Who has tried the 123 Tune dizzy?

[CraigAuk]

I'm looking to keep my car as standard as possible. Not sure why, but figure it might help keep the purists happy during resale (should I ever sell it).

However, I've come across a few posts mentioning the 123 tune and it seems like quite a nice way of being able to do a bit of mapping while keeping the 14CUX and the rest of the engine bay fairly standard.
They seem popular with older classic car users, but I can see the advantages for the RV8.

The only post I can find of note is this one from last month:
http://web4.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?f=8&...

In terms of power increase against cost, this seems like it was a great investment for 900T-R

I quite like the idea of having the 2 maps with a discreet switch, which could be used for running optimally on 95 and 99 RON.

Any thoughts or comments? I'd prefer feedback directly related to the 123 Tune, rather than the usual Megasquirt/Emerald discussion, as I'd like to keep the 14CUX.

[Mr Supercharged]

Austecs were looking into fitting one to mine when I went supercharged. It looks well made and gets you nicely round the problem of not being able to easily obtain original rotor arms and caps. However I doubt there are many who have bought one because for little more outlay you can go distributorless.

[blitzracing]

Have you checked the current price- it around £500 with VAT now however well its made! have a look at the Aldon Amethyst for less around £200.

http://www.aldonamethyst.co.uk/

[CraigAuk]

Ah, that's neat!

Does anyone in the South (the nearer to Reading the better) do an install and rolling road set-up package?

[TVR Beaver]

blitzracing said:

Have you checked the current price- it around £500 with VAT now however well its made! have a look at the Aldon Amethyst for less around £200.

http://www.aldonamethyst.co.uk/

Mmm thats interesting... has anyone got one of these?... mind you, you still rely on the vaccume by the looks of it... does it actualy make things more accurate or just tunable?..

[davep]

blitzracing said:

Have you checked the current price- it around £500 with VAT now however well its made! have a look at the Aldon Amethyst for less around £200.

http://www.aldonamethyst.co.uk/

I believe these boxes require an additional 'ignition' unit (add another £60.00) or older points distributor ignition as an input. Best to check first that they are input compatible with the Lucas distributor/ignition amp used on our V8s.

[MPoxon]

I was looking at the keeping the original lucus dizzy on mine but going the Mark Adams route and fitting an OMEX 200 to control the spark leaving the 14CUX for fueling. The dizzy would remain but purely to point the spark to the correct cylinder. The benefits of this is the engine bay stays looking 100% standard and you get the benefit of mapped ignition.

If the Omex were ever to go wrong you can simply plug the ignition amp back in and revert back to dizzy.

The 123 ignition system looks like a good idea. Does it need a trigger wheel? As others have said it also deals with the issue of supply of decent rotor arms and caps for our lucas dizzys.

[blitzracing]

davep said:

I believe these boxes require an additional 'ignition' unit (add another £60.00) or older points distributor ignition as an input. Best to check first that they are input compatible with the Lucas distributor/ignition amp used on our V8s.

Ive had a dig through the technical stuff, and it should trigger quite happily from the standard ignition amp- at worse you will need to add a resistor far as I can tell so far. What would be really good would be to have a trigger wheel made up with 4 lobes on it to mimic the trigger signal from the dizzy, whilst bypassing all the drive cogs that can make the timing scatter- Then all the dizzy does is distribute the HT to the relevant plug. In terms of vacuum measurement, any ignition system needs this or throttle pot (less accurate)as one of the inputs- there is no getting away from that. The system simply replaces the whole mechanical system of advance and retard. The mapping is an interesting one- Im not sure how easy it is on a rolling road to measure the best timing points- you cant really listen for Knock on a TVR (or Ginetta for that matter)- just too noisy. Ill need to ask the local tuners how they do it.....

[davep]

blitzracing said:

Ive had a dig through the technical stuff, and it should trigger quite happily from the standard ignition amp- at worse you will need to add a resistor far as I can tell so far. What would be really good would be to have a trigger wheel made up with 4 lobes on it to mimic the trigger signal from the dizzy, whilst bypassing all the drive cogs that can make the timing scatter- Then all the dizzy does is distribute the HT to the relevant plug. In terms of vacuum measurement, any ignition system needs this or throttle pot (less accurate)as one of the inputs- there is no getting away from that. The system simply replaces the whole mechanical system of advance and retard. The mapping is an interesting one- Im not sure how easy it is on a rolling road to measure the best timing points- you cant really listen for Knock on a TVR (or Ginetta for that matter)- just too noisy. Ill need to ask the local tuners how they do it.....

I've checked the Aldon literature and they do an Ignitor unit for the Lucas DLM8, whether that's for the EFI or Carb spec is not clear. The Ignitor unit for the DLM8 is £120.00, so it's beginning to add up. Whether Aldon would be happy with a 'homer' input interface and honouring their warranty/guarantee (if any), I wouldn't think so.

[blitzracing]

The unit simply needs a switched 12 volt signal, which the standard Lucas amp does quite nicely. The issue of the "ignitor" is a trigger head that goes into the distributor body and these units normally go in place of points and switch the 12 volts to the coil without an extra external amplifier but you already have all the electronics you need to trigger the unit. The only possible need for a resistor is to draw enough current through the Lucas amp to get it to switch reliably and cleanly (ie mimic the coil load) but Ive not tried bench testing the amp at very low currents to see if this is needed or not. There is a PDF you can download that covers the required trigger signal.

[davep]

An Application Note on the Aldon website detailing an Amethyst mapper and Rover V8 Lucas 35 DLM8 Efi configuration and the timing results achieved, would be most useful. Until then I'll wait and see.

[VictorMeldrew]

I may be missing something obvious, but if you want to keep the car original why not just keep it original? What's to gain from changing ignition components? It's not like the V8 is high revving, the standard setup should be able to cope, shouldn't it?

[blitzracing]

The advance / retard mechanism is pretty crude, and some gains could be had in MPG if nothing else if the advance curve is matched to the engines requirements- dont forget these are Range Rover bits- I dont know if TVR ever altered the advance curves at all. In terms of keeping it original you keep the Dizzy, and simply fix the advance weights inside. Then add your small black box and a bit of wiring and leave the rest as is. Its no big change.

[Mr Supercharged]

blitzracing said:

The mapping is an interesting one- Im not sure how easy it is on a rolling road to measure the best timing points- you cant really listen for Knock on a TVR (or Ginetta for that matter)- just too noisy. Ill need to ask the local tuners how they do it.....

They look for the ignition timing which gives the maximum power at a given engine speed and load site on a rolling road. Listening for detonation is also possible