I searched quite a bit and came up with all kinds of conflicting information about installing a analog tach in a magneto fired motor. I have a digital tach/hour meter on my Rokon and quad, but they are very hard to read while riding. I wanted to put a tach on the Max just to see what kind of rpm's I am getting.
I ended up buying the Equus 6086 which is a 2 5/8" backlit tach for $34 shipped. The instructions that came with the tach said it would only work with a 4,6 or 8 cylinder motor. After reading up on it quite a bit, I learned that this style tach and basically almost any tach will work with a Vanguard engine. The Equus 8068 normally runs around $60-80 and has a nifty inductive clamp that clamps right to the plug wire for the tach signal. Supposedly the 8068 will work with any engine from 1 to 12 cylinders and has a setting for each. The 6086 does not have this feature.
To get it connected, I soldered a wire to the negative side of one of the 2 coils. You cannot use the kill switch wire like many suggested on other forums. The kill switch wire is connected to both coils on the Vanguard and you have to connect to only one to get this tach to work. It was pretty easy actually. I just had to remove the recoil start cover to get to the back coil. I then removed it and soldered on the wire and reinstalled the coil using a business card to gap it against the flywheel.
Instead of drilling a hole in the dash, I took a 1/2" piece of scrap HDPE and made a mount out of that. It is actually high enough it does not interfere with knee room. In the picture the tach is actually backlit and the engine is idling.
I just wanted to share this tidbit of info if anyone else wanted to install a tach. Jay
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