Just Installed A Tachometer On My R3T

Bedifferent

Old man on a bike
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Dec 11, 2014
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Location
Coldwater, MI
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2015 Rocket 3 Touring
I know some of you R3T owners have talked about putting a tachometer on your bike. I've been looking and decided on the Koso BA035103 in chrome...It also comes in black. I spent most of the afternoon working on it, but I'm fussy. I used a Kuryakyn P-Clamp to get it mounted where I wanted it. I tied it into my center coil as it was the easiest to get to. A couple of adjustments and it seems to works fine from the get go. I'm posting this video. As you can see I didn't get it done till after dark. I'll post a few more shots tomorrow in the daylight after I get all the wires neatly dressed and everything buttoned up.

Well, I guess I can't post a video of it in action...I guess a picture or two will have to do for now.

[Add by @Joesmoe - with permission]

The tachometer has four wires, three in one group and one separate. The three 22ga wires are power-switched; power-unswitched, and ground. There is a long single wire, and this is for the pulse. I tied the switched wire into the position light that was in the headlight shell before the LED conversion. I ran a new wire for unswitched back to the auxiliary distribution panel under the seat between the rear fender and battery. The tachometer default count setting is one cylinder, and this is what works on the Rocket. Physically, the tachometer has two small buttons on the bottom, and if one looks closely with good eyes or a magnifying glass, one can see labels "SELECT" (left) and "ADJUST" (right). Having hooked up the sense wire (long blue) using the supplied pigtail (they call it "RPM Wire (Type B)") to the middle coil as described above, must be changed to "Lo". So there are three settings available on the tachometer, in this order: 1) Number of pistons; 2) Hi-Lo sense; 3) backlight brightness setting.
To enter the set mode, with power on the tachometer, push both buttons and hold for three seconds, and you will see the hand of the tachometer move to 500. This is the default setting of one spark for each two revolutions of the engine, and what works on the Rocket Touring. So leave that as is, and press the "SELECT" button once to change to the sense setting. Press the "ADJUST" button once. This should change from the default "Hi" to "Lo". You're done with settings, so push and hold the "SELECT" button to put the tachometer back into the operating mode.

If for some reason, the tachometer is still not reading, repeat the steps above.

Tach.jpg Tach 2.jpg
 
Interesting that it works, several here posted of having no success.
 
Interesting that it works, several here posted of having no success.

There is another model Koso I have seen some people using. That model seem to be a little tricky in getting it to trigger correctly. This model is the metric version and seemed to work just fine after I set it to trigger properly. Apparently I hooked it to the (low side terminal) of the coil (not knowing which terminal was which). After I switched the setting on the tach to read the low side instead of the high side, it took right off. It would have been easy to switch the wire around if needed. The instructions were pretty straight forward.
 
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Here's a daylight picture with the tachometer functioning. Time for a ride to check the accuracy from an RPM chart I made some time ago. FYI...4 wires total needed to hook it up. A simple hookup, two wires from battery power.... a 12volt positive and the negative wire from the battery, one wire to power it on, which I took from a splice I soldered and pulled from the taillight wire under the right cover (yellow wire feeding the taillight wire connector) "easy access"...and last but not least...the signal wire which I hooked to the middle coil. I used the provided pigtail and connected this wire to the outermost terminal connection on the coil, which apparently, is the "low side" connection of the coil. You could also use the inside terminal connection which I assume would be the "high side" connection for the coil. Another word... I used some Radio Shack 4 wire connectors for doing my hookups and I NEVER just crimp my terminals. Every terminal is soldered, taped or in most cases, I use heat shrink tubing. For reliability, I would not use the scotch lock connectors for splicing into wires and making connections. Just my opinion.
 

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Hooray !

Please post the part numbers -- links would be great. I would like to replicate what you did.

And while we're at it, what is the big indicator ? Gear ? How is that wired ?[/QUOTE

I bought the tach from Amazon...last one it said, but more on order. There are many vendors listed. Make sure you get the metric versions as they make 2 Harley versions as well. Here are the metric version numbers....

Koso BA035103 Chrome shell white face
Koso BA035113 Black shell black face
Kuryakyn 1" P-Clamp bought off Amazon as well

The gearshift indicator is an ATRE GIPro. If you have your rocket derestricted with a Tune, I don't think you will need the pro version as I think they sell just a standard gear indicator as well. Not hard to hook up, just power and it wires into the GPS sensor wires found behind the left cover. It has a learn function to teach it your gears. Very easy.

As for the case and mount that surrounds it....another one of my custom jobs and a lot of work. I posted pictures on the forum as to how I made it.
 
I'm interested in the info too. Do they make any smaller tachs?

Yes, but this one is really not all that big. I was concern with that as well, but now that I have it on it is not that overwhelming. The smaller tach is a GP version with a temperature sensor. I knew I might have issues with that one working right. You need to buy a Koso signal amplifier I think that triggers off the spark plug wire. Most people had problems getting it to work. This one looks good and is easy to adjust. I looked at a ton of different and very nice looking tachs, but they were too pricy or I was afraid they wouldn't work. Poor documentation on the other brands. For around a $140 this was my pick.
 
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