RaWarrior
Well-Known Member
Here's a quick rundown on the Autometer "digital pro shift system" I put on the bike. Essentially it's a fatter than average shift light tube with a display in the middle that shows a digital tach, surrounded by LEDs as a shift light. I found it on ebay for $140 incl shipping.
It comes with a bracket with a curved mounting face....it happens to match the curve of the factory speedo perfectly. The p/o of my bike had put a short threaded stud out of the side of the speedo for mounting the old Raptor shift light, I reused it and added a spot of mounting tape just to be extra sure. Otherwise a 1x1" square of that 3M "outdoor mounting tape" would be plenty adequate.
It does NOT fit with the OEM flyscreen, in any orientation. At least not if you want to mount it to the speedo.
Wiring is also straightforward. It has a red, black and green wire coming out the back, which are keyed power, ground, and tach signal respectively. Conveniently, these can tap right into the three wires that connect to the factory tach. Black is black, but + power is brown on the bike and tach signal is gray (on a '97, early years may have different colors). I used some mini ring connectors and just put both wires on each screw and put it back. Hide the wiring and you're in business....as far as installs go this is about as easy as it gets.
The instruction paper that comes with it is clear and detailed on how to set it. You can set the shift point (I did 9300), view peak RPM, adjust the brightness of the shift light(four settings), and set the pulses per revolution(PPr on the gauge). For the Vmax, set this to 1. I'll also note that I am running gixxer COPs and it works perfectly fine...some people have reported that aftermarket tachs don't like the COPs, but it doesn't seem to affect this one.
The RPM response is very quick, the readout is bright and has a matte finish, so it doesn't glare in bright sunlight. Shift light works as you'd expect. The numbers are red, with the shift light being amber. You can get the case/bracket in either silver or black. The wire entry seems to be well sealed with a tight fitting grommet, I'll probably add a bit of silicon around the buttons to help seal it for when I eventually get caught in the rain.
I'm going to assume this is more accurate than the stock tach. They read fairly close to each other, but the autometer seems to read about 5% lower than the stock tach. OEM tachs seem to be known for inaccuracy so this doesn't really surprise me.
This is the "level 1", which is the most basic. The level 2/3 add multi-stage shift points(LEDs change color), and a playback feature for RPM. If you go to the strip this might be useful but I passed on it.
Overall it's a nice unit, works great, and compared to an entire aftermarket gauge cluster, reasonably priced. It's probably the easiest way to get a tach up on the handlebars where it belongs. There are cheaper versions of this by Summit and Glowshift, but the negative to those is they have a fixed pedestal mount....so putting it on the side of the speedo would make the numbers sideways also. Those also would require the "double diode" setup to feed them two coil pulses since they only go down to 4 cyl mode. The Autometer is capable of "reading" the vmax right out of the box, and has a fully adjustable mount. From watching a few videos is also appears to have a faster refresh/resolution on the RPM display also.
If you're keen you noticed a crack in the mounting ring....it arrived this way in the mail, the box was trashed. For the meantime I just krazy glued the piece back together, seems to be holding fine.
It comes with a bracket with a curved mounting face....it happens to match the curve of the factory speedo perfectly. The p/o of my bike had put a short threaded stud out of the side of the speedo for mounting the old Raptor shift light, I reused it and added a spot of mounting tape just to be extra sure. Otherwise a 1x1" square of that 3M "outdoor mounting tape" would be plenty adequate.
It does NOT fit with the OEM flyscreen, in any orientation. At least not if you want to mount it to the speedo.
Wiring is also straightforward. It has a red, black and green wire coming out the back, which are keyed power, ground, and tach signal respectively. Conveniently, these can tap right into the three wires that connect to the factory tach. Black is black, but + power is brown on the bike and tach signal is gray (on a '97, early years may have different colors). I used some mini ring connectors and just put both wires on each screw and put it back. Hide the wiring and you're in business....as far as installs go this is about as easy as it gets.
The instruction paper that comes with it is clear and detailed on how to set it. You can set the shift point (I did 9300), view peak RPM, adjust the brightness of the shift light(four settings), and set the pulses per revolution(PPr on the gauge). For the Vmax, set this to 1. I'll also note that I am running gixxer COPs and it works perfectly fine...some people have reported that aftermarket tachs don't like the COPs, but it doesn't seem to affect this one.
The RPM response is very quick, the readout is bright and has a matte finish, so it doesn't glare in bright sunlight. Shift light works as you'd expect. The numbers are red, with the shift light being amber. You can get the case/bracket in either silver or black. The wire entry seems to be well sealed with a tight fitting grommet, I'll probably add a bit of silicon around the buttons to help seal it for when I eventually get caught in the rain.
I'm going to assume this is more accurate than the stock tach. They read fairly close to each other, but the autometer seems to read about 5% lower than the stock tach. OEM tachs seem to be known for inaccuracy so this doesn't really surprise me.
This is the "level 1", which is the most basic. The level 2/3 add multi-stage shift points(LEDs change color), and a playback feature for RPM. If you go to the strip this might be useful but I passed on it.
Overall it's a nice unit, works great, and compared to an entire aftermarket gauge cluster, reasonably priced. It's probably the easiest way to get a tach up on the handlebars where it belongs. There are cheaper versions of this by Summit and Glowshift, but the negative to those is they have a fixed pedestal mount....so putting it on the side of the speedo would make the numbers sideways also. Those also would require the "double diode" setup to feed them two coil pulses since they only go down to 4 cyl mode. The Autometer is capable of "reading" the vmax right out of the box, and has a fully adjustable mount. From watching a few videos is also appears to have a faster refresh/resolution on the RPM display also.
If you're keen you noticed a crack in the mounting ring....it arrived this way in the mail, the box was trashed. For the meantime I just krazy glued the piece back together, seems to be holding fine.
