Powe Arc Ignition not working

iceteanolemon · Jul 20, 2012

I have this Power Arc ignition all hooked up and it doesnt work at all. I cant get the LED to light up for TDC.

From the harness I have the Red wire connected to one of the dual Coil terminals and the black to the other Dual coil terminal.

The Red side of the coil is also then grounded to frame.

The White wire for the additinoal map is added to the same wire the separate black wire is connected to (ignition)
The extra black wire from the module thats not in the harness is connected to the white with blue ignition switch wire that has voltage when key is on.

I set my right side cyl to tdc then i rotate the encoder disk and the LED doesnt light.

Does anyone else have experience swith this thing? The instructions seem simple but jeeeze what gives?

I have positive ground system which you probably already know by reading the other stuff.....

norsa1 · Jul 21, 2012

The power arc makes ground contact at the printed circuit plate in the points housing. Check that there is contact between the printed circuit board and the timing cover. On the same theme check the ground connection on the rubber mounted engine. Keep the faith these ignitions systems are brilliant when you get them functioning.

iceteanolemon · Jul 21, 2012

norsa1 said:
The power arc makes ground contact at the printed circuit plate in the points housing. Check that there is contact between the printed circuit board and the timing cover. On the same theme check the ground connection on the rubber mounted engine. Keep the faith these ignitions systems are brilliant when you get them functioning.

Coil to frame ground was bad. I remade another and I have the LED now on the TDC...

remounting the tank and buttoning things up. Going to see what this is like soon! I added the white wire to the ignition wire instead of adding a toggle switch. Does most people place a switch so that they can experience both the aggressive map and the mild one? I will have to look around for something so I can do that...

Thanks for the tip, I was getting a little worried the LED wasnt lighting up.

iceteanolemon · Jul 21, 2012

Just an update on this... Bike starts quick, idles good and runs well. Now its time to play with the fork seals....

I had to re adjust the marker once but it was much simpler than the points ever was. I will have to se how it performs long term now.

cjandme · Jul 21, 2012

I didn't add the toggle switch when I installed the power-arc ste up on my bike, but will probably do that at a later date. Cj

iceteanolemon · Jul 21, 2012

cjandme said:
I didn't add the toggle switch when I installed the power-arc ste up on my bike, but will probably do that at a later date. Cj

Are you running the "aggressive" map or the mild one?

cjandme · Jul 22, 2012

Well I have it set up for the mild one, but unfortunately my bike is in transit to Japan where I was going. Now I'm headed to Afghanistan, so I won't be able to give you any feedback on how it's working until about a year from now. Cj

norsa1 · Jul 22, 2012

Cjandme

Afghanistan? What? is this just a camping trip or are you on a wine tasting expedition?

comnoz · Jul 22, 2012

iceteanolemon said:
cjandme said:

I didn't add the toggle switch when I installed the power-arc ste up on my bike, but will probably do that at a later date. Cj

Click to expand...

Are you running the "aggressive" map or the mild one?

You don't want to use the aggressive map unless you have a very low compression engine. 37 degrees advance is too much for any Norton I have dealt with. Jim

iceteanolemon · Jul 22, 2012

comnoz said:
iceteanolemon said:

cjandme said:

I didn't add the toggle switch when I installed the power-arc ste up on my bike, but will probably do that at a later date. Cj

Click to expand...

Are you running the "aggressive" map or the mild one?

Click to expand...

You don't want to use the aggressive map unless you have a very low compression engine. 37 degrees advance is too much for any Norton I have dealt with. Jim

oh ok point taken! I will change it to the mild one and test.

Maybe there could be a few usable maps for a stock 750 in the future.

Hobot · Jul 22, 2012

I forget the name of Power arc designer but he worried me telling me that the hot rod Nortons he had experience with used 36' full advance. I questioned him on this but assured me he knew it was right - but we Nortoneer's know for sure it ain't. Ugh. Good thing one can have it reprogrammed by Old Brits to any curves ya like or just settle for decent 'mild' one. 3 sparks per power stroke should burn mix faster so implies less advance needed for best power.

Jeandr · Jul 23, 2012

norsa1 said:
Cjandme

Afghanistan? What? is this just a camping trip or are you on a wine tasting expedition?

:lol:

comnoz · Jul 23, 2012

hobot said:
I forget the name of Power arc designer but he worried me telling me that the hot rod Nortons he had experience with used 36' full advance. I questioned him on this but assured me he knew it was right - but we Nortoneer's know for sure it ain't. Ugh. Good thing one can have it reprogrammed by Old Brits to any curves ya like or just settle for decent 'mild' one. 3 sparks per power stroke should burn mix faster so implies less advance needed for best power.

Three little sparks or one big one.
I will stick with one big one.

mikegray660 · Jul 23, 2012

+1 - the three sparks reminds me of all those "magical" super-sparkplugs ads that get touted about ever few years on some infomercial :shock:

comnoz said:
hobot said:

I forget the name of Power arc designer but he worried me telling me that the hot rod Nortons he had experience with used 36' full advance. I questioned him on this but assured me he knew it was right - but we Nortoneer's know for sure it ain't. Ugh. Good thing one can have it reprogrammed by Old Brits to any curves ya like or just settle for decent 'mild' one. 3 sparks per power stroke should burn mix faster so implies less advance needed for best power.

Click to expand...

Three little sparks or one big one.
I will stick with one big one.

Hobot · Jul 23, 2012

Yeah yeah gang up on the poor newbie but there's something to the triple sparks - up to a point. Model T's had a vibra sparking that lasted the whole power stroke!

The MSD Ignitions, stands for Multiple Spark Discharge and widely used for that feature. But multi sparks only seem to matter at low-mid rpm, with the rationale being to give another chance at ignition if the first spark was in a cloud of poor mixture just then. This is why Powerarc don't have-need the up/dn jiggle in initial timing like Tri-Spark to stabilize idle. At hi rpm there is no time for single coils to recharge enough for more than one spark. Can Nortons spin faster than the coils can provide mutli sparks? I don't know when Powerarc reverts to single spark mode, will have to call and find out.

There may be an issue in my Peel with the wasted mutli spark Powerarc, that it fires while valves are in over lap on non power stroke side. Long duration cams worse case for this rough power rubbing effect.

comnoz · Jul 23, 2012

hobot said:
Yeah yeah gang up on the poor newbie but there's something to the triple sparks - up to a point. Model T's had a vibra sparking that lasted the whole power stroke!

The MSD Ignitions, stands for Multiple Spark Discharge and widely used for that feature. But multi sparks only seem to matter at low-mid rpm, with the rationale being to give another chance at ignition if the first spark was in a cloud of poor mixture just then. This is why Powerarc don't have-need the up/dn jiggle in initial timing like Tri-Spark to stabilize idle. At hi rpm there is no time for single coils to recharge enough for more than one spark. Can Nortons spin faster than the coils can provide mutli sparks? I don't know when Powerarc reverts to single spark mode, will have to call and find out.

There may be an issue in my Peel with the wasted mutli spark Powerarc, that it fires while valves are in over lap on non power stroke side. Long duration cams worse case for this rough power rubbing effect.

The Power Arc is not at all like an MSD. MSD is a CD ignition and has several large currant discharges at low speed only. The Power arc is inductive and has three relatively small discharges over a short period of time at any RPM. It does this by chopping a single coil charge into three discharges.

Hobot · Jul 23, 2012

The Power Arc is not at all like an MSD. MSD is a CD ignition and has several large currant discharges at low speed only. The Power arc is inductive and has three relatively small discharges over a short period of time at any RPM. It does this by chopping a single coil charge into three discharges.

hm MSD is capacitive 3 large sparks and PA is inductive 3 small sparks huh. Conversation points I'll take up with PA. Too bad MSD and others are as big as a shoe box. In my ignition hunt 5-6 yrs ago I was sold to try it d/t claims it prevented detonation on 87 octane in hi CR Harley other ignitions could not tame on hi test. Mine is programmable at home so time will tell if its wimpy sparks works as advertised for Peel or not. I'm surprised the Cdo unit Old Brits sells has such unrealistic hi total adv. on aggressive curve. Models with more than one curve cost more but seems wasted in Cdo version - so far.

cjandme · Jul 23, 2012

Gee, now I'm wondering if I went with the right one.......Well I'm no racer-x and my power-arc did help me to get my old barn find running so yeah I'm good with it ...for now anyway,,,who knows maybe I'll jump on the next band wagon that comes along. Cj

comnoz · Jul 23, 2012

The 37 degree advance works for drag racing. To get the maximum power the race is normally run starting with a cold engine. Without charge pre-heating from a hot motor the mixture burns more slowly so more advance is needed.

Using too much advance once the motor is hot will cause pre-ignition or at least a loss of power due to pressure buildup before TDC. Very low compression ratios or low cylinder pressures due to ineffective intake charging may cause slow burning and may benefit from extra advance. Jim

comnoz · Jul 23, 2012

cjandme said:
Gee, now I'm wondering if I went with the right one.......Well I'm no racer-x and my power-arc did help me to get my old barn find running so yeah I'm good with it ...for now anyway,,,who knows maybe I'll jump on the next band wagon that comes along. Cj

I think the power arc is ok for most applications. You do need to make sure the cam bushing is in good shape and the timing chain is in adjustment. The testing I have done has shown a little runout in the trigger wheel or jitter from a loose camchain will cause the power arc to momentarily loose sync and give a few miss-timed sparks until it syncs again. The build quality seems pretty good. I haven't seen any big gains from the multiple spark output. You need to maintain a pretty tight plug gap. Jim

Powe Arc Ignition not working

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