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• How to install the Rae San Hall Effect - Part 05, internal

How to install the Rae San Hall Effect Ignition Kit - Honda CX500, GL500, CX650, GL650 - Engine Internal, Part 05

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This is the procedure for setting the timing on a Rae San Hall Effect kit for a Honda CX500, and is step 05 of the engine-internal install process. See here for the previous step or check out the overview of the process.

Rotate the engine to FR:

Loosen the two bolts on the pickup assembly and rotate the assembly back and forth until the red LED for the right hand pickup turns off as close as possible to the current position of the engine.

For a video of this part of the process, see here:

Tighten the bolts just enough to hold the pickup in position, then rotate the crankshaft to the FL position. Loosen the bolts slightly and rotate the pickup so that the LED for the left side turns off as cloes as possible to the current crank position:

Aim to have any errors shared equally between the FR and FL marks. You may have to go back and forth between FR and FL until you get the position to your satisfaction. Apparently the right hand side will need to extinguish slighty before the FR mark and the left hand side needs to extinguish slightly after the FL mark due to the polarity of the flywheel magnets distorting the magnetic fields around the rotor slightly.

Also, make sure you are working with the FL and not TL marks. The TL marks aren't relevant here. Also, the timing is gained from the crankshaft rather than the camshaft - the CX is a wasted spark system - so you can't be 180 degrees out here. In other words from a timing perspective it doesn't matter whether it's the compression or exhaust stroke.

Once you have it done, double check your work - you don't want to be pulling the engine to check whether you got this right. Take a video of it, even - makes it easier to troubleshoot later on if there are any issues...

Tighten the bolts - be careful as the resin is fragile and will crack under too much force. DAMHIK.

At this point the asymmetry of the timing may mean that the idle speed needs to be increased slightly because one of the cylinders will be firing slightly late at idle. This may bring with it additional vibration at idle. Ray says that this is not harmful and vanishes once you move off idle.

Assuming that all is well with the timing now we need to look at getting the wires out of the engine and up to the wiring loom.

Grab your wiring grommets:

The ones above are new - if you are re-using the old ones you may need to modify them slightly with a knife to allow the new wires to fit through.

Presuming that you have removed the high- and low-speed pickups from the inside of your rear casing you are only left with the three yellow wires coming from the stator and the new wires coming from the Hall Effect pickups. Thread those through the lower grommet:

Then the upper grommet:

Then install one of the plastic elbows, if you are using one. Slot the grommets into place in the motor. Some people put some sealant around the wires in the grommet to doubly ensure that no water/grit/etc. gets into the motor.

Note that the yellow cables are normally in a sheath but we have removed the sheath to make it clearer. Sheath on:

Now, with all the wiggling around of the wires you will want to check that the pickup wires are not fouling the rotor:

If they are correct the problem - you may need to reduce the amount of slack there is in the wires. Now, looking at the rear pulser cover - there's a tang on the inside which will foul the rotor/wires/etc.:

Flatten it - we just used a hammer:

Reinstall the cover - don't forget the gasket:

...torquing the bolts down to 6-9ft/lb.