Timing is everything.....

[Tonysax]

I figured I would share how frustrating an assumtion can be.

 I bought a 1998 Tourer 11 years ago. The origional owner did everything to make it a hotrod (rejet the carbs, Cobra pipes, fancy red plug wires/boots and a DYNA 3000 set to 6*). Its a mean bike but was always hard to start hesitated a little off the line and had and average of 22mpg.

  Over the years I replaced the plugs, coils, wires, plugs, vacuum lines, exhaust,petcock, and DYNA 3000 (and set it to 6*).  And none of it really changed the performance.

I came upon another 1998 Valk a month ago bone stock. The slow jets were mucked up ,but other than that it is cherry. I did resrearch to bring the timing to advance 6* with the 4* trigger wheel and an I/S ICM (+2*)= 6* advance.

  Just as a test , I pulled the DYNA 3000 and put the I/S ICM on my origional bike. It started right up, and ran smooth!

  I put the DYNA 3000 set to 6* on the new bike and it responded amazing just as the origional bike.

Bottom line I found out my first bought was sold to me with a DYNA 3000 set at 6* AND a 4* TRIGGER WHEEL. 6+4=10* advance  It never dawned on me for over 11YEARS that I had too much advance. Never thought of a trigger wheel .


Lesson learned.
On the plus side, I have two bikes set to 6* and running great. 

[mmurffy03]

im a bit confused by your story when you say the dyna is set at 6* does that mean the dial setting on the unit is a the #6 position ? I am sure others with the unit will post answers but I don't think the #6 position means 6 degrees advance I have one on my bike but in my head I don't remember if the dial position is the number of degrees it advances someone with facts please help out here john Schmidt or von  or others  ?

[Tonysax]

http://www.dynaonline.com/skins/downloads/instruct/D3K1-1RevD.pdf

For your reading pleasure. I'm not sure each adjustment is an actual degree advance, but I don't think it is supposed to be paired up with a 4* trigger wheel. I'm sure the pros will have an answer.

[saddlesore]

What you say is over my head. But my take on this...Don't mess with perfection!

[Blackduck]

There maybe a better copy in other posts on here, just need to do some searching.
#6 curve gives a fairly high advance up in the rpm but not too much down low. You need to add your timing wheel degrees to this to come up with a final total.
Cheers Steve

[Mr Whiskey]

This isn't Dyna curves but, it helped me decide on my next mod.

Peace, Whiskey.

[Bigwolf]

Ohh this complicated mess of timing.  Much has been written about it.  Must keep in mind that anything to do with the trigger wheel is "fixed timing" and anything to do with the ICM is variable depending on RPM.  The actual engine timing is the sum of both the trigger wheel advance and the ICM advance.  Number 6 setting on the Dyna gives 0 degrees advance at 1000 rpm, about 17 degrees of advance at 2000 rpm and about 31 degrees of advance at 5000 rpm.  Note that the Dyna ICM has a white wire that can be grounded for a retard mode of operation.  The amount of this retard can be up to 10 degrees.  So, a setting of 6 on the Dyna with the wire grounded could give an advance of only 21 degrees at 5000 rpm.   The stock trigger wheel is 3.5 degrees advance and what is usually refered to as a 4 degree trigger wheel is actually 7.5 degrees of advance.  The interstate ICM adds about 2 degrees of advance over the standard and tourer ICMs in when the engine rpms are between 1200 and 4200.  Above 4200 rpm all of the stock Honda ICMs have the same advance. 

The consensus on several of the very knowlegable people on this board seems to be that the Valk loses horse power when the total (Trigger + ICM) advance goes above 26 degrees.  Also the same consensus seems to be that fuel economy seems best with around 34 degrees total advance.
Some people like to use a combination of trigger wheel and Dyna setting that gives them 30 something degrees of advance for when they are just cruising a long way and want economy but then have a switch wired to ground the Dyna's white wire initiating the retard feature  and thereby cutting the total advance back to the 26 degrees for power.  The best of both worlds at the flip of a switch.

What a great bike!  We can spend months, or even years, playing with it tweaking this and modifying that and gaining a horse or two while making it our own. ........ or we can just put gas in it and ride for a long long time on a bike that is already very quik and very easy to ride just as it came from the factory.

Glad your bike's are running to your likeing now.

Bigwolf

[98valk]

http://timskelton.com/valkyrie/tech/trigger_wheel_plus_dyna3000.htm