Electronic Ignition 123 tune plus for Peugeot 203?

B

bathst

Member
Tadpole
Joined
Nov 5, 2015
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Location
New Zealand
I am looking at getting a 123 tune plus which you can set the advance and vacuum curve yourself and was wondering if anyone had any advice on the best curve or settings?
User can adjust settings via bluetooth and you can advance or retard any one point all along the curve and not affect the whole curve.
Are there recommended factory settings for advance and vacuum advance that are easily found?
Thanks
John
 
Sorry can't help with the curve but these 123 Tune's are great. I have the USB version which also has the two onboard curves that you can switch between. Road and track if you like. You save as many versions you want on your laptop and upload the best one's that work best. Even go out on thre road with a curve guru in your passenger seat who make adjustments.
Good luck with it.
 
I'd contact Ted Cross, AF member "hawk" via private mail.

Ted is the Victorian distributor for the product.

Best of luck.
 
Thx! I need to investigate but i don't know if different profiles can be saved on this model. Love the 15's and 17's!
 
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You could always use a dial back timing light to “map” your existing curve as a starting point and tweak it from there.
 
Hi,
Ive put programmable ignitions in a couple of cars, and my inexpert feeling is that you don't need to get too hung up about 'factory curves'. I really don't think they differ all that much from one car to another, and at this age for the cars in question, unlikely the springs have retained that magical curve anyway. A 'starting point' 3D ignition map is not hard to find, and likely there is a user forum where people have posted theirs. Then just fiddle. If you can't tell the difference between 'better' or 'worse' with the seat of your pants, then it arguably does not matter anyway.

One thing which will definitely be better almost no matter what you do, is starting, really clean running out to red line, and never having to fiddle with points etc again.

I also feel the main purpose for dual maps, is with a dual fuel set up eg old car which can switch between petrol and lpg. If you are running just one fuel system, then I would personally think one ignition map is enough.

My 2c...
Andy
 
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123+ vacuum curve progress

I have the 123+ in the vehicle and u can save a number of different "profiles". It is easy enough to do the centrifugal curve but i am struggling a little/lot with the vacuum side of things. Firstly is the vacuum getting manifold pressure versus ported pressure? I am presuming manifold but am not 100%. Some articles say the difference is manifold is below the closed butterfly and ported is above and 203 looks a little above? Other articles say ported was from the 70's on? The Map curve on the Y Axis is -20 to +20 and that is degrees crankshaft.They Y axis is Abs Pressure in kP and goes from 0 to 200. I will attach the recommended curve in the manual if it is the correct one but won't be far off and the map setting i did with a rpm start at 1000 rpm. Still a bit of a flat spot but this stuff can be confusing! vacuum manual.jpgvacuum settings.jpg
 
Your MAP curve doesn't look right.

There should be maximum advance at the lowest pressures (15kPa being about the lowest an engine can reach) ramping in some way to 0 advance at 100kPa.

Is that graph really in g/cm^2? Trust the French, the inventors of the Metric system, to come up with something loopy!

The graph from the manual has a maximum advance of 5 degrees. That's not much so I'm guessing it's distributor degrees, meaning 10 degrees at the crank. Oh... looking again I see you have that written on it in red pen.

So 100 g/cm^2 is about 1.4psi of vacuum which works out at about 90kPa MAP.
300 g/cm^2 is about 4.27psi vacuum -- about 65kPa in MAP. So I'd go for a table:

1 0kPa 10 degrees
2 65kPa 10 degrees
3 90kPa 0 degrees
4 100kPa 0
5 100 kPa 0

as a translation of the manual's table. I must have got lucky in those calculations because the numbers look about right.

Since it mostly affects light to medium throttle, vacuum advance is largely about fuel efficiency for cruising. For tuning, work first on your centrifugal at full throttle with dyno or stopwatch. It's harder to optimise the vacuum advance, but that's mostly because it's less important.

Have fun,

Rob.
 
bathst said:
Firstly is the vacuum getting manifold pressure versus ported pressure? I am presuming manifold but am not 100%. Some articles say the difference is manifold is below the closed butterfly and ported is above and 203 looks a little above?
Click to expand...

Hi,
my memory of that matter is this: the pressure is normally sensed through a hole which is covered when the butterfly is closed. That is solely to prevent high vacuum advance at idle. When the butterfly is significantly open, it makes no difference exactly where that hole/s is. I also think that once you are no longer using a dizzy with weights+vacuum, all you need to focus on is the total advance at any given rpm/vacuum combination.

Andy
 
The dizzy bushes also need to be perfect.
If not the shaft will run eccentrically and all efforts of tuning will be pretty much wasted
 
123+ vacuum curve progress and 203 Carby problem (ideas?)

Thanks for all the input. I have made quite a few improvements but i have also found a carby issue (carby has just been done up) and it seems to need no choke when cold. Runs ok when cold but when it gets warm i get a lag. This lag goes away if you stop the accelerator pump actuating. It only appears when it is warm. The carb is a very early 32 with the non barbed fuel input and the main jet is under as opposed to on the side. This whole issue has been making it hard to map the dizzy due to symptoms. So i put on a good carby of a 1953 203 (mine is 51) and it is great no issues. I checked all the jets etc between the 2 carbys and could see nothing wrong. Am wondering what could be the cause? I could try swapping the lids? Could it be the shut off valve at wrong height? Just not many things i can think of. Emulsion jet is same and looks fine. Anyway other than wanting to get that sorted i did a more agressive centrifugal map and it seems really good. Now that i have the carby side all good while using the other carby i can actually get a proper read on different settings.
 

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Curves look good to me -- as long as those centrifugal figures are relative to some fixed point BTDC. I.e. if those figures are relative to TDC, it's way retarded. If it's relative to something like 8 degrees BTDC, that'd be about right.

On the earlier question of ported vs. manifold vacuum -- it's about emission control. Idling with retarded timing means that the exhaust manifold gets very hot which puts an "afterburner" on the typically rich idle mixture. Running full manifold vacuum to the dizzy at idle might give you a smoother idle.

Carby sounds like it was way too rich for some reason. Float level too high, needle valve leaking? I have a lousy track record diagnosing car problems via the Internet.

Have fun,

Rob.
 
I need to say I have factory spec numbers if you want and I can also tell you that 3 dimensional ignition is the best way to go. The biggest problem is getting the fuel mixture right. I suggest this. Put in a map that is close to original then get the mixtures right. Then you will find you can unlock easiest starting and torque. Do you know what comparative you have?
 
No not really. Because of the carby issue it has been difficult but now i have that other carby on i am getting good power overall. I still notice a flat spot once the car is warm when punching the accelerator from idle but i may be being a little fussy. I think it has to be to do with float/fuel level or valve as i can't think of much else. Overall it is going way better with more power and i am not hearing any pinking. Those 3 bearing engines can growl a bit too.yeah the whole mapping of centrifugal/vacuum has been an interesting thing to research. I think an easy option is to put the other carb back on and switch the lids or the float and valve to just see.
 
If it is growling it is probably advanced too far. These engines on 7 to 1 compression won't ping until the ignition is way too far advanced, maybe not even then.
 
Yes i did wonder about this. Will go back to a more standard curve for a while and see. The curves are all stored so is just opening a file and applying.
 
Sorry can't help with the curve but these 123 Tune's are great. I have the USB version which also has the two onboard curves that you can switch between. Road and track if you like. You save as many versions you want on your laptop and upload the best one's that work best. Even go out on thre road with a curve guru in your passenger seat who make adjustments.
Good luck with it.
 
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