Fitting Vapor tach to Pointy?

EDIT... I think I had a dislexic moment there... I don't even know where that title came from... It's supposed to be 2nd Gen Vapor Tach help.

i've got an '07 naked, if it matters.

I've been looking on svrider for some help with this subject, but I'm not finding much. I have my Vapor guages completely installed except for the Tach. I don't know where put either of the wires.

Most info on this is for the 1st Gen, which doesn't do much for me. So far, it looks like I need to find a spark plug (preferably off of the rear I guess?) and follow the wire off of it to the engine coil. Could anyone post pics of that? I think I found it, but I don't want to start splicing into it. Then, I'm supposed to find two wires coming of of that and splice into one of them. On the 1st Gen, they're orange and white, white being the one I want to splice into. 2nd Gen... I don't know. It looks like one is a mix of brown and orange, and the other is black with a white line. I really don't know which one to use, if either of them at all. Not to mention that I'm having a hard time actually pulling those wires (if they're the right ones) out enough to do any work on them.

Last question, I hope, is about the negative Tach. wire. I have the Vapor guage power coming straight from the battery, and rumor has it having the negative Vapor power, and negative Tach. wires hooked up to the negative battery will really throw off the Tach. So, where should I ground the Tach? Just some bolt on the subframe?

Pics and/or specific details on the colors of the wires I'm looking for would be much appreciated.

[Sid Squid]

K7 with twin plug heads? If yes, then orange/white and the black/orange are the positive connections, the white/blue and the plain black are the negatives*, use whichever of the coil negatives is physically easier/nearer, it doesn't matter which. The coils are the bit on the other end of the fat wires coming from the spark plugs. Sorry, no Pointy here to take a picture of.

Negative wires: I've fitted one Veypor unit and suffered no problems, and I can't see how connecting the negative to a frame bolt or similar rather than the battery will make any difference - the battery negative terminal is connected via the loom to a frame point, it has the big fat starter negative wire going directly from it to the engine cases, and the engine is bolted directly to the frame with lots and lots of metal contact, thus the battery negative, the engine and the frame are directly connected together with a current path of very low resistance, thus connection anywhere to any of those is very effectively the same. Is it possible that the wiring passes by a component that isn't effectively RF shielded? This could conceivably cause a spurious signal or two, maybe. By all means connect the negative anywhere convenient, it doesn't need to go to the battery - if my explanation has been clear it should be apparent that electrically speaking they're all the same. Wherever it goes just make sure that it's a clean, secure connection.

Title fixed to provide effective Yank/Limey translation, you call them first gen/second gen - we call them Curvy/Pointy, obvious really .

*Hmmm... thinking about it that may be the same for single plug heads too. My brain isn't what it used to be - some say it was never that useful anyway - they may have a point.

So some how my title was changed from "2nd gen" to "pointy"? I get it now, but man was I confused. I don't recall writing that lol.

I think it's supposed to have twin plug heads, but to be completely honest I only one per cylinder. Still, that may be because it's a little cramped in there, and I was working mostly at night with a less than ideal light source. I guess that means I'll use the orange-brown color, as apposed to the black with white stripe (tracer?) as it sounds more like what I'm looking for. just a little difficult to get to.

Thanks a bunch for the help, I'll give it a shot and see how it goes

[Sid Squid]

OK, if there's doubt about which exact bike it is, then check voltage directly at the cables on the coil.
With ignition switch on and stop switch at 'run', one wire on each coil will be live, that is; ~battery voltage, you need the other one.

It looks like I've got more problems.

First off, I ended up just wrapping the copper coil around the spark directly, as I didn't want to cut any wires without knowing what's what. I have it set to PPR 0.5 and RPM 0000. What I get is a pretty eratic Tach, that jumps all around, isn't smooth and I bet isn't too acurate. I had it in 3rd gear, doing about 40mph (64 km/h) and the Tach just wasn't accurate at all. I guess the RPMs were around 5000 or so, but it read between 4000-6000, but the warning lights (7500 and 10000) both went on. There's no way it was at 10000 RPMs doing that speed in 3rd. I do have the Tach wire with the resistor, and it's grounded on the fram, with the positive wrapped around the spark plug.

Then, there's the Spedo. It read 70 mph SITTING IN THE DRIVEWAY! Once I got it going, it eventually got to roughly the right speed, but anytime I stop it jumps back up to something high, and even when it's moving it takes time to get to something accurate. I have the magnetic bolt on the rotar, and the sensor on the fork. The wheel size I used is 1827.

Last is the brightness of the guages. They're plugged into the battery via the + and - terminals. It seemed bright at first, but now when I put my visor down on my helmet (it's clear BTW) I can barely see it. If I were to put the "sun visor" down to, I'm sure I wouldn't see anything at all.

So, any suggestions? Gotta get that Tach more accurate, figure out why the Spedo isn't really working at all, and if I can get the guages to show brighterl

I've got a story for you all, and I swear, I'm not trolling.

I took my bike for a quick spin, and I could hear a short coming from somewhere (sounded lick constant "clicking"). It only happened when the bike was actually running, so I let it idle in my garage. After unplugging lots of whires, I figured out it was coming from the Tach wires. Unplugging it from the guages showed me the sound was coming from inside the plug in for teh guages. So, I plugged it back into the guages, but removed the + from the spark plug. Now, it gets really, really weird...

After removing the + from the spark plug, the Tach stopped being so jumpy, and ran up smoothly when I rolled the throttle. It's not even plugged in all the way! The + wire is just wrapped around the outside of the spark plug cable, on the rubber, not even touching the spark plug! And, to make things even better, the speedometer went back to 00.0. I took it for a quick spin, and now both the speedometer and tachometer are reading right!

Should I just use some electrical tape and keep the + tach wire where it is? It makes no sense what so ever, yet it seems to be working. I just need to confirm the speedo is accurate, I am using 1827 as my wheel size.

[Sid Squid]

Hmmm... Odd - I don't quite know what to say, other than if it's working be happy with it!

It's working, which is great, but I have no idea why... that's just crazy!