How do cable tachometers work? (AR50/80)

Jason ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) /

I'm building a Minarelli P6 racer bike and the set of wheels I selected for this project are from a Kawasaki AR80. The front wheel included the hub and pinion for the speedometer . . . so I went to eBay and bought an NOS compatible speedometer from a KH100. I wanted to buy the similarly styled tachometer to fit but it got me thinking . . .

The backs of these tachometers have inserts for cables just like the speedometer . . So, does the engine on these ARs have some kind of pinion in the flywheel that the cable attaches to (similarly to the speedometer hub on the front wheel)? If so, basically I'm out of luck trying to use one of these with my Minarelli P6 engine, right? Without heavy modification?


I guess I would have to go the route of using the kind that you wire to the negative side of your coil. Kinda sucks because I wanted to have a tach and speedometer that matched styling wise.

Re: How do cable tachometers work? (AR50/80)

Yes there's a cable that runs off of a gear spun by the crank with a cable tach setup. Any old bike with a tach uses that setup


Jason ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) /

Thanks, so if you're familiar with the old Minarelli P6 GP racers . . . how are they using Tachs? I've never seen a P6 with compatibility for a cable tachometer but I guess what do I know. Maybe it's just my 75cc P6 from an old Indian dirtbike that doesn't have one.

I know that I have definitely seen plenty of riding videos and the guys have working tachometers, presumably electronically driven then?


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Yeah the electronic ones measure the waves from the outside of the sparkplug wire when it fires, they are very easy to set up.


Sorry to piggyback. Are the electronic tachs pretty accurate?


I have like 5 of those dashes and components all in varying condition, if you need them lmk will ship for shipping cost

The AR tach is driven off of the oil pump which is driven by the crank, so it is a direct correlation of engine revolutions

What you’ll run into with the plug sensor style is that they are not accurate and are actually harder to view and utilize imo - much easier to see a big red needle in your peripheral than a digital readout

A tach with a highly visible and accurate needle will help you to maintain rpm range - you could fabricate it on the P6 which is more than likely what others have done. The bikes in the videos with tachs are either highly modified race motors or factory gp products which are hard to come by, even basic info can be lost in translation

Check out koso, they might have something that could work

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