tachometer

Has anyone running a magneto on a V8 tried running a snowmoble magneto tach . Can it be done?

 

how many cylinders is the snowmobile engine?

 

it has 2, don't see why that matters ? It's rpm !

 

An electronic tach figures RPM by counting sparks. The 4 stroke V8 has 4 sparks per revolution, the snowmobile is probably a 2 stroke, if so it has two sparks per revolution. So the snowmobile tach would read twice as fast as you're really turning the engine, because it's getting twice as many pulses.

If it's a cable driven tach, then it should work fine, assuming your mag has a gear to drive the cable.

 

That makes sense.It's electric, Thanks Squirrel

 

So- a 4 stroke v8 has 4 sparks per rev,
a 6 would have 3, and a 4 would have 2?

(I want to put a tach on my lawn tractor, and princess auto has really cheap tachs but they're for cars. I could build a 4027 div/2 circuit to make that work with my little hot-rod 1982 john deere.

 

yeah. Most tachs for cars have a switch or jumper wires that let you select 4, 6 or 8 cylinders, or such.

 

Squirrel you are the first person I ever heard describe what happens in a tach. Thank You. I used to live in Flagstaff, went to NAU, had a couple of kids (adults now), don't know why I left, what was I thinking.

Pat