Starting an M8
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Road Captain
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 516
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From: Fenton, MO
Starting an M8
Just bought a 2019 Sport Glide 107 M8. My last bike was a 2009 Touring with a 96 Twin Cam.
When starting the Twin Cam, it would typically fire on the 1st revolution. This Milwaukee 8 seems to take a few revolutions to fire up.
Is that the nature of this new beast?
When starting the Twin Cam, it would typically fire on the 1st revolution. This Milwaukee 8 seems to take a few revolutions to fire up.
Is that the nature of this new beast?
Road Master
Joined: Aug 2018
Posts: 965
Likes: 297
From: NoVa
Definitely wait for the fuel pump to pressurize the system before you crank the engine. Also, the M8 motor has an automatic compression release so the engine can crank faster while using less juice from the battery and being less demanding on the starter.
When the M8's first came out there were some articles about this...and some folks said that certain aftermarket plug wires helped the engine crank faster, and run a bit stronger. I thought "BS" when I read that.
Then we tested out some plug wires, and dadgum if it didn't start more quickly and run a bit stronger. But that was just one bike. So we tried two others. We got similar results on one, and we could not really tell the difference on the other.
Since then we've made these plug wires available (see them HERE) and have gotten quite a bit of feedback over the last 9 months that folks really like them, and they do make a difference.
I hesitated to post this, because, yeah, I don't blame anyone for thinking BS when they read this. But if you wanna give them a go, you may be pleasantly surprised.
Then we tested out some plug wires, and dadgum if it didn't start more quickly and run a bit stronger. But that was just one bike. So we tried two others. We got similar results on one, and we could not really tell the difference on the other.
Since then we've made these plug wires available (see them HERE) and have gotten quite a bit of feedback over the last 9 months that folks really like them, and they do make a difference.
I hesitated to post this, because, yeah, I don't blame anyone for thinking BS when they read this. But if you wanna give them a go, you may be pleasantly surprised.
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Road Master
Joined: Aug 2018
Posts: 965
Likes: 297
From: NoVa
When the M8's first came out there were some articles about this...and some folks said that certain aftermarket plug wires helped the engine crank faster, and run a bit stronger. I thought "BS" when I read that.
Then we tested out some plug wires, and dadgum if it didn't start more quickly and run a bit stronger. But that was just one bike. So we tried two others. We got similar results on one, and we could not really tell the difference on the other.
Since then we've made these plug wires available (see them HERE) and have gotten quite a bit of feedback over the last 9 months that folks really like them, and they do make a difference.
I hesitated to post this, because, yeah, I don't blame anyone for thinking BS when they read this. But if you wanna give them a go, you may be pleasantly surprised.
Then we tested out some plug wires, and dadgum if it didn't start more quickly and run a bit stronger. But that was just one bike. So we tried two others. We got similar results on one, and we could not really tell the difference on the other.
Since then we've made these plug wires available (see them HERE) and have gotten quite a bit of feedback over the last 9 months that folks really like them, and they do make a difference.
I hesitated to post this, because, yeah, I don't blame anyone for thinking BS when they read this. But if you wanna give them a go, you may be pleasantly surprised.
(In the following explanation, "gas" means the gaseous state of matter. 'fuel' means gasoline.)
Think of it this way, at low pressure, the gas molecules are further apart, so it's harder to get a gas mixture (fuel and air) to ignite and harder for the flame to spread. As the the compression ratio climbs, the molecules get closer together, so that a combustion of some air and fuel molecules is more likely to cause other areas of the gas to ignite. If you raise the compression high enough, the air-fuel mixture will start to ignite all by itself, which is one cause of pre-ignition in a hot engines with very high compression. It's also the method that Mazda uses in it's high-efficiency Sky-Activ compression-ignition engines.
Summary:
Low compression - harder to ignite fuel air mixture - so hotter spark (via better plug wires) can help ignite
High compression - easier to ignite fuel air mixture
Looked for a good reference to explain this, but this is the best I found quickly: https://www.slideshare.net/kiransreeram/ic-engines-combution . See slides 5, 6, & 10.
Last edited by AJ88V; Nov 11, 2019 at 07:57 AM.
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