Presumably, "engine" means the whole thing including the transmission and clutch - and the electric starter. What are you planning to use for a load on the engine? Whatever it is, it has to absorb the entire power output,  and ideally provide some way to measure that output. In short, a dynamometer. If you mount the engine on the lazy susan, you'll need to find a way to lock it in place when you are running the engine. You will also need a fan to keep the air-cooled engine from overheating. I am not trying to make this difficult, but unless you load the engine, you cannot apply much throttle to it without having it over-rev (limited by its rev limiter, if indeed it has one).

  To add,  being on a test stand rather than in the bike, makes it easier to swap out and change parts and wiring. If there is any reasonable success, it would be replaced into the frame for a more realistic look. Gene

An squirrel cage fan out an old swamp cooler could be driven by the drive pulley to provide cooling air and some load.

Post pic's so we can comment on your design.

Easiest would be to just ignore the regulator/rectifier. Leave it off, but be careful of the stator wires which will have some fairly high AC voltage on them. Insulate them and don't let them short to the engine or each other. Use a convenient car or trolling motor battery to supply the ignition system, and run it as a total loss system. If need be you can recharge the car battery with a standard charger when you are done. Unless you plan to run the engine for several hours, that will work.

Please excuse my ignorance but what is a "Lazy Susan" ?
Clive W  

genejohnson wrote on 07/27/09 at 07:22:38:


It was named after Susan, who was too lazy to say "Please pass the peas and potatoes," so they made her a turntable to put in the middle of the fancy eating table with all the food on it.  

Auto alternator/regulators work differently than motorcycle alternator/regulators. The auto system uses the voltage regulator to control the magnetic field in the alternator, thus controlling the output. Motorcycle systems use permanent magnets in the alternator, and the output cannot be reduced. So, excess output is dumped to ground (shorted) by the regulator. The designers tend to design the system to produce little more than the power needed, so as to avoid the power drain caused by shunting the excess.

Someone on here remarked that the ignition module on the S40/Savage closely resembles an ignition system used on some Fords. I think I remember the term TFI, but don't quote me. At least on earlier Fords (I had a '79 Lincoln) the ignition developed a spark whenever the magnet in the distributor passed the pickup coil, but the timing advance was mechanical (centrifugal and vacuum). I don't know whether the Ford system was a true CDI, but the S40 isn't.

If you are into electronics, it might be possible to rectify the three-phase AC coming out of the stator assembly into DC (which is part of the function of the regulator/rectifier assembly), then use some variation on an electronic regulator to control the results. Instead of dumping the excess you might be able to work up a series regulator, or even the output half of a switching power supply. That approach wouldn't qualify as using auto parts, however.