First Foray into Farkling: installing audiovox cruise control

[atxrider]

Do you have a tail light modulator? If so, you may have some issues getting the cruise to work unless you make a few adjustments. Here is a thread on it:

AVCC and modulators do not mix

Pretty ambitious first farkle, but it was not that bad. You should be fine as long as you do your research and have a plan.

Regards,

Davy

 

[Roy Epperson]

1) what are vacuum diodes? Are they already there? Way I thought I understood it, I'd plumb some lines onto the little holes on top of the TBs and from there, it's a matter of Ts and 90° elbows to run it all up to the reservoir.2) About the reservoir, I are there any valves of any type of is it just a flow-through deal to the actuator?

3) And the biggest (scariest) question mark I have still is tapping into the coil wire, since everyone says not to touch the insulation on it. You show how to make the little connector thingy. But I've seen no pictures or any other explanation as to where & how that fits-in at either the coil or the ECU. Is there somewhere obvious that I can just slip that onto? Will I just see where it fits when I have the hood-open?

1) Vacuum diodes or check valves and Ys to join lines can be found clicking on the links. You will need to get 3/16" ones. The check valves are not needed normally. You are connecting into the port(s) on each intake which are normally plugged by a rubber cap which are removed when doing a TBS which in turn isolates the vacuum ports.

You can check out my Vstar 1300 and FJR installs at here. On the my FJR page, there is some more pictures of taking off the fuel rail. I spent about $45 US to get an impact wrench - wish I'd purchased years ago....

2) Reservoir and number of vacuum connections to the engine - lots of opinions here - here's mine - you have to buy a vacuum check valve any way to isolate the servo from the engine - why not connect 3 more? It will cost you 3 more check valves and 3 Ys and some more line. What you get is a more continuous vacuum "flow" as on each cylinder's intake stroke supplies vacuum not just one. The reservoir stores the available vacuum until the servo demands it (when it advances the throttle - vacuum is only used on the "pull"). As you can see from my installation (under the seat ((more opinions here))) I have about a 15 cubic inch reservoir. I regularly ride from sea level to 8,000 feet and wanted to have the max vacuum available

3)Connecting at the coil verses the ECU - on my '07 I used a Posi-tap at the wire at the ECU. Three reasons 1) I like Posi-taps, 2) it's an easy place to connect and 3) I made a "connector" thingy (did my wife's VStar 1300 first - peace in the household!) for my wife's bike and had problems with it. I'm not sure what the problem was for sure - bad solder joint of some type - but it was intermittent after warming up (20 miles or so); but "cold" worked just fine. That "puppy" when into the trash immediately after I found a Posi-tap would fit in the available space. On the FJR, I was going to go directly to the wire at the ECU with a Posi-tap.

4) The "brake relay" - I used a relay to ensure a solid ground to the Audiovox as I had connected other LED lights to the brake signal. A friend tried without it on his VStar and the Audiovox would not set; installed it and it worked!

5) After you get it installed and use the LED on the back of the servo to verify it is getting on/off/set/reset signals and tach, don't try to set the speed with the back wheel off the ground. It will not set. The servo disconnects if the RPM varies more that 10%. On my two bikes when riding, speed up about 2 MPH when initially set and then settles back to here it was when the button was pushed. With the rear wheel having no resistance, this initial will over-rev the engine and dis-engage the servo.

Great farkle (especially for the $$) - gives me a good break and has saved a number of performance awards when the LEOs are active.

 

[Leskid]

I'm surely breaking forum etiquette again - so sorry.

Logicallly, I can't blurt-in and say thanks every time a helpful forum member tosses me a bone. But I wasn't expecting THIS much help. Roy Eppersons' walk-through is great too and answers a question I didn't realize I had yet (until I read).

I am thankful for:

-FJRforum.com

-the internet

-digital cameras

-helpful forum members

Makes you feel like there's nothing you can't do yourself, with the right help.

Now.... my 14 year old daughter is soon gonna be needing braces. Any orthodontists out there?

 

[Patriot]

Now.... my 14 year old daughter is soon gonna be needing braces. Any orthodontists out there?

I have a dremel tool with flex cable, roll of bailing wire, needle noses, and plenty epoxy and super glue :blink:

Best ya come here...I have a substantial oak chair with leather hold down straps...

 

[Leskid]

Now.... my 14 year old daughter is soon gonna be needing braces. Any orthodontists out there?

I have a dremel tool with flex cable, roll of bailing wire, needle noses, and plenty epoxy and super glue :blink:

Best ya come here...I have a substantial oak chair with leather hold down straps...

You are one sick som'bitch. But I think you're on to something there. I think it's time Danny met uncle Mike in Nawlins

I'm not going to ask why you have a heavy oak chair with restraining straps. Some things are better left unknown.

But I am sending my travel plans to some friends before I leave. Just in case.

 

[Patriot]

Now.... my 14 year old daughter is soon gonna be needing braces. Any orthodontists out there?

I have a dremel tool with flex cable, roll of bailing wire, needle noses, and plenty epoxy and super glue :blink:

Best ya come here...I have a substantial oak chair with leather hold down straps...

You are one sick som'bitch. But I think you're on to something there. I think it's time Danny met uncle Mike in Nawlins

I'm not going to ask why you have a heavy oak chair with restraining straps. Some things are better left unknown.

But I am sending my travel plans to some friends before I leave. Just in case.

might not need to meet me :blink:

an hour with my two daughters Emily (16) and Mary Beth (14) may make an impression enough

and you'll see their smiles are reasonably straight compared to before :yahoo:

 

[wfooshee]

2) Reservoir and number of vacuum connections to the engine - lots of opinions here - here's mine - you have to buy a vacuum check valve any way to isolate the servo from the engine - why not connect 3 more? It will cost you 3 more check valves and 3 Ys and some more line. What you get is a more continuous vacuum "flow" as on each cylinder's intake stroke supplies vacuum not just one. The reservoir stores the available vacuum until the servo demands it (when it advances the throttle - vacuum is only used on the "pull"). As you can see from my installation (under the seat ((more opinions here))) I have about a 15 cubic inch reservoir. I regularly ride from sea level to 8,000 feet and wanted to have the max vacuum available

The control unit has a check valve into its internal reservoir, so a flatlander like me can use a single tap directly to the unit. No need to purchase a single check valve. As has been stated, if you ride where you can expect more than 345 feet of elevation you may want more vacuum capacity than a single tap and the built-in reservoir.

If you add a reservoir, then you need a check valve in front of it. Not much of a reservoir if it follows engine vacuum.

It hasn't been stated explicitly in this thread, but the reason for the check valves on each tap is to keep the cylinders separate from each other. If you just tap all 4 with open tubes, they just breathe back and forth into each other, whcih helps neither the cruise control nor the engine's smoothness.

 

[Leskid]

The control unit has a check valve into its internal reservoir, so a flatlander like me can use a single tap directly to the unit. No need to purchase a single check valve.
If you add a reservoir, then you need a check valve in front of it. Not much of a reservoir if it follows engine vacuum.

It hasn't been stated explicitly in this thread, but the reason for the check valves on each tap is to keep the cylinders separate from each other. If you just tap all 4 with open tubes, they just breathe back and forth into each other, whcih helps neither the cruise control nor the engine's smoothness.

finally! A word from wfooshee. In my exhaustive research, your name has been mentioned again & again & again, as much or even more than smittys'.

If I'm learning form your teachings, you're a flatlander so the cruise works as-is. If someone's gonna need their cruise to actually work for a living, they'll need more vacuum, which will involve more TPs and the reservoir. When you combine more TPs, then the check additional check valves become a requirement to keep each TB isolated from its' neighbor.

hmmm....... it's all starting to make a lot more sense.

In light of this flood of knowledge, and considering that the only time the cruise will be used is gonna be on the 401 or other slabs (primarily NON-mountainous), does a single TP and the reservoir for good measure (with a check valve, thanks) sound to you to be the way to go?

 

[Patriot]

That's how mine is with Walter's approval - fuel filter for cannister with one check valve and one tap to a TBS nipple.

I may add another tap someday, but mine works OK like it is and I've traveled extensively through Tennessee's Smokies on the slab with the cruise working just fine IMHO.

 

[Leskid]

it's past midnight here and I'm on beer number 4 or 11, can't remember

so let me just throw-in this one final 'argument' I read about while scanning the archives: It was said (by who, I can't remember) that drawing vacuum from a single TB was somehow bad. One freaksihly knowledgeable fuel-injection engineer postulated that it was actually better to draw from the MAP sensor, since it effectively negated the 'imbalance' caused by drawing from one of the four TBs.

However, even I immediately recognized that mounting four $5 mechanical valves DIRECTLY to something as buzzy as an FJR1300 motor introduces a wear & tear factor that will eventually become an issue.

Pfft. I'm over-analyzing. I just paid a scant $7500 for a cherry gen1. Wfooshee, you're the man out here. I'm going with your advice. I can sleep tonight!

Still haven't got any hits from a real orthodontist though... is patriot really my daughter's only hope?

 

[bramfrank]

OK, so I finally installed mine on my '06A this week - took the bike on the road (can you say ROAD TRIP") and am now in a hotel room in Worcester, MA, on my way to Skyline Drive, BRP, Deals Gap and the Cherahola Skyway. While the road to Virginia doesn't run through Boston, this was the closest DDD restaurant on my waypoint list and I just HAD to try one of these - the food was just OK (I had the dish that Guy Fieri raved about - a Macaroni/beef dish they call American Chop Suey), but the people at the Red Arrow are amazingly friendly - I had left my sport bag tied to the passenger seat and was watcing the bike through a window and they insisted I move it behind the restaurant where they could keep an eye on it while I was there!!

It took me 5 hours to install from start to finish. Believe me, I wasted a LOT of time during the project. Wiring was run neatly. Power and ground come from my underseat fuse block.

I put the servo behind the coolant pipe in the engine compartment. I put the vacume canister I got from Murph under the passenger seat, tie-wrapped to the cross brace.

The ONLY items I needed that weren't included in the kit were

- a 6 foot length of vacume hose (purchased from NAPA for about $2),

- clear silicone seal to waterproof the control pad,

- a relay (because I am anal about the brake lead interface),

- some tie wraps and

- new gaskets for the coolant pipe.

It was infinitely simpler for me to pull the fuel rail to drill the tab - it is really a LOT simpler than it looks. There are a lot of plugs and stuff to pull - and yes, I did drop one of the spacers 'down there'. My grabber tool got it back for me. I opted to connect the bead chain to the tang using a cotter pin . . . I used the one in the kit and I am not certain it is 'strong enough' for the long haul, but I am prepared to go back in with a larger one if it pulls free. So far so good, mind you.

I took ONE vacume feed - I set the cruise at 85 mph today and rode up and down hills with the typical +/- 1 mph variance. I have the sensitivity set to medium - I think that if it was simple enough I might try setting the sensitivity to low to see if the variance can be reduced . . . but getting to the DIP switch requires that I pull the coolant pipe (which is a royal pain - because I'd have to remove the left lower cowling to do it because I'd need to refill and bleed the system). So it isn't a serious fault and the cure is worse than the disease, so I'll live with it.

The ride from Montreal to here was almost all with the cruise set and was completely uneventful. Because of how simple it is to implement I popped my GPS-Snitch (tracker) under the seat for an independent record with the provider. The device is set to report every 15 minutes and the ones I checked were pretty much all at 116-118 kph (72 ish mph).

The one I had on my old C10 also tapped a single (in that case) carb and went through some very tall mountains with no hiccups.

It is interesting that the cruise will set even at idle. It's also a kick to tap the accelerate button and raise the idle slightly!! Go figure. I could never get the C10 to properly engage except while underway.

 

[Roy Epperson]

so let me just throw-in this one final 'argument' I read about while scanning the archives: It was said (by who, I can't remember) that drawing vacuum from a single TB was somehow bad. One freaksihly knowledgeable fuel-injection engineer postulated that it was actually better to draw from the MAP sensor, since it effectively negated the 'imbalance' caused by drawing from one of the four TBs.

You need to be careful with that thread, if I'm thinking of the same one. The original post was taping into to the MAP sensor to get the combination of all 4 cylinders instead of combining the TBS ports via check valves and Ys. The discussion then got rather spirited on the pros and cons. My opinion, for what that matters , is that system is calibrated with the lines, sensor and ECU as a unit. If you add a "drain", you might/will affect the calibration. Not worth it to me, when the fix is, maybe, $10 of parts and the TBS port is isolate from the MAP side by the volume of the cylinder. I had a case with an aircraft engine were we installed a remote oil filter, and a tubo-normalizer to the oil "system" and the prop governor would starve for oil in higher altitudes - scary when the prop oversped.

 

[Constant Mesh]

The MAP sensor TBS ports are different from those used for syncing. The MAP ports have small built-in flow orifices which likely minimize air flow between the interconnected TB's.

Connecting the Audiovox system into the MAP network would not be a good idea.

 

[Zorlac]

I didn't pull the injector rail it's totally unnecessary IMO.

I did use the small metric rounded head cap screw (that Radman suggested) on the throttle stop tang to clear the throttle cable, got them from a local ACE hardware store. I used red loctite to keep the nut in place.

I only used vacuum from one port with a check valve & a large rubber hose as a vacuum canister and it's working fine on long uphill grades.

Don't "over think" everything, just place the stuff, hook the wires up correctly and securely, protect/secure wires and tubing from long term chaffing and you'll be fine.

 

[RaYzerman19]

Great stuff, guys. My Audiovox is in transit, and looking forward to diving into this Gen II job in a week or so. Thanks for the many tips and refinements!!

 

[bramfrank]

Just one note . . . Murph includes Audiovox's honking big vacume cannister with a check valve built in, unless you delete it from your order. It is the one I stuck below the tail/back seat . . . .

Admittedly all I got to was about 2K feet elevation on my run from Boston to 'Front Royal', VA (top of Skyline Drive), but was at 80+ mph most of the way and there were some 6% grades - one tap. Worked great!!. If I need more taps it is easy to add them.

Don't go overboard to start.