actually, that is very nearly the exact ignition system I used with the ECU; a GM "truck" coil with a built-in ignitor that used logic level signals for dwell and spark. The reason I even considered the CDI instead of having the microsquirt deal with the ignition was because the CDI has a known-good and safe spark advance curve for the 190 engine. I wanted to leave the spark timing to the CDI and just run the ECU in fuel only mode because I didn't trust my ignition timing guesswork.

[bogieboy]

hmm.... start conservative and creep up on it, when you hear any detonation, back it off a few degrees....LOL its not too terribly hard... not trying to be an ass or anything, its just really simple (at least to me, but i have been researching timing maps for car stuff since my first truck, back in 05)

[glavey]

It does make sense that it would be simple like that, but still I don't trust myself. I had contacted support @ tboltusa about the max advance in the 190 CDIs. They came back and said it was around 30 degrees at maximum, so I put a 27 degree max advance in the ignition table in the microsquirt and tapered it down from 27 at about 6krpm to 10 at 1krpm. That is what I was using when I got the BANGS from the attempted engine start.

I'm not out for maximum power on this engine; I don't want to tune the ignition table for max. timing before torque drop off, I just want a good amount of power without worrying about knocking, pinging, pre-ignition, or detonation.

Also, I was and still will be struggling with low-rpm erroneous spark firings. Anything below about 500rpm and I get lots of extra sparks not apparently correlating to any specific position on the engine. I'm guessing that is due in part to the crappy signal VR sensors can give when measuring low speeds, not to mention there was only one "point" of information per revolution on crank positioning.

I have been thinking about getting a toothed wheel cut to size and epoxying it to the flywheel/magneto where it won't be interfering with anything that is already there and using a hall effect sensor to detect crank speed. That would give up to 36 (35 really, the wheel has to have a missing tooth) points of timing information per 360 degrees of crank rotation. Even if that still resulted in fewer, bit still some erroneous sparks, I could then run the microsquirt in fuel only mode if I choose, as I would have a separate crank speed input for the ECU, independent from the one used by the CDI.

Don't worry you aren't sounding mean at all, just throwing ideas around.

[bogieboy]

i think the 36-1 tooth wheel would be a great idea, when you have free time, since thats what the majority of MS users run. even a lot of OEMs use a similar setup, with a 32-1 or a 36-1 wheel on the crank... if you could somehow couple a cam sensor in the mix as well, that would be even better, but a royal pain in the butt to get working....a dual signal=full sync, and can be traced to a VERY small percentage of the rotation of the engine, I.E. more accurate timing.....LOL

[RedCrowRides]

None of my business but i'd put a carb back on it and ride hell out of it this spring n summer and revisit this EFI deal when it turns too cool to ride again. You are NOT having fun at this point, versus riding it, which WOULD be fun. Stop looking at it and RIDE IT.

[glavey]

That's what I've done; yesterday I hooked up the carb and the CDI and went out for an inaugural ride. Other than the clutch friction zone being right at the beginning of the lever travel, causing more then a few embarrassing stalls at intersections, everything went swimmingly. I even met someone on a modded ruckus. I really want to quiet down the exhaust with a combination of new packing material, baffles, and modifying the exhaust silencer.



I really needed that ride and after coming back from it I didn't regret my decision to pause the EFI and put the carb on one bit.

[glavey]

I think I've discovered the reason guys who name bikes, cars, trucks, etc use female names... I was going to name by bike something really unusual, like... Bob. Then I realized if I was ever asked what I was doing all weekend long, I'll have to answer, "Oh man, I was riding Bob all weekend. He's a real screamer. I couldn't walk right for a while after getting off of him."

On a less sarcastic note, I took Bob out for a brisk ride today. About 50F, but with clear skies and sunlight to warm you up. I adjusted the clutch so I can actually start from a stop and not stall 5 times. I had read that the gearbox in this engine is quite smooth, but damn it really is. This bike is an excellent candidate for a quick shifter. I'm not sure if this is the correct terminology, but the gears are close ratio, meaning... for example lets say you are at 5000rpm in third gear, you shift into fourth and the revs only go down to... maybe 3700-4000rpm. Not a lot of drive line shock will happen going between those revs.

I have been looking for a wideband gauge that has the numerical AFR readout as well as a row/bar/graph/ring of LEDs that at a quick glance can give you a rough idea of what your mixture is. I could only find gauges with integrated sensor controllers for >$125. Nope, I already bought a controller and I'm not buying another just for a gauge. So I set out to make my own.

2 or 3 years ago, I made a dashboard for my scooter (pictured). Everything on it worked as it should (needles moved, numbers were displayed), but I had a problem with getting a reliable, clean signal for the engine rpm and the speedometer. I stopped working on it because I had one of those moments where you work hard on something, and in the end it was all for naught, combined with me not really riding it enough to warrant caring about it.

I dissected dashboard and preformed an display-ectome. I took out the 16x2 character display (blue rectangular display) and the two 7-segment, 4 digit displays. Organ harvesting done, I started trying to imagine what the gauge could look like with what I had to work with. The 7 segment display fit in the center of a gauge face I had (in a previous life, the gauge was for oil temperature on my scooter) with enough room around it to line the gauge face with LEDs.

I like the wideband gauges that have, from left to right, yellow LEDs for rich, green for stoichiometric, and red for lean. I wanted to copy that in my gauge, so I gathered some LEDs out of my electronics project box and glued them in a ring to the inside of the gauge face along with one of the 7 segment displays (pictured). I wanted to have two 7 segment displays and the LEDs, but the chip I am using to drive them can only do 2x 7 segment 4 digit displays (maximum of 8 digits) OR one 7 segment 4 digit display and the LED ring that I just glued in. I went with a 7 segment 4 digit display with the LEDs. I did have another driver chip in the scooter dashboard, but when I tried to de-solder it, I killed it.

After much soldering, gluing, and back-ache from being hunched over a desk, I got all of the LEDs and the display connected to an arduino nano and used a example program to test out all of the individual sections of the display and LEDs.

I can't figure out how I embedded a youtube video before, so here's a link. (https://youtu.be/KS5W1JWIoWM)

Success! Now, on to actually programming the arduino to make the display and the LEDs show meaningful data. After about 2 days, on and off (I'm not very good or fast at programming) I had working code that interpreted a 0-5 volt signal into 10.00 to 20.00 AFR on the display, and individual LEDs would light to indicate AFR within a given range (attached to this post, if you have the arduino IDE, you can just double click the afr.ino file to open it in the arduino IDE. If you don't have the arduino IDE installed, you can open the afr.txt file. Both filesa re exactly the same, just with different file extensions). Now that I had working gauge electronics, I had to cram and stuff them into the gauge housing. In the end I got everything in; the gauge face and everything glued to it, the arduino, all of the wiring, and a 5 volt step-down voltage converter. I plugged in the arduino using a USB cable and nothing happened and then I saw a small whiff of magic electronic smoke escape from the voltage converter. It appears that the converter was not able to have 5v applied to the output when there wasn't any voltage on the input side. I tried using a diode on the 5v output, but it was too late, the patient had died. Now I can either make a voltage regulator (it would get real hot inside a gauge case) or buy some different, better made voltage converters(like the one I used in the bluetooth case).

Thats about it for this post.

[loganlexow]

Dude, this is effing sweeeeeeeet! You have gathered so much info and shared it, and all the rad trial and error is just inspiring! I get discouraged too when trying to make something but fail. Please know you aren't alone there or with anxiety. Keep updating when you can please!

[glavey]

Thanks, dude. I really appreciate the kind words. It's posts like yours and others here who have encouraged me to keep building and posting.


<3

[glavey]

I salvaged the voltage converter from my DIY bluetooth module and wired it up to the AFR gauge. 90% success! The arduino did what it was supposed to and the voltage converter didn't go up in smoke, however for some power-related reason, the arduino couldn't communicate with my computer. It would work when the voltage converter was disconnected. Just a small thing I'll have to be mindful of when updating the arduino.

The different voltage converter was bigger than the last one I used; too big to fit in the gauge housing, so I needed to elongate the gauge to fit all of the electric modules. I decided to cut the gauge housing in half and glue/tape/epoxy something between the two halves to make more room. I cut apart the plastic cover for some old blank DVDs and made a rectangular-ish shaped piece that I could use as the "filler" piece. After I dremeled the gauge in half, I taped the gauge pieces and the filler piece in place with electrical tape. I tried to use super glue, but the filler plastic was too shiny and slippery.

The gauge, as it is now, is about 90mm/3 1/2 in. deep and about 55mm/2 3/16 in. diameter. It will update the display and the LEDs 10 times/second. I found that any faster than that, I can't make out the numbers in the display. I'll probably temporarily mount it somewhere along the top of the speedo cluster so I'll be able to quickly glance at it while riding. I haven't decided exactly how I am going to attach the gauge to the speedo, but preliminary thoughts are either more electrical tape or zip tie to speedo case.

Sorry there isn't much in this update but my brain is kinda foggy right now and not that much really happened. Lots of thinking and planning about how to do certain things, but not much doing things. If for some reason the AFR gauge doesn't work in the form factor that it is in now, I have plans to make it much smaller, simpler, and blend in much better with the styling of the bike.

Except for tomorrow, the next 5 or 7 days look like good riding weather. Stay tuned...

[glavey]

Apologies for the poor-quality post previously, I was really out of it but I felt like I needed to post something.

I think the few rides I have taken on the bike have given me enough information to give a bit of feedback/observations on the 190 engine.

Like most of the pit-bike-sized engines around, the 190 doesn't really idle smoothly... It doesn't idle roughly, just not smooth. By that I mean the engine is going putt-putt-puttputt-pu-pu-putt-putt-putt instead of a "normal" idle of putt-putt-putt-putt. I don't know for sure, but it think the combination of little-to-no intake piping, low speed, and no load make the engine kinda miss once every... 3-7 complete engine cycles.

The carb that came with the 190 is a Chinese copy of a keihin PE28 carb and (I am 90% sure of this, but check your jets to be sure) uses these (https://www.jetsrus.com/a_jets_by_carburetor_type/jets_keihin_N424-21_slow_26-xxx.htm) slow jets and these (https://www.jetsrus.com/a_jets_by_carburetor_type/jets_mikuni_N102-221_main_Small_round.htm) main jets. I think, but am not positive that these keihin main jets (https://www.jetsrus.com/a_jets_by_carburetor_type/jets_keihin_99101-357_main_Hex_25-xxx.htm) will also thread in to the main jet tube and work MAYBE. My carb came with a #40 slow jet and a #115 main jet. I didn't record the needle# or the clip position.

I don't have any information on the AFR ratio for these jets; I still have yet to install the AFR gauge on the bike. I've either been too eager to ride it or busy with something else. I can say that the engine responds very well in all running situations I have put it under except one. There is a miss around 4-6k rpm regardless of throttle position. I don't know if this is an ignition or fuel problem, but I have read of other people having the same miss at around the same engine speeds. Other than that, there has never been a fueling issue.

The engine starts up with the choke on within 2 revolutions every time. With the choke on and the air temp ~67F the bike idles at about 4-5k rpm. after about a minute of running, the engine will start to sound a little boggy and rich. That's when I turn off the choke. I have the idle set around 1500-2000 rpm. A little high, I know, but the engine likes it there and responds very quickly to all but the most violent of throttle snap-openings. Since, as described above, the engine doesn't idle smoothly, using an AFR gauge to tune the idle would probably be futile. I've read about mechanics using a vacuum gauge to set the idle mixture, so I'll give that a try. Also something to note about the keihin PE28 carbs - the low speed mixture screw, NOT the idle screw, meters how much air goes into the engine at and around idle speeds. Adjusting an air-mixture screw, in my experience, is a bit more finicky than adjusting a fuel-mixture screw. When I was using a VM22 carb that also has an air-adjust screw, I was running about 1/4 to 3/4 turn from fully closed to get the idle just right.

At in-town speeds of <35 mph, up to 6k rpm the engine, as geared (I think 16/34?), feels much like my scooter felt after I put a big block kit on it; feeling the same amount of torque, just add 3-5 mph to whatever speed you felt you were doing with the smaller engine. I don't know if it is my lack of experience with bikes or perhaps a poor fuel mixture, but I have to rev the engine up to about 6k rpm when taking off and SLOWLY release the clutch or else it will stall. It could also be the new clutch is being broken in as well. I'll choose me and my lack of experience as the main cause of feeling lack of torque on take-off. In situations like this that have many possible causes of a certain symptom, If I am anywhere in the "might be the cause" list, I just automatically choose myself as the cause of the symptom. I'm usually right, as well.

In contrast, once the engine is above 6k rpm, the torque and the pull from the engine increases precipitously all the way to 10k rpm. Seriously, with how much the 190 pulls at wot, I am thinking that the 125 was very held back by the factory quiet/restrictive exhaust. It pulled as hard at 8k rpm as it did at 4k rpm. I might temporarily put the factory 125 exhaust on the 190 and see just how bad it is.

When the engine is up at those higher rpms, the entire bike and engine buzzes, vibrates, and shakes and I can't hear the intake or exhaust over the mechanical engine sounds. Now, I don't mean the engine is vibrating the mounting bolts loose, I mean the lack of a counter-balance shaft makes this engine, the bike, and everything touching or connected to either of those vibrate. Nothing on my bike has come loose except for a cell phone holder. Don't worry, I didn't have a phone in there at the time.

The transmission shifts quickly, smoothly, and effortlessly. Only twice have I accidentally shifted into neutral instead of 2nd. It is still difficult to get into neutral with the engine running and the bike stationary. I suspect that will improve with continued use.

I don't know if, again, this is either my fault with lack of experience or just the way things are, but it has been very difficult to keep the engine at a steady operating state in lower gears at lower speeds. What I mean by that is below 35mph in any gear but mostly in the lower ones, the engine wants to accelerate or decelerate (as well as jerk the bike when going from decel to accel), NOT run at a steady speed. I really don't know if that is inherent to this engine or just engines above a certain size. It has certainly given me cramps in my throttle hand, having to try and precisely control input.

The exhaust system I am using is too loud for my tastes. I have only run it with the silencer in the muffler, I don't dare take it out. I'm going to try and modify the silencer to reduce the volume a bit. The silencer that is in the muffler now only has a narrower diameter pipe for the exhaust to exit through (like this (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Car-Styling-Universal-Motorcycle-Exhaust-Silencer-DB-Killer-Muffler-Baffle-Insert-Silver-Noise-Sound-Eliminator-42mm/32908742580.html) but without the holes drilled in the sides of the tube.) I want to drill holes, like in the linked piece, to force the exhaust gases to flow through smaller, but many more small holes. I also want to try cutting slots in the pipe instead of holes and see what happens with that. If none of that cures my sore ear's woes, then a muffler re-pack and possible baffles are the answer. At the extreme end, I could buy and install a different muffler. Now that I have an exhaust system that comes in pieces instead of all welded together, I can change out mufflers with the same pipe size, but that is only if everything else fails.

I have ordered some filament for my 3d printer so I can attempt to make a "backpack" for the speedo/dashboard. The big round taped-up AFR gauge, while perfectly working, is a bit too... it's just not what I like to see when looking at my bike. I am going to try and make something that will ziptie/glue/something to the front of the speedo (the part that all the bugs hit) and have the numeric AFR readout, some number of colored LEDs to indicate AFR at a glance, numeric battery voltage, and maybe either a numeric temperature display or just a temperature warning light.

[bogieboy]

Probably still idles better than a 110 with a race cam (6.6mm lift and long duration/overlap) and vm26 carb... that was a fun bike though...LOL

https://youtu.be/X0TU9qiSyII

[glavey]

Its honestly not too far off from that - it sounds almost exactly like the engine in this video:


video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITF69D_21rQ)

[glavey]

The exhaust silencer and the filament came in!

The exhaust silencer, as compared to the one that came with the exhaust system, has a larger diameter outlet pipe, a cap on the inside end of the exhaust inlet, and holes drilled along the length of the pipe. The holes are, I'm guessing, about 1/4" diameter, at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock. You can move the exhaust inlet cap closer or further away from the wide part of the silencer for less or more noise and power respectively. I went for a ride today with only the last four holes in the silencer letting exhaust gasses through. During warm-up with the choke on and at idle there was little to no difference in the perceived volume of the exhaust as compared to the silencer that came with the exhaust. However, at higher rpms the silencer was without question choking the engine. I knew the loss in power would happen, I wanted to see what the worst performance with this silencer would be and then hopefully get to a point where restriction-to-flow and decibel levels are good enough.

Oh and if you want to know the size of silencer to get for the exhaust system I have, the exhaust tip Internal Diameter is 48mm/ 1.8". The tip is angled so don't get a silencer that is much longer than about 71mm/3".

I recorded a very short clip of the engine idling and revving after I got back from a ride. The microphone in my phone does not do the low-end bassy portion of the audio justice, but you can hear how the engine and exhaust don't have the steady put-put-put other engines do. The video bogieboy posted sounds very much like how my bike idles. I suspect my phone was doing some compression/processing to the audio to make it sound like it did.

test test 123 (https://youtu.be/Xm3gLXoN2yw)

When I took that video, I noticed that what I suspect are the valves are getting a wee bit loud. Before I go out on my next ride (in another week, cold weather) I need to at least check the valve clearances. I think I remember I put them both at .006". I posted the number I used, I'll go back and look. Whether or not they are still at or near .006", I think I will try them both at .005 and see how much that quiets the valve train. While I'm doing that, I can give the engine its 100 mile oil change. I expect slightly metallic oil from the break in period, hopefully not silver paint or chunks and bits of... anything.

Three more things I would like to get done on the bike are:

1. Deal with fuel tank vent hose leaking/dripping fuel. The stock fuel tank vent on my bike - the one on the top of the tank with the hose barb bent 90 degrees will, with or without a hose and/or filter attached to it, sputter/drip/spray fuel. I am starting to suspect a purposeful or accidental restriction in the hose barb on the fuel tank. The fuel would be able to splash/roll up there and if the tank happens to have a positive pressure inside it, it will push the fuel through the restriction into the hose barb and not let it back in the tank because more fuel/fuel vapors are being pushed out. I don't think there are any baffles inside the tank around the venting hose barb. There are however, MANY baffles around the fuel filler area. I am thinking I might either buy/make a gas cap that has an integrated vent tube thingy (the kind that are quite common with dirt bikes, like this one (https://www.amazon.com/Aluminum-TRX250EX-Sportrax-Rancher-Foreman/dp/B07HSLM5F2)) OR just drilling a small, maybe 1/16" hole in the fuel cap that I have now - enough to equalize pressure, but not invite dirt, dust, debris, and bugs into the tank all while keeping all of the fuel inside the fuel tank.

2. See if the $15 grom shock mod (https://www.hondagrom.net/forums/49-grom-how-s-guides/9933-how-nd4-s-fork-upgrade-mod-15-bucks-worlds-better.html) can me done on my forks. I already bought the hardware and the fork oil. Even if the mod doesn't work, I'm still going to get rid of the factory "oil".

3. Connect and wire the dash wart to the speedometer. I finished designing and making a housing for the AFR gauge, wideband status LED, and a voltmeter. More on that down below.

I have noticed that the area on my exhaust that is directly beneath the starter motor has what looks like.. not rust, but something like a water stain. The Only what I could think of the exhaust starting to corrode in that specific area is if somehow... (wild guesses about sciencey stuff that I barely understand coming up, be warned) when the metal of the exhaust and the starter motor get to a hot enough temperature, they do something like... emit particles? atoms? ions? The exhaust could, I think, be at a different voltage potential than the engine block (I am including the starter in the engine block) because of all of the particles of air that are striking the exhaust while the bike is in motion. That difference in potential voltage might allow what ever the hot engine block is emitting to adhere to the metal of the exhaust and cause it to tarnish.

Or maybe it's magic pixies and unicorn farts. That was just an exercise in letting my brain go as far as it wanted to with a certain train of thought.

Whatever the cause of the tarnishing, unless it gets worse, I'm not worried about it.

I started making the housing for the gauges by making educated guesses on the contour of the top of the speedometer. I tried taking pictures straight-on and using them as references for modeling, but that didn't give me a good-enough result. I do have the capability to 3d-scan an object with an old xbox kinect and use the resulting model as a reference, but that would require me digging out the kinect camera as well as a lot of work post-model-capture to clean up the model to a usable level. I decided to go the old fashion route of guess, make, check, curse, repeat. In one of the pictures you can see some of the contour test prints as well as items I printed to get my printer calibrated to a new roll of filament, including a throttle-hand wrist rest.

I ended up with an off-to-one-side, bolt-to-the-speedo cluster. The face of the cluster is angled about 20 degrees higher than the speedometer so it is easier to see and maybe less likely to reflect the sun into my eyes. The AFR gauge face, arduino, power regulator, voltmeter, and status LED all get stuffed inside from the outside throuth the AFR gauge face hole. The power and signal wires come out the right side and the whole thing gets zip-tied/bolted/otherwise attached to the speedometer housing through 8 holes drilled in the cluster (and soon to be drilled in the speedometer case). I didn't intend for this case/cluster to be water or weather-proof. I will probably silicone or hot glue the AFR gauge face and the voltmeter housing in place and plug-up the wire exit hole, but I am going to leave the holes for the zip ties/bolts/whatever unplugged, as-is. I want the case to be able to breathe and vent air and moisture.

I attached a lower-quality .stl file of the cluster if anyone wants it. Also, here (https://a360.co/2JfdPc2) is a link that will let you look at the part in your web browser as well as download a high-quality copy in many different file formats.

[glavey]

With another ride under my belt, I have a little bit more to report.

Before the ride I just took, I checked and adjusted the valves. The intake valve had loosened up to about .007" and the exhaust valve was still .006". I decided that I would set the valves to .004" on the intake and .005" on the exhaust. At the end of the ride, when the engine was well into operating temperature, the valves were audible at idle, but not loud. The best way I can explain it is tick-tick-tick, not click-click-click.

I drilled a small hole, I think 1/16" into the fuel tank cap right behind the pivot for the "lift open" tab for the fuel tank vent. The hole opens up on the underside of the cap, in a recess that should prevent fuel from getting pushed out of the hole. That solution appears to work well, fuel hasn't leaked out of the cap and no fuel is leaking our of the capped vent nipple on the tank.

However...

After the ride, even with the tank vent port nipple capped off, the carb and some of the surrounding area was wet with gas. The picture I attached shows a vent hose coming down; I took that picture when I was using that hose as a vent, I no longer have that hose on the bike, but the wetness of the carb is still representative of what is happening. Only the side of the carb that faces forward is wet, the other sides and the top are dry. It almost appears that the most wet area is the choke lever. Perhaps something isn't completely... torqued? internally in the carb. Maybe there's a leak in/around the choke area. Maybe the carb is tilted forward a bit and I haven't noticed it because I always look at it while the bike is one the center stand. Maybe the float level is too high. Maybe the o-ring for the float bowl is pinched. Quite possibly a combination thereof. I'll have to find out at a later date.

I had intended to try the shock mod after I had done all of the above, but I had the realization that since I don't have a front-end motorcycle stand, I would have to do some shady, sketchy stuff to keep the bike off the ground while potentially the front wheel and both front shocks are off the bike. I managed to do something like that once before by using a floor jack right on the meaty piece of frame that is just inside the kick stand, lifting the rear of the bike off the ground and then weighting the back of the bike down with cinder blocks, stepping stones, and bricks. Like I said, sketchy. A different way I could get the front lifted is put the bike "inside" a folding ladder and suspend the front from the top step of the ladder with rope/straps/chain. The only folding ladder I have is an inherited, old wooden, creaky ladder; not very safe or sturdy. I do have two saw horses of roughly the same height... I don't know exactly how I'll do it, but I'll do it. Also, one more smallish thing that kept me from attempting the shock mod sooner was the bolts in the triple tree were already starting to strip, so I bought some new ones to replace them.

I finished designing and printing the gauge cluster. I had originally planned to hold the cluster to the speedometer with just zip ties, but they just wouldn't hold tight enough, so I ended up using small bolts and nuts with rubber grommets between the cluster and the speedometer to eliminate any vibrating and to "absorb" any differences in contour between the two pieces. I haven't wired the gauges in yet, for the time being they are just there, but not functioning.

For the past few days, I have been mentally planning out circuitry for a quick shifter. Not just the switch that gets triggered by the shifter, but all the electric components that go in to giving the ignition system a sub-second cut out. At the time of writing, I have just a overview of the specific ICs (integrated circuits, those little black chips you see inside anything technological) I might use and how to clean up the input signal to prevent false re-triggering and/or switch bouncing. I don't have anything tangible to show yet, it is still all brainstorming.

I had originally thought about using an arduino for the quick shifter, but arduinos CAN crash. If the arduino inside of a quick shifter crashed while you were riding the bike and using the quick shifter...

1. On the next attempted upshift, the bike would probably, depending on load, either shift very harshly, damaging the dogs in the transmission in the process, or it would go into a false neutral. So the gears as well as the arduino would crash and probably made a sad sound.

2. Upon hearing said sad sound, you would probably turn around, go home and investigate what happened. Once you realized what happened, you, as well as the gears in the transmission, would have made a sad sound.

I decided to use dedicated ICs for the quick shifter because, to the best of my knowledge, non-programmable ICs (the kind that you can't upload code to) cannot crash the same way an arduino can. There are still reasons the ICs might not work properly like a quick dip in supply voltage or a floating input/reset pin (floating in this context means not connected to the positive or negative voltage rail).

Things are getting to the point where I am running out of new things to talk about regarding the bike. Posts might get even more spaced out since I won't have much more than a few lines of information to share.

[Weldangrind]

Or maybe it's magic pixies and unicorn farts.

People type LOL a lot, but I genuinely had a good laugh at that. Your writing style consistently brightens my day. :D

I love the concept of having a real time AFR display; that speaks to my inner geek. I also love the little Theodore tugboat.

[glavey]

I'm glad I could make you laugh. ;)

The tugboat model came from here (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:763622) and the throttle wrist rest came from here (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:21867).

Smallish update on the leaking carb - I believe the float level was too high. When I took off the air filter, the bottom of the rubber intake boot and the foam filter was wet with gas. I had originally adjusted the float so that the seam on the float was level with the bottom of the carb body when the fuel-inlet-valve-plunger-thingy bottoms out (not bottoming out the spring on the plunger, just where the rubber tip touches the mating surface on the carb). Apparently that was too high, so now the float is angled downward roughly 10ish degrees.

The engine started up and idled fine with the new float level. I don't know if it was because the ambient temp was high enough, or the carb was/is overflowing a wee bit, but I was able to start the bike and have it idle with < 1 second of choke. I hadn't tried to start the bike without the choke before, so I don't know if it would have worked before; just a tidbit of info. I forgot to tip the bike side-to-side while running to emulate turning sharp corners at low speeds. The idle smoothed out a little while adjusting the idle air screw.

[glavey]

Continuing on the carb story; while I was cleaning all the little metal carb bits I took of the choke plunger to see if it was possible that fuel could be leaking from there. Once I unscrewed it I noticed that there was no sealing o-ring between the plastic plunger housing and the carb body, just the clamping force between the plastic and the carb body. The choke still works fine and it doesn't appear to be leaking any fuel, so I'll leave well enough alone.

While reinstalling the choke, a thought came to my head, "It wouldn't be to hard to make a little adapter piece for the choke that can hold a barrel termination from a choke cable". I had to cannibalize the carb-end barrel termination on the choke cable that originally came with the bike so I could use the 90 degree adapter on the 190's throttle cable, but 99% of the cable and the sleeve are intact. I might need to buy or make another 90 degree adapter and I will need to make a bracket that will bolt to the carb body and hold one end of the choke cable's sleeve in place. After that it's just route the cable up to the controls and see if it works.

When I was putting the air filter back on the carb, I made a mistake and poked a large hole through the top of the air filter. The foam there was probably only about 5mm thick. The best repair option I had at the moment was super glue. I put a few drops on one part of the ripped foam and pressed it together... with my fingers. Yep. The foam from the air filter stuck more to me than to itself. After evacuating a rampant brain fart I grabbed a pair of pliers and used those to seal up the hole. That worked moderately better, foam still stuck to the pliers but the air filter was good enough to be put back into service.

I finally figured out a way to hoist the front of my bike in the air so I could have at the front shocks. The garage in which I store my bike has a ceiling for the ground level and an attic. There are 4-7 holes in the ceiling and in the floor of the attic, all in a line, spread out across 12-18'. I have no idea what these holes were used for, if they were used for anything. The attic's floor braces ran between the holes, so I had 2-3 very stout pieces of lumber between each hole. I fished a thick, but crap quality "paracord"-type rope up through one hole, wrapped it a few times around a 4"x4"x4' to spread out the load and pushed the rope back down the next hole. I had about 24' of rope coming out of each hole in the ceiling, more than enough wrap around the handlebars. I didn't use any knots to tie the rope to the bars, I'm no boy scout, the only knot I know is the square knot and I know enough that using just that will end up with a bike on the floor. What I did was just lash the rope around handlebars with as many loops as I could put on to increase the friction and keep the rope in place.

I had the bike being held upright by the ropes, but not lifting the front end. I went back up to the attic and shimmed the cross-brace piece of wood I was using another... 3 1/2-ish inches off the ground. That raised the front off of the ground by about 1/2 inch. Perfect. The picture I attached shows the... very... Wile. E. Coyote setup I ended up with. It was sketchy as all hell, but never once did the bike move without me being the thing that moved it - the rope stayed in place the whole time.

On to the front shocks! Both front shocks came out without problem. On the shocks that came with my bike, there is a bolt on the bottom of the shock, behind the front axle so you have to remove the axle to get to it. I initially thought that this bolt somehow held something internal to the shock together. Nope, it just holds the bottom big metal bracket piece to the shock. You don't have to remove those bolts to get access to the internals of the shock. The top cap unscrews then you are met with... just a rod threaded into the top cap with a jam nut, nothing like what you see inside of a honda grom shock. Unless the bits I needed to modify were on the other end of the shock rod assy., then the grom shock mod will not work with these shocks.

I think the best value upgrade to the front suspension (as well as the back suspension) seems to be to buy used stock grom shocks. They'll probably be better than what I have now, and you can do the shock mod on them. After market grom shocks are easily $500+. I'm sure the ride would be sublime with them, but it's not worth more than 1/3 the cost of the bike.

I measured about 4oz of shock fluid in each shock. It seriously looked like a mixture of metallic gunmetal paint and Terminator splooge. And it stunk. I replaced it with some 10wt fork oil I bought at a local honda dealership (hehehe). Since my bike's owners manual doesn't say at what height the shock oil should be, so I just added back however much came out of the shock. That came out to be between 35 and 45mm from the top of the shock with the shock completely compressed. I also weighed both shocks before so I could use that to estimate the amount of fork oil I should add, but the margin of error was too great to be useful.

After a quick ride to try and feel any difference in the handling (there wasn't any, at least I couldn't feel it) I came back to the garage and took a look at the carb while the engine was still running. It was still wet with fuel. WTF? After about 10 seconds of confusion, I saw the thing that was causing all the leaks... can you guess what it was? Nope. It was the left oil cooler connector leaking (picture attached showing which bolt I mean). It wasn't even fuel, it was oil. I thought the wet "fuel" on the carb looked at bit thick, but I just assumed that some part of the fuel had evaporated and left behind a sticky substance. Nope, oil. Fixing that will have to wait until tomorrow because the oil cooler is aluminum and the banjo bolt is steel. And the aluminum is still HOT. That sounds like a prime recipe for stripped threads right out of an oil cooler. The very first time I started the 190, that fitting was leaking oil so I tightened it up and it stopped. However, I've only been able to look at the oil cooler fittings while the engine is on choke, warming up, or at idle, never at higher rpms or under load. I'm guessing the oil pressure is rather low at idle as compared to 7krpm under load, causing oil to leak only when riding.

I've noticed that the shorter shifter arm that I am using, the one that originally came with the 125, isn't long enough for me to get a real good feel when I shift into a gear. At the moment it is more like I just apply pressure to the shifter arm to shift, not actually move it up/down. I think one that is a bit longer, like the one that came with the 190 would be better. However, I still don't like the crappy shifter that came with my 190 enough to use it. I just know it will break off and leave me stuck in 4th gear 20 miles from home. If I can find one of a similar length at a local swap meet* or online but better welding quality, I'll go with that.

I still haven't powered up the AFR gauge yet. I am procrastinating on this because I really don't want to have to take the fuel tank off again just to be able to solder a few wires. Time will tell when that gets done.

The areas around the spots I had welded have begun to not just tarnish but rust. I suspect the welder did not use stainless steel filler to make these welds. Eventually I will have to do something about that.

There has been a small bit of progress on the quick shifter. I have the circuitry that can cut the ignition for... some amount of time every up-shift. I just need to work on the electrics/electronics for getting a signal every shift. I am waiting for a few IC's in the mail that should help me making said circuitry. For the physical switch, I am using what I think is a end-stop for something like a mill (https://www.mcmaster.com/7090k39). The business end of the switch only moves about 0.01mm before the switch action happens, and then it can continue to move for another ~2.5mm after the switch action happened without harming any of the internals of the switch. So, I could (this is my current plan) fabricate a bracket to hold this switch just behind the shifter arm, bolted to the left foot peg bolts, so when I go to up-shift, the motion of me pulling the shift lever up will also push on the switch, triggering the ignition cut, the transmission hopefully shifts, Bob's yer uncle.



*With all of my anxiety, you might think something like a swap meet would be a death sentence to me, but for some odd reason, no. I've come up with a few reasons why I think this is so.

1. Usually swap meets are outdoors, in open fields. I don't normally have claustrophobia, but my need for my personal space bubble increased at the same rate my anxiety does. Being outdoors, completely open helps.

2. You aren't one-on-one with anyone unless you walk up to a booth/table and ask questions. Even then, the seller probably has 3 more people at is station. Being able to easily duck out and become one of the crowd is appealing.

3. If you are at a motorcycle swap meet, you are either there to sell motorcycle stuff, buy motorcycle stuff, look at motorcycle stuff, or tag along with someone who wants to buy motorcycle stuff (child/significant other). 99% of the people you see at a swap meet will be more or less into what the swap meet is about. Motorcycle swap meet? Talk about motorcycles. Gun show? Talk about guns. Strip club? Contemplate the choices in life that have brought you here. Car show? Talk about cars.

4. You might meet someone interesting. An old timer with stories galore. A motorcycle mechanic that has tricks o' the trade. A pretty lady. A hot dude. A suggestive fern.

I'm sure there are many more reasons I'm so screwed in the head. I can plan out and build a computer from parts, design and fabricate a laser engraving machine, go grocery shopping, and go to a doctor's visit, but I cannot talk to the opposite sex, make a phone call, go to an interview, open a ketchup packet without looking like a murderer, or attend family gatherings.

[Weldangrind]

I am now going to practice opening ketchup packets.

[glavey]

Back in high school, I was known (rather fittingly) in my small group of friends as the socially inept computer geek. I was doing things with computers than I probably shouldn't have been. One day during lunch I bought a hotdog w/ ketchup and mustard. I was eating it with friends outside and I couldn't for the life of me get the damn ketchup packet open. Mutterings became curses and delicacy became HULK SMASH!

Friend 1: "Poor Glavey, he can hack into an NSA mainframe with a paper clip, but he hahahhhHAHAAHA... he can't open a freakin' ketchup packet"

Friend 2: "Didn't Einstein forget to wear pants sometimes?"

Me: "I'm not that dumb or that smart"

[glavey]

A hot day in the sun and a mild sunburn later, I finally have the AFR gauge installed and wired up! According to the too hot/too cold LED indicator from the wideband controller, the o2 sensor reaches operating temperature in about 20-30 seconds after power-on. Freshly started and still on choke, the engine will be around 13ish AFR going down to low 12 AFR at idle. Adjusting the idle toward ideal mixture (14.7) makes the idle smoother and less burbly. I think I'll need to go down one size on the pilot jet to a 38; with the air mixture screw on the carb out 3 1/2 turns, the engine was still running around high 12 AFR.

One thing I quickly noticed is that I underestimated how bright mid-day direct sun is - the numeric AFR display is visible if you focus on it for about a second and the AFR indicator LEDs are somewhat visible except for the yellow ones - those are nearly impossible to see. Oh well, it doesn't really matter to me all that much. As long as I have a working AFR gauge of some sort, I'll be fine. In fact, the difficulty is seeing the gauge was probably for the better; if I could have seen it clearly just be glancing down at it, I probably would have been looking at it too much and not keeping my mind on the road.

I took the bike out for a ride after the gauge wiring was done. Throughout the entire RPM range, the engine stayed in and around 13 AFR except when I did a acceleration run on a lonely country road. With the bike in 2nd gear at about 4k rpm, I twisted the throttle wide open. The AFR went down to 12.x and climbed back up to about 13.5 as the rpms rose up to 10k rpm.

I realized in that ride that I really need a good... 3 or 4 hours in a parking lot so I can practice my low speed and start-from-a-stop clutching. However, to do that I'll need better headlights. As it is now, at night the high beam's illumination range is 35ft... maybe. I don't know if these headlight housings can handle the temperatures of halogen lights; the scooter I have has a headlight holder that would melt if you used anything hotter than the stock headlight. I can do the usual replacement of the LED headlights, or I could do/make something that might work better! (or possibly much worse)

I've been tossing this idea around in my head for a few weeks now - ruckus-styled headlights on my grom clone! I don't remember exactly how the idea got into my head, but it's there and it's staying! If you don't know what ruckus headlights look like or can't imagine it on a grom clone, here are two links to drow sports (https://www.drowsports.com/mml-honda-grom-ruckus-eye-front-end-kit/) and steady garage (https://www.steadygarage.com/store/chimera-engineering-headlight-bracket-honda-grom-125-monster-ruckeye) where they have pictures of ruckus headlights installed on a grom and a lil duc grom clone. Remind anyone of The Dirt Bike Kid?

I won't be using genuine ruckus headlights as those are >$200 for the whole headlight assembly, nor will I be CNC routing a piece of aluminum (oh how I wish I could, though). I'll most likely be using flat either steel or aluminum strips. I have a very rough mental idea of how I will bend the metal into the frame for the lights, I can't really put it into words yet. If I do make this headlight assembly, I'll have to do something to cover up all the ugly wires and connectors that are behind the headlight housing already on the bike. All of this will probably be my next project, I have one that I am just finishing up (and yet another on the side) -

Quieter exhaust! Hopefully! I bought two muffler re-pack kits from amazon; one with just a very thick ceramic packing sheet and another one, more of a includes-everything kit with a stainless steel screen, stainless steel wool, stainless steel wire, fiberglass packing material, rivets, and #00 and #3 steel wool for polishing/cleaning. You can see in one of the pictures everything that is included in the kit on the pink box lid, the thicker ceramic packing material is next to it in a zip lock bag. My intent was to use everything from the all-in-one kit except for the fiberglass packing material - I used the thicker ceramic packing material.

Getting the rivets out of the muffler wasn't too hard. I don't think they were stainless steel, though. They didn't spark at all when I ground them off. Nevertheless, the rivets were removed. Now, I had to somehow pull the end cap/baffle off of the muffler without going ham-fisted on either. I had to drive a screw driver between the baffle and the muffler to break the silicone seal. Then I ended up bending a small piece of steel that once was one of those cheap wrenches you get with flat-pack furniture into a flat bladed screwdriver-ish-looking-thingy and pounded that between the baffle and the muffler and when I pulled it out, the baffle came with it.

The packing material that was in the muffler looked kinda cheap and had already started to... I'm not sure if fiberglass burns, but maybe just degrade from constant exposure to extreme conditions, but I don't really have enough knowledge about packing material to say for sure. What I can say for sure is that the packing material wasn't completely filling the muffler, so there is at the very least a small gain to be had by repacking the muffler... after only 120 miles.

I started repacking by cleaning up the perforated muffler core with the steel wool that came in the kit. After that, the stainless steel screen was wrapped around the core (not easy; stainless steel doesn't bend like meant-for-keeping-bugs-out metal screen does, and you WILL impale yourself at least 3 times on the stray wires). The wire that I used to secure the stainless steel screen isn't stainless steel - you can see the rust on it. I had to use something to keep the screen from unraveling. The muffler core is steel and is already rusting. The core and the wire are the only two non-stainless pieces of metal in the muffler (excluding the silencer), and are relatively easy to replace. I can live with the inside of my muffler rusting out a wee bit quicker if it means a much easier time assembling it now.

Next on the wrap was the stainless steel wool. This was fine strips of SS about 1.5mm across and... .003" or .004" thick (very rough guesses) matted together in a roughly common direction. Kinda like chip board. I needed a sacrificial set of scissors to cut the wool to size, as well as cut the ceramic packing material. I still had enough to do close to another entire muffler once I cut off what I needed. I used one single wrap around the perforated core - no overlap, just the screen and the SS wool are as thick as the old packing material was. While wearing kitchen gloves (I was already impaled, I didn't want to be lacerated) I tightly wrapped the SS wool over the screen and secured it with the SS wire from the kit.

Next up was the fluffy packing material. This stuff is sold as 1" thick and it is, but it can be compressed easily and readily. I could only put one wrap of the ceramic material around the core. I used blue painter's tape to temporarily hold the fluff in place while I twisted, shoved, and squeezed the whole wrapped core in to the muffler. I took the painter's tape off as I pushed the core in, I didn't leave any tape in the muffler. And then I forgot to put some kind of sealant on the baffle before I pounded it home. I was feeling lazy after having put the whole muffler back together, so I did what lazy-me does in these cases. I squirted sealant around the seem on the end of the muffler and poked some of it in-between the baffle and the muffler, then wend back around the seam again with more sealant to fill in and holes there were from the poking. Getting that baffle off the muffler was not fun, so if I can seal the muffler without effectively gluing them together I'll do it. The sealant has to set for about a day, so no vroom vrooms yet.

Now on to the second part of making the exhaust quiet, modifying the silencer.

I look online at cross sections of OEM car and motorcycle mufflers and most of them use 90 and 190 degree bends to dampen sound with minimal back pressure increase, along with sections with perforations and narrow-pipe choke points. I used some of these designs in a modification to one of the exhaust silencers I bought previously. I wanted the exhaust to go around at least 2 90 degree bends, preferably 4, and at least one section with perforations. I had to ride my bicycle to the hardware store, but no biggie, I needed the exercise. I bought two each of two different stainless steel sink drains that fit inside the exhaust silencer. One fits neatly inside the larger end of the silencer, and the other fits almost perfectly on the end of the larger end of the silencer. It turned out that I didn't need/couldn't use the larger ones, but I had opened the packages and mangled them before I found that out. Oops.

I don't think I will be able to explain in words how I expect the exhaust to flow through the silencer, so we'll both have to suffer through my poor illustration. I chose blue to represent the engine's ass gas. I don't know why.

The very nearly final order of assembly (pictured; left to right, top to bottom) for the additions to the silencer are:

Threaded rod bolted through the blocking piece on the small end of the silencer
Threaded rod comes through to larger side of silencer with backing nut for
First perforation section (with two rows of holes along the sides, difficult to see) to be directly riveted to
First blocking plate, secured with nut. Then comes
Second perforation section, spaced apart from first blocking plate with nut. Finally,
Third perforation section/second blocking section/keep-it-all-inside end bit, secured with two nuts

I tried to design this so each piece could be taken out and repaired/replaced easily; nothing is welded or adhered in place (although time and heat may effectively weld the threaded rod and nuts together), and the rivets can be drilled out or ground off. I have already cleaned and primed the two pieces in the silencer that are clearly not stainless steel with exhaust header primer and will be painting the larger of the two black with high heat enamel spray paint. I'll have to sure the painted piece in an oven at a few different temps. I'm not going to use the household one for obvious reasons. I do have a small toaster oven in the garage with lots of metal sheets that fit in it. I think (I REALLY don't know, but I think) if I shield the exhaust silencer piece from heat directly radiated from the heating elements and only let convection heat the silencer piece, the paint should cure as it is supposed to. Plus, even if the black paint doesn't work for some reason, all of the parts in the silencer are directly exposed to the soot from the exhaust gasses. A few rides in, and everything will be black whether you want it to or not.

That brings us to now. I am going to be painting and curing the pieces soon. I haven't yet started the engine with the new packing yet.

No progress has been made on the quick shifter project; I prioritized not worsening my tinnitus over a possibly working way to increase 0-60 times.

Oh and one more VERY small bundle of joy pictured.

[Weldangrind]

Interesting use of a drain plug; it's a good solution, particularly because it's SS.
I haven't seen the movie; I'll look it up.
What is kitty's name?

[glavey]

The frisky feline's name is Jack! I would have preferred digit or pinky or polly - Jack is a polydactyl cat. However, my mother's previous cat was named digit and she only had it for about a month before it ran away.

[Weldangrind]

Polydactyl on just one paw or more?

[glavey]

Both front paws.

[Weldangrind]

He'll be able to take a round out of a dog if necessary.

[glavey]

Apologies for waiting almost a month between updates, but I've hit a mental project exhaustion tipping point. Details at the bottom of the post (kinda whiny/needed-to-vent/oh-man-I-need-a-therapist)

Post 1/2

Ever since my bike was delivered the throttle tube was quite loose on the handlebars. Something like 1-2mm of play between the ID of the tube and the OD of the bars. By comparison the throttle tube on my scooter is quite snug. I decided removing the slop from the tube is worth while since it will give me finer throttle control.

I removed all the bolts holding the right handlebar control cluster together and disconnected the throttle tube from the throttle cable. I measured the OD of the handlebars and the ID of the throttle tube to see which is the culprit... The throttle tube! It was about 2.4mm diameter too big. I decided to wrap the handlebars with a very thin, slippery fabric to fill the void. The best thing I could find was a synthetic almost tyvek-like fabric. I wrapped the handlebars and trimmed off bit by bit until the throttle tube fit on snugly while still being able to snap back to closed if I let go of the throttle tube.

As the bike is now, the clutch handle has a very uneven feel. The friction zone of the clutch is RIGHT where you start to feel "real" tension on the handle, not just the spring tension holding the cable taught. So from the point where the clutch is not being held in, up to right before you are in the friction zone is just spring tension, but as soon as you enter the friction zone all the way to the clutch handle being completely pulled in, there is tension from the clutch pressure plate springs as well as the clutch return spring.

It has been difficult to develop muscle memory for the clutch friction zone with the tension changing based on the distance moved. I want to install an additional return spring for the clutch to give the handle a more consistent feel. The extra spring I have from the exhaust is too small and I don't want to go out to the hardware store and pay $5 for a single spring. I'll need to fabricate something at a later date.

My whole body misses having a balance shaft.

The last couple times I was out on a ride, I heard some metal rattling while riding. It wasn't like a too-lean engine knock, it wasn't the valves (though they did seem a little louder than normal), and it didn't change with engine speed, but with road speed and condition. Something made of metal is loose or something loose it hitting something metal. Quite possibly one of the unused wiring harness connectors flapping around in the breeze and jamming out to the good vibrations from the engine and the wheels. I still have yet to properly secure the wiring harness as much as I would like it to be. For another time.

I checked the valve clearances again since the valves seemed just a wee bit too loud. The intake had gotten tighter than .003" and the exhaust was at .005". I adjusted both to a .004" go/.005" no go clearance. That seemed to work, though there was little difference is noise of the valve train.

The baffle I made in the previous post did work at quieting down the exhaust slightly. Subjectively, it went from an 8 (0-10; quiet to loud) to a 7 or 7.5. Audible, noticeable, measurable difference, but not quite enough for me. Also, I could tell it was one of the more restrictive ways of quieting exhaust; 3/4 to WOT was in the 10 AFR range without jet changes.

Yep I did it again. Another thing to try and quiet down the exhaust. I'm obsessed at this point. It is either this or (gulp) back to the restrictive as hell OEM exhaust and goodbye wideband.

I first laid eyes on the muffler while searching, oddly enough, how mufflers are manufactured and difference quieting techniques. I found a link to a muffler that just looked like any ol' pit bike muffler (https://tboltusa.com/store/trc-quiet-muffler-br-fits-crf50-and-other-pit-bikes-p-110.html). However this one was marketed as "quiet". I had never seen an after market muffler marketed as quiet. Most try and push that they are loud and brash. Tbolt's website doesn't provide a picture of the inside of the muffler or of the silencer after it has been removed. I needed to see how the silencer was built to determine, from pictures only, if the muffler would be quieter than the one I have with the baffle installed.

I searched ebay, amazon, and aliexpress for "pit bike muffler" and scrolled through all the listings my brain could handle and clicked on the ones that had a similar looking exhaust. Finally I found a listing (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32440611028.html?spm=a2g0s.8937460.0.0.73152e0eG3a zCR) that showed the silencer after it was taken out of the muffler. Perforated tube with end rounded off and closed, roughly 30% open area, 1/2 covered by a fiberglass muffler packing sheet. In my mind, that silencer would make that muffler quieter than what I have now.

OK, I've decided to buy the muffler as a last-ditch attempt to quiet the exhaust down to a reasonable level and keep my neighbors friendly, or at least tolerant and non-hostile. I can be pretty sure that any listing for this specific type and look of muffler will have the silencer made as shown in the pics from the above link, so I searched the three sites again and found that I would have to wait for at least a few weeks to get one; no US sellers had them in stock. So it would have to come from overseas; the place where all of our electronics are made, the place where they drink a lot of tea, or the place where everything is trying to kill you (affectionately, China, UK, and Australia). I chose the slow boat from china; no rush, save money.

Also, a plus for this particular muffler (for me at least) is that the ID of the exhaust inlet is 38mm. Most chinese after market mufflers are 51mm and come with a conical 38-51mm weld-on adapter. The OD of the exhaust pipe I have is 36mm. I thought I would need (and bought) slip rings that go on exhaust pipes to effectively increase their OD, but I didn't need them. Just some sealant around the pipe before final assembly worked fine.

14 business days later...

It's smaller than I thought it would be. :hehe: The silencer looks just like it did in the listings I found. Cool, I got the muffler I wanted.

Removing the old exhaust was quite easy thanks mostly to the outside of the exhaust being coating in a chrome like plating. That made twisting off the old muffler and scraping the old sealant off quite easy. Luckily the mounting hardware I made for the old exhaust would 90% work with the new muffler. I had to mount the hanger supplied with the muffler backwards so the part that is supposed to be facing outward and have either a nut or a bolt in it, would be facing inward, pressed against the muffler bracket I made. Not the prettiest solution, but it works. I need to put 2 or 3 washers between the space in the clamp halves so I can torque down the mounting bracket's bolt without worrying about snapping the clamp.The new muffler fit perfectly and stays in place even without springs thanks to the muffler clamp.

With a cold engine and full choke, I started the bike with the new muffler. Yes! this is the sound level I wanted! Loud with a brap under load but calm and civil while cruising. A bit louder than oem with more pop and no buzz or raspy sound. Yeah, trying to explain changes in sound with words is difficult.

After the inaugural run with the new muffler I noticed a few wisps of exhaust packing being pushed out of the muffler. It seems as through this muffler wasn't made with any or enough sealant between the end cap and the main muffler part (the part that is that weird brown/slightly purple/burned bronze color). I have more than enough packing material to repack this muffler if need be. For the time being, I am not worried about tiny bits of the packing material making an escape, unless somehow the whole of the material came out in one giant moto-snot-rocket. Then I would just laugh.

[glavey]

Post 2/2

I was actually planning on having to use the OEM exhaust, so I also bought the cheapest integrated brake light (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32764431479.html) at the same time as the muffler. I think it was only $10. The reason behind needing the integrated brake light is, as the bike was with the fender-elimination I did, the turn signals were RIGHT in the way of the muffler. The only way to use the OEM exhaust with turn signals was either to put the stock license plate/turn signal holder back on or make/buy a integrated tail light.

I chose the integrated taillight that I bought for a few reasons;

1. CHEAP!
2. Easily modifiable. Many of the reviews stated that the lens cover fell off after just mocking up the light to their bike. Perfect! I won't have to worry about breaking the entire light housing by taking it apart with screwdrivers and the hammer of encouragement. All of the LEDs are through-hole; easily removed and replaced/upgraded.
3. Subjectively, it seemed the least... immature? Some taillights had sections shaped as eyes or wings. Not my taste.

The quality of construction is what you would expect by buying from the lowest bidder in china. Very dry solder joints, Poor wire-to-PCB soldering, drilling holes right through the PCB for mounting in the housing. But it works.

Some of the common complaints of this product were LEDs snapping off at the legs, supposedly because of harsh vibrations. I could party cure the reinforcing of the LEDs and at the same time reduce or eliminate the chance of the PCB corroding from trapped moisture/water. I just needed a lot of clear nail polish. You read that correctly.

I've used clear nail polish as a protective coating on electronics before and it worked great. It's cheap compared to the "professional" products and it doesn't require dangerous chemicals to remove if repairs are needed. I poured about 1/2 of a bottle of nail polish on each side of the PCB and spread it out over the whole board, making sure to coat all exposed copper traces. On the other side I made sure all of the LEDs had nail polish brushed up against them as mechanical reinforcement against vibration. The pictures show the end product of the coated taillight.

The fitment of the light wasn't as good as the OEM brake light. The old brake light aimed along the lines of the fairing; it pointed and shone at an upward angle, where the eyes of a driver behind you would be. The new light points at the horizon/no upward angle. All of the lights are still very visible from the "flat" angle, but it is obvious that this light was originally made for another platform and someone at some time discovered that it fit the grom well enough to sell it as a grom taillight. In the pictures of the new muffler on the bike, the top right picture shows how the new taillight is angled horizontally

I had to super glue the bolts that anchored into the back of the light housing - just approaching "snug" would make the bolts turn in the housing. I also had to use some washers around the bolts and the rubber mounting pieces on the bike. Sorry, I didn't get any pictures showing exactly what I mean here.

I also included pictures of the stock/OEM brake light PCB in case anyone wants/needs to repair/upgrade/modify theirs. Quality is about the same as the integrated taillight.

As I was working on installing the taillights, I noticed that one of the rubber feet for the seat had broken free and was just resting next to the battery. The LITTLE conical tip that is supposed to hold the rubber foot in place in the seat had sheared off. Not surprising really, this "rubber" can be ground away with one of your fingers.

The rubber feet on the seat are ALL that keeps the seat from just sitting and rubbing on the battery and the frame, I needed to fix this before I could ride the bike again. I didn't take too many pictures of this process, I wasn't in a good mood when I discovered that I now had a compulsory repair on my bike. I needed to use a bolt to hold the rubber foot in place, but the hole in the seat is only open on one end - there's cushioning and covering blocking the other side. You can kinda see in the right-most picture of the seat repair, I had to grind and drill a smallish slit into the side of the rubber foot mounting point. I got a washer and a bolt in through the side-slit (that sounds dirty) and managed to get screwdriver to hold the bolt in place while I tightened a nut down from the outside. After a test ride, the foot stayed where it was supposed to.

I wasn't planning on replacing the shifter arm so soon, but a fortuitous deal happened to cross my path. I got this (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000WMRN1K) even though it doesn't explicitly say it will not work with grom-sized engines. One of the reviewers stated that it did fit his grom. Oh, and just so you know if you are looking for a similar shifter arm; all of the stock images for the IMS folding shift lever (at least on amazon) are the same, you will have to look at reviewer pictures to see what the shifter arm really looks like.

The shifter arm is between the two arms I have now in length. The shortest one is the one I have been using. It is difficult to get into neutral as well as really "feel" shifts with this one. The largest one has very poor quality welding. I can just see that arm snapping off after 100 shifts.

The new shifter arm does fit the splines on the shift shaft! But, without modification it cannot move at all once installed on the shaft. Both top edges touch the left side engine cover. With some chamfers ground it to the top edges, the shifter works perfectly. I also included a top-down shot showing how the shifter arm lines up with the foot peg, in case someone was thinking about getting this same shifter arm.

I have made some progress on the short shifter circuitry. I got 99% of the design into software so it will be easier to plan out how every chip is laid out relevant to every other chip. I've attached a copy of a schematic for most of the circuitry. This is my first time using this particular piece of software, so I'm not sure I'm doing anything correctly. The files I have attached should be treated as a rough draft and a guide, not as a finalized design. I take no responsibility for the out come of your actions with or without the use of the files I am providing (It might go boom and it's not my fault).



Whiny/needed-to-vent/oh-man-I-need-a-therapist stuff starts... ... Now!

I'll save you from having to become my therapist for this post; I'll keep things short...ish (I tend to write a lot in my posts).

I know I've mentioned my anxiety in previous posts, but I don't know if I said that I damn near have an anxiety-induced panic attack EVERY time before I ride my bike. At first I thought it was the more-or-less straight open exhaust and muffler screaming LOOK AT ME!! (not to mention making your chest pound from the sound pulses, which feels exactly like a panicking heart beat). As you can read in my previous posts, I tried to quiet down the exhaust by repacking it and making an additional baffle/silencer. The repack did nothing, the baffle helped marginally, anxiety temporarily reduced, but the exhaust was still to loud for my tastes/mental state (honestly I'm not sure if there is a difference between my personal tastes and whatever reduces anxiety the most).

I bought a new designed-to-be-quieter muffler, it further reduced the exhaust note to something I can tolerate if not learn to love. The first ride after installing the new muffler was great. The second ride wasn't as good.

I'm still making stupid beginner mistakes during every ride. I need more seat time to get used to and learn... everything. But every time I even think about going out for a ride my insides tighten and I get increasingly panicky. I has become a chore to push myself to go ride. A passion absolutely should not be like that.

Another facet of my mental state is the realization that owning/riding/working on a bike has been one of the things my brain decided it just needed to experience. Let me elaborate;

All throughout my life I have never had (except for one, kinda) a real lasting hobby/interest/passion. I ravenously attack any new interest I happen to find with more planning, research, question asking, and mental focus than I am capable of. Notice I said, "more... than I am capable of." I will forget to go to the bathroom, eat, and notice that I am tired. One of the many symptoms of ADD. Oh yeah, I'm 95% sure I have undiagnosed ADD. Where was I? Right, Any new interest will usually last no more than a month. The attempted EFI conversion I did in this thread was the longest a single project has held my interest. Well the spark has stopped um... sparking (my mental interest spark, that is). I can never predict when my interest in a particular thing will stop or what will cause it to stop, but like death, taxes, and stupidity; it is unavoidable.

This post is going to likely mark my (long) pause in this project. Depending on how long from now it is when I decide to start messing with the bike, I may either continue this thread or start a new one. I'll still try and check on the thread and answer questions. In the event that I do decide to sell some or all of the bike, I'll try my best to give the forum here first dibs on items. All of you have been so kind to me. Thank you.

TLDR - I cannot enjoy something that I have to push past horrible feelings to get to. I got bored. I'm looking for a new hobby to sink my mental teeth into. I'm making excuses. I love you all.

Later Dudes.

[Weldangrind]

I can appreciate what you're saying about projects, but my affliction is dissimilar. My problem is too many concurrent projects and not enough focus/time/prioritization. I'm working hard on that aspect of my social style right now, although I admit that I just started another project. :D

[EvilWayz]

Im sure this post is dead, but where did you get your efi kit from? Or did you buy it piece by piece?

[JerryHawk250]

You can find these kits on Aliexpress. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32786077851.html?shortkey=FnA73Y7z&addresstype=600

[Drozzikid]

Can u send me a link for that kit please or if anyone knows anything about arduino???

[Drozzikid]

Please help me out I purchased the rojo system with ecu on throttle body but that's here nor there I just wanna know what u did about stator/generator???? For charging and lights and runny Ng efi fuel pump all time ???? Only stator I know of is the one from ooracing but in the states we can't get it so I'm wondering what u uses?????

[Drozzikid]

Please shoot me email at danielppoleet@gmail.com

[klausfelix12]

If it turns out that the software truly doesn't support wideband, I'll just skip right over using the Chinese ECU and software and use the genuine microsquirt and tunerstudio.

I am sure I could eventually get a decent tune on an engine with just a narrowband sensor for ECU feedback.

I have seen a few videos of people with this same kit or one very like it get an engine running and rideable but this is my very first foray into EFI conversion and tuning.

So I want the experience to be as good easy as I can make it so I won't have a sour taste left in my mouth from a bad first experience with tuning.

I already have 90% of the bike taken apart and will probably drop the engine sometime between tomorrow and Wednesday.

Trying to drop an engine, even one this small, without an platform jack is... painful. I'll probably end up using a combination of trolley jacks, jack stands, and rope to drop the 125 and lift the 190.

Unless something unexpected happens, I probably won't document the engine swap part too heavily as it's quite straight-forward; take stuff off of your bike until you can remove the engine.

Disconnect anything that is connected between the engine and the frame or wiring harness, remove front sprocket, remove the right rear set to get access to a bolt, remove engine mount bolts that's where I am right now.

Drop hopefully not literally the engine, new engine install is reverse of removal.I think there is one or two wires that I have to move/swap, if you were going to stay carbureted, you'd be 95% done.