Hi folks,
after hibernating I'm back with a not so new, nevertheless never really satisfyingly discussed topic about the spark maps. Two things made me warm up it. First is that I had planned to let the V11 heads be modified to twin spark (what went really wrong due to an absolutely braindead shop called MTR-Ricambi), second is that while spying other maps with another proggy I came over this map:



You can see 16 deg at idle, 4 deg at low revs but high load, then there are values like 70 deg at high revs, medium load I guess, or 40 at WOT and mid revs. It's a 4 valve watercooled, central sparked super sports Ducati, the 1098.

Question is, how can we say what is a proper spark map? I mean without $$-equipement. Is it a good idea to stay right below where it starts pinging, or is it better to stick to the conservative and more linear curves found on older engines?
What about 2-spark conversions? Two sparks - half the advance? Over the whole map?

What about Ion sensing devices?

Any ideas?

Thx, Hubert

It's strange, indeed. Even here, no response. Ion sensing is working since years but it seems to be impossible to find something that could, in what ever form, be useful. One reason might be the fact that it's a widely patented thing, or it is not as easy to implement as it looks on first sight.
This finnish guy went the real hard way when he was trying to filter out the spark itself. The Delphi site for instance shows a much more elegant system, letting the spark feed and start the ion current. In fact it seems to be a quite simple analog circuit (found it here). Another site (RX7club.com forum) was quite enthusiastically talking about a similar system. But again, no link to what ever DIY project dealing with it. It's a pity.
Hubert