Hello,
I have just completed the fitting of an 80 mm VDO speedometer and Acewell speed sensor unit (ACE-S4) to my circa 2005 Cali EV. I bought the VDO over the Auto Meter speedo because it seemed to look more watertight for our UK weather. Time and water will tell :lol:
Previous postings mentioned that there were problems with the Acewell linking up to the VDO.
I contacted a very helpful gentleman (John) at http://www.etbinstruments.com/ in the UK and sent him an Acewell to go with a VDO speedo. ETB sell VDO, but not Acewell parts. He got the pair to link up and sent me the following wiring diagram:-
The 1K ohm resistor is the trick.
John at ETB asked for speedo cable revs per rear wheel revolution. The VDO requires pulses per mile input. We worked out that with a 150/70 x 17 rear tyre and 2.7 revs on the speedo cable end per rear wheel rev you get 2110 pulses per mile. When you calibrate the speedo the input is 211 on the "pulse" function (ignore the "1"s column and miss off the "0"). This presumes that the Acewell gives one pulse per rev. It is easy to calibrate statically.
As mentioned previously,the VDO fits straight in to the EV instrument housing. However there are a few modifications required. The chromed speedo cover originally had the mounting holes placed horizontally on the ITI speedo. The VDO mounting bolts are at an angle so I had to enlarge the slot for the wiring (where it emerges from the warning light pod) at least x 2 with a Dremel hand tool to get the holes to line up. (The hole centres are the same on both speedos by the way). Although the chrome cover is twisted through an angle I still think it looks OK. I put some black silicon (I had some handy) in the old odometer reset spindle grommet and refitted.
I started the bike up in the garage on the centre stand and engaged the gears. The speedo worked fine To double check the calibration I engaged a suitable gear and ran at 30 mph for 1 minute. The odometer clocked up 0.5 miles. If my maths is correct this sounds OK. I ran the bike on the road for approx 10 miles.
I haven't glued the chrome bezel on yet because I want to test the unit for a few hundred miles just in case there is a problem. I picked the MPH and KPH speedo faced model.
The only other hiccup I discovered was that the knurled "cable" end nut on the Acewell unit was longer than the original mechanical Guzzi cable one. The Acewell unit wouldn't tighten up enough. I fitted a small brass washer inside the nut to sort this out. You might have to look at this carefully because a standard metric washer might interfere with the spinning drive cable. I also found some small fibre washers to be of the correct size / hole diameter that would do the trick.
The beauty of the Acewell is that it fits straight on (remembering the knurled nut) without any modifications to air boxes etc. Obviously you have to fit your preferred wiring connections along the way.
It is early days yet for this set up and I will post an update. My original ITI speedo odometer stopped working at 7400 miles. The Moto Guzzi GB website has a post describing how one might repair the internal gears of the odometer by cutting open the plastic casing and having a go. On doing this I discovered that the quality and fit of parts within the ITI speedo are very poor. In the UK a replacement ITI is circa £190 and will probably suffer the same fate at a similar mileage. The VDO set up cost about the same in the UK. To me there is no contest
Many thanks to previous correspondents for the idea of using an electronic solution.
John.
P.S. On removing the chromed rev counter plastic cover I found that it had been half full of water that was trapped in there. ( I did mention our British weather ) I ground a small water drain hole with the Dremel to sort this out I hope.
I have just completed the fitting of an 80 mm VDO speedometer and Acewell speed sensor unit (ACE-S4) to my circa 2005 Cali EV. I bought the VDO over the Auto Meter speedo because it seemed to look more watertight for our UK weather. Time and water will tell :lol:
Previous postings mentioned that there were problems with the Acewell linking up to the VDO.
I contacted a very helpful gentleman (John) at http://www.etbinstruments.com/ in the UK and sent him an Acewell to go with a VDO speedo. ETB sell VDO, but not Acewell parts. He got the pair to link up and sent me the following wiring diagram:-
The 1K ohm resistor is the trick.
John at ETB asked for speedo cable revs per rear wheel revolution. The VDO requires pulses per mile input. We worked out that with a 150/70 x 17 rear tyre and 2.7 revs on the speedo cable end per rear wheel rev you get 2110 pulses per mile. When you calibrate the speedo the input is 211 on the "pulse" function (ignore the "1"s column and miss off the "0"). This presumes that the Acewell gives one pulse per rev. It is easy to calibrate statically.
As mentioned previously,the VDO fits straight in to the EV instrument housing. However there are a few modifications required. The chromed speedo cover originally had the mounting holes placed horizontally on the ITI speedo. The VDO mounting bolts are at an angle so I had to enlarge the slot for the wiring (where it emerges from the warning light pod) at least x 2 with a Dremel hand tool to get the holes to line up. (The hole centres are the same on both speedos by the way). Although the chrome cover is twisted through an angle I still think it looks OK. I put some black silicon (I had some handy) in the old odometer reset spindle grommet and refitted.
I started the bike up in the garage on the centre stand and engaged the gears. The speedo worked fine To double check the calibration I engaged a suitable gear and ran at 30 mph for 1 minute. The odometer clocked up 0.5 miles. If my maths is correct this sounds OK. I ran the bike on the road for approx 10 miles.
I haven't glued the chrome bezel on yet because I want to test the unit for a few hundred miles just in case there is a problem. I picked the MPH and KPH speedo faced model.
The only other hiccup I discovered was that the knurled "cable" end nut on the Acewell unit was longer than the original mechanical Guzzi cable one. The Acewell unit wouldn't tighten up enough. I fitted a small brass washer inside the nut to sort this out. You might have to look at this carefully because a standard metric washer might interfere with the spinning drive cable. I also found some small fibre washers to be of the correct size / hole diameter that would do the trick.
The beauty of the Acewell is that it fits straight on (remembering the knurled nut) without any modifications to air boxes etc. Obviously you have to fit your preferred wiring connections along the way.
It is early days yet for this set up and I will post an update. My original ITI speedo odometer stopped working at 7400 miles. The Moto Guzzi GB website has a post describing how one might repair the internal gears of the odometer by cutting open the plastic casing and having a go. On doing this I discovered that the quality and fit of parts within the ITI speedo are very poor. In the UK a replacement ITI is circa £190 and will probably suffer the same fate at a similar mileage. The VDO set up cost about the same in the UK. To me there is no contest
Many thanks to previous correspondents for the idea of using an electronic solution.
John.
P.S. On removing the chromed rev counter plastic cover I found that it had been half full of water that was trapped in there. ( I did mention our British weather ) I ground a small water drain hole with the Dremel to sort this out I hope.