For about$30, and just afew hours of your time, you can rid that bike ofits ballery with on efficient, reliable... + One of these yours I'm going to tize of plying Don Quixote to. Jess Thomas’ Sencho Panza. Jess very sensibly prefers fo spend his Gime maintaining and fine tuning factory-built racing bikes; 1 am always filting windmills by creating my own racing equipment ftom a touting: motorcycle hase. Mredictahly, Fess gets a ood tide at nearly every race while f Straggle with a scemingly ondiess sorlingout process, Slill, all the prob- Joms and ageravations notwithstanding, Twill probably continue, battling the windmills simply because there is so ajuich to be learned in do-it-yourself, At this time last year, { began work fon @ new bike for the 1969 season: a Honde CB450-based roud racer, My rea sons for selecting this particular bike were one: it offered considerable poten- tial, with double overhead camshafts and 4 fivespeed trntmission, and two it was known for having a hight degree of reliability, It was available (we had ob: tained one for a road test) and 1 though i was about time for anather try: with a foursiroke engine after so many months with the window-valve wonders, DECEMBER 1969 BY GORDON JENNINGS When embarking on sort, a lot of fu rust be mide as to the shape things will fake, But in this iustanee, most deci- sions had been made for me by others The: AMA rules require that near-stand ard frame and forks be used unless you tan get approval from those who man fuciured your motoreyole to substitute Honda has never approved anything, bat Honda equipment except for brakes. and L knew that the frame and forks thul came will the bike would have ts sutfles, for better or for worse, Honda iid, hewever, approve installation of a Fontana fourshoe front brake, | found thal the tank, seal and fairing made for Harley-Davidion’s KR would fit the Honda-although it was necessary. to ‘2 new bottom for the tank to fit down over the Honda frame. AU the rest ‘would be Honda, stighily modivied, This gave me all the basic hardware Kt was still necessary ta work out the ifotsils for the various systems, like car and ignition, "This last was ‘most bothersome, because while 1 did ot want t9 carty a battery on the bike, project of thie There was no magneto available that would fit without a lot of machining, The lads at Precision Machining. had sd the same problem when building their very successful 450, and had ult mately used a Yamaha magneto—which required Ue fitting of special seals and butting a new taper on the end of the Hon exankshatt One of the primary reasons PM had for going to that erankshait-mounted magneto was to dispense with the stock Honda. points and breakercam setup, They hud used a standard battery/coi system, and found 9 setious snisfire up in the 10,000 rpm range that would not 29 away. Changes in coils, and condense: fers, and points had no effect; the mistise was still with them. It was eliminated when they switched io die magasto. But for all the machining required, 1 might very well have done the same, Un- fortunately, 1 didn't have that mn time to devote to an ignition system; an alternative would have to be found. The question wast what alternative? IC was obvious that T eould not expect good results with the standard ignition sys- fem, PM had tried that without success and I knew that my CB 450 would mis: five like mad if ken past the 9700 rpm red line, And there was my clue: it seened just little oo pat that the mis: fire would occur so near the ted lin in§ Honda had bnilt in the misfireand condensers ‘can he mounted anywhere on the bike, but the spark leads must boas short as is possible. Gathered hore isthecomplete ignition system, “powered” by apairof coils in the stock Honda alternator atthe top. ‘This Bendix colt sells for only twelve dollars, and though made ‘to fit inside anH-D magneto will work in an ET. systom. PHY. STUART BAVIS Paotee: to prevent people from wv their engines. PM's story was that the snistire was heing caused by the oshaust camshalt (which curries the breaker cam on its extended left end) and was upsetting the timing 41 hight engine speeds. That did not seem likely to me, as the Hon: dda’s camshafts have a really heity dia. meter, and lobes running right next to the support bearings. It had to be some: thing else. And it was, The 480's ignition breaker eam has fan unusually steep opening ramp, and whacks the points open very smartly. A good thing in terms of easy starting and prolongisg point lite (a fast, clean break minimizes arcing), but definitely un- good at high engine speeds. Get that ‘eam turning fast enougi, anu the puifits begin fo flost and bounce and in general misbehave very badly. AL such ties, you can get a whole volley of sparks rom the ignition system-none of them feccurring when they should, There is a cue, You take a fine stone, and roll a bit more radius into the curve’ that joins the cam’s flank and nose, Then with un even finer stone, you restore the cam’s surface polish which Is necessary unless you want a otigh spat on the cain that will file away et the breaker blocks. You must 20 very dowly in modifying thst cam profile. Remove just a touch of mate- Fial, widening the radius ever so slightly and then put everything back together fand ride the bike to see whut the result has been, There is not much point in moving the point-of-misfire up beyond the engine's opcrating range. My 450 Honda ‘will yo to 12,000 rpm without missing «beat, but you are osking for trouble if) you take it much above 10,500 spm. The Honda will go along ‘wills Uhis foolishness a few times, but eventually thero will be a big blow up. (For ressous that will be explained when I got around to the subject of ams und Honda's torsionshar valve springs.) ‘That takes care of the point tloat; we stil have to deal with the rest of the spark-prducing systam—which will probably sound complicated to you, but Is casily managed if you understand what it is you are trying (o accomplish All you have to do 8 to make your own magneto, and that isbeliewe it or not sier than fitting sore existing mas’ on the Hondi engine, The magneto | maile for my 450 is of the “enery-transier” variely,, which is to say a magneto. with separate low voltage generator (engine driven) and high-voltage spark coils. For the low: yoltage gonerator coils, I simply used the “daytime” coils in the Honda's al ternator, The actual spark is produced by a bendix magneto coil, You need a pair of these Bendix coils, and you can ing ovete{get them from Horley Davidson, part 429576-63R. For this particular ‘appl cation, you must add to each coil a Lue cas C lamination (to complete the mag- netic loop) and these carry Lucas’ part #54441946, The Heniix coils are a per- fect fit in Cue Lucas C lamination, and are held with Lucas clips, part #5441104, (Four are required.) Pinal- ly, get a pair of Mallory condensers (the i Hnt-Kind, with 3 terminal lug on top) and a few féet of insulated, multi-strand coppet wire, A couple of bluletype connectors will be useful, but are not an absolute rust If the motorcycle is to be used for raving only, you may remove four of te six generating cols on de alterna tors stator—which is done by straight- lung the tabs that lrold them in place, cutting the wires, and pulling thera off ff their pole pieces, The to coils you ‘will be using for the ignition system are jose connected to the yellow lead. This is one of three leads on the alternator stator; another, pink, lead connect with the four''night” lighting eoils: The third, common, lead is brown, I conaiects the ground side of all the coils ‘Those daytime cuily are 180” apart fon the stator, und are connected in series. You will want to use Uiem us separate yonerating units, so st ia neces: sary fo scrape a bare spot on the bil of insulated wire running between them and ground it on the stator. The least complicated way of accomplishing this 1s to crimp one of the coil-hoiding tabs over on the bare spot, and then apply just a drop of solder betwoon wire and tab to insure 4 good electrical comee- on. This done, you locate the leads Coming out the other side. of each coil snd solder on long. wires to carry the coil output up to the coils, condonsers und breaker points, The coils ean be located anywhere on the bike. T chose to bolt them riaht ‘gainst the frame strut that holds the Stock coils. The hole paltern throu the frame is not the same as ia the Lae cas C laminations, so you must dill an extra hole through the frame. You could diill through the lamimitions «© make their holes match the frame, but in doing that, you will smexr the metal in each individual plate enough to make sm electrical connection between them and that will reduce tho coil output tome amount, Why? Because when the coils are operating, a magnetic fiold is flashing through those laminations and generating) electricity thers. Connect between the plates and you allow the current to flow and part of your field Strength will be lost. ‘Things ike coil cures and stators sire luminstions made (of many individual thin sheets, insulated from each othes, for precisely thal rea son. The eddy currents generated in a (Continued on page 90) DECEMBER 1089 Tokoep the alternator out. put phased with the points youmust lock or Fomove entirely ‘the automatic advance device. You can remove redundant colls bybending the retaining tabs, cutting afew wires and stid- ing them off the pole-pieces. Anew TDC mark seribod on the alternator rotor willbe abig help in timing. the ignition ©