I'm on to my next project which I thought would be simple, wire up the standard tachometer in the dash of my car powered by a 4k, to the ignition system.

A couple of points to clarify:

1. I have not been successful

2. The car is not a manufactured car, its more like a really bad hot rod, with parts from different old toyotas, known here in the philippines as an 'OWNER TYPE JEEP'

3. The engine is a 4k with an electronic pointless distributor, and therfore the wiring is different to a points gap type dizzy.

4. the instrument cluster is from some sort of old toyota, no ideawhat , and can not get any idea from browsing pictures of toyota instrument clusters on google.

5. the tacho part is seemingly basic, a constant 12 v supply in, a constant ground and a pulse/signal wire.

 

I have tried 4 different ways to run it.

1. constant 12 volts, (from ignition switch, is definitely being supplied) with the ground GROUNDED, and pulse connected to NEGATIVE terminal on coil

2. constant 12 volts, (from ignition switch, is definitely being supplied) with the ground GROUNDED, and pulse connected to POSITIVE terminal on coil

3. constant 12 volts, (from ignition switch, is definitely being supplied) with the ground ISOLATED and connected the negative terminal on coil and the corresponding wire on the dizzy to the pulse signal, so as to mimmick what this diagram of a volvo with hotspark ignition is recommended somewhere on the net. I also tried this with backwards, with the pulse terminal connected to the coil and ground terminal connected to corresponding dizzy.

 

This is too complicated to explain over the net, can anyone who has successfully wired one up tell me what I am doing wrong?

Edited February 15, 201610 yr by rebuilder86

Hi Jeremy,

Is your 4K distributor a reluctor type, with internal ignitor, inside the distributor, or a reluctor type with an external ignitor, or has the 4K distributor been fitted with a HotSpark modification, with Hall effect trigger & ignitor all inside the distributor ?

 

You need to determine this before going any further.

 

Cheers Banjo

yeh mine is a 5k internal one.

i think I'm coming to the conclusion that the tacho in the cluster might simply be busted.

anyone?

Just listen to valves bounce then immediately change to next gear

I would've done number 1, pulse from coil -ve to the tacho and then to earth. It works in the Hoonicorn with the 5K electronic ignition, and the Girls KE70 is the same with the 4AGE.

 

You've checked the wire from the coil to the tacho is OK?

yeh number one didn't work. i came to the conclusion the tachometer gauge itself is just knackered. i'm in oz now and got a stupid drifto aftermarket gauge with shift light which I'm gonna take back to the Philippines with me! :)

Ah... the country of Telstra, where ALL phone lines go, to be answered by $2/hr Asians with no training in telecomunication equipment or in speaking colloquial Australian! Having been trying to get my internet re-connected for a week I can see why you get wound up about the place.

Most beautiful hearted people on earth, but when it comes to business, its just not in their psyche yet. Well, not the way we think of business anyway.

2 dollars an hour is a shit-ton of money there. The Average wage equates to 1.70 at current exchange rates. Most of the poor souls have no hope of a better life unless they find a foreigner partner.

For reference, their equivalent of Macdonalds, "Jolibee" (soon to be opened in Australia for the Filipino population making oz home), the average persons meal there is about 90 peso, and the days wage is about 450 pesos, at 33 peso to the dollars that's 13 dollars a day for 8 hours work. So their take away feed is about 20 percent of the days pay, kind of similar to ours, however anything considered a luxury, like a computer or motor vehicle, not a chance, that's priced for a foreigner.

Corruption is evident everywhere, every corner, every policeman, every government office... Its simply outrages.

That appears to be a AE82 4age corolla dash, tach will only work if you use a 4age ignitor.

bad luck.

This may help: http://www.toymods.org.au/forums/threads/6355-Tacho-tech

old thread, turns out the dash is out of a toyota cressida!!

so was the braking system haha.