Mike Partridge of Walridge Motors comments on Boyer

There have been more than a few failures of the Boyer reported here. Mostly due to the soldered wires from the pickup coils. Soldering unencapsulated wires in an environment that vibrates is asking for trouble.

Since I purchased RPC, almost 8 years ago, I have sold something like 150 Boyer MicroDigital ignitions (red box). Of the 150 units I have replaced 3 under warrantee, of the 3 one was DOA the other 2 went almost 5 years, one crapped out on the 364th day of the 4th year. The two that died late could be traced to low primary resistance; I see this as a less then 1% failure rate.

When you consider the time an owner saves by NOT setting point gap(s) and timing, the Boyers are a bargain and a no brainer. In fairness to the other EI offerings, I am confident that they have, or are capable of, similar reliability figures, so the choice comes down to warrantee and support. I support and warrantee all the units that I sell, and I couldn't do this without the excellent service/support I get from my supplier Coventry Spares.

Earlier in this tread there were some graphs of the various advance curves, and there have been threads exclusively dedicated to the plusses and minuses of the differences in those curves; It is my personal experience that there is a greater difference between two different lots of the same label of Johnny Walker. The main stream street rider will NOT experience a difference in perceived performance with any modern EL, whether or not your cam chain is out of adjustment...I will readily admit that individuals that purchase digitally programmable EIs, that have the tools to maximize the extraction of every erg of power at every RPM/load factor and who compete regularly may find their efforts rewarded, and I get that. This forum is blessed to have some true scientists/engineers/machinists that are every bit world class.

So it comes down to price/support/warrantee for us Joe Sixpacks (Singlemalts?)...

easy cheap kit from one my long time mentors
http://decentcycles.com/the-decent-store

Once/life time cluster-funk 2004 Ms Peel event, I tried to out think instructions installing Greg's kit with double nuts on inside opposite instructions to spend all day and most the night trying to get it to run past back firing starts, worn down from R broken foot parking lot collision stop fall over protection, stuck foot back under in time to save paint 4 mph, til Dave Comeau, Greg and two other famous experts took on the challenge repeated mystified by setting boyah timing spot on for easy start and rev right up to loudess back fires out open header possible while pipes cheery red to the ends then died. Couple hours pits dyno room loud freq flair ups, till remembered Lil Abner momma yokum moonshine remedy, 5 us 4 glups @ got clam collected comfy numb assigning each to a observation task w/o a word, vaRROOOMMMBOOMBANGBLASTing, few more times ~10 pm, delayed us a bit till many acres of horns and hollars credenco simmered down to hear each other, Norton Gods ignored for more vaRROOOMMMBOOMBANGBLASTing till sharp eyed Rod Rayborn of NC saw a spark behind trigger plate, to discover my double nut slightly fouling magnets to over advance. Idled on soft puff balls tail between legs to tent to pass out.

I tossed my analogue Boyer after it kicked back violently into the E-start drive, locking the sprag and leaving me far from home on a cold dark night. Other than that, it worked fine!

The Pazon I replaced it with has cured a little off-idle stumble. I suspect it has to do with their idle stabilization advance curve.

Had I known about and fixed the other E-start issues first: 3 phase alternator, Dyno Dave starter, it would likely be still installed. I had already greatly increased the wire size but it still only cranked well on a full battery, something it didn't have when riding at night with a big halogen light on.

pdl999 said:

HI Sam, It is very true that the older Boyers were a problem with an estart. I had the same problem myself with a Boyer on the T160 and more recently I discovered the Sparx ignition has the same problem. An alternative to a second battery is to use a boost regulator to maintain the ignition supply at 12V even when the starter is cranking the engine. I've used this off the shelf unit with great success: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-8A-S...519851?hash=item43fba232ab:g:gxwAAOSw5cNYY2cC.

Click to expand...

On the face of it I would think this item would be a good addition for those using Alton and cNw starters

For a few years starting out with British bikes, I replaced several failed Boyer ignitions, wired per the instructions on the label (an excellent feature), they refused to provide spark to brand new plugs with known good coils & wires. This was pre-internet days in a relatively small town with no Britbike shop, so I had no recourse.

When I found JRC, serendipitously), they got me started with Sparx products. I had excellent success with the simple Sparx kits until one client's unit failed (stator). I sent him a replacement, but the replacement failed. Windy (Bill) replaced it with another brand (don't remember which) and that story ended. I had one other client with a failed stator which was replaced and it is still working. Since I was given a COMPLETE replacement ignition, no questions asked, I kept the client's returned unit and used it for a few years testing various bikes around the shop, until the black box failed. Since I had such good success with Sparx over several years, I had a pre-conceived notion that Boyers were failure prone, based on at least a dozen that I replaced, with only having ONE (that I still have) that worked. My opinion of Sparx is still "acceptable".

A few years ago, after several other players entered the market including Pazon and Tri-Spark, failure reports started coming in on those, as well. That got me thinking that maybe I had formed my opinion about Boyer ignitions hastily.

After all, MANY unknowing first time Brit bike owners fried many an electrical system by connecting new batteries backwards. Add to that the number of SUSPECTED "failed" units that were ACTUALLY the fault of coils, plug wires, or even fouled plugs, and an uninformed opinion is easy to come to.

Not to mention, Boyer was the ONLY generally available aftermarket electronic ignitions for Britbikes for MANY years, so that GREATLY increases the numbers in their installed base. So RELATIVE to all the others combined, Boyers can have failures equaling and surpassing all the others combined, and STILL have a better ACTUAL failure record. (Not that they DO, but if you understand the basis, they could).

So, for what it's worth, I have for the last few years ALWAYS prefaced any criticism with those observations.

paul
IIRC it was 2 stators 1 rotor and the last one was the box. after the last failure it was replaced with a pazon. I am on my 3rd trispark stator now and when the first one failed i got a spare for the tank bag. steve did work with me on the 2 spares along with warranty on the first one. when this one fails (i still have a spare in the tank bag) it WILL be replaced with a pazon. I still stand by my stance on sparks junk. I will NOT use or recommend ANY part they sell. I have witnessed way to many failures of there stuff.

I bough the Boyer on my Seeley 850 in about 1978. It has not had much use over the years. However when I race, I use a very small lead-acid battery - total loss. Over a two-day race meeting, I get about 6 races and 2 practice sessions, and the Boyer ignition system does not miss a beat. I don't use two coils with the Boyer - only a double-ended coil off a Honda CB750. I know one guy who uses a Boyer on his Triumph 650 and says he has problems. However it is often difficult to distinguish between carburation and ignition problems. Many guys don't know how to get the jetting right on their bikes.