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Just curious if this was possible to do at home with a super-duper multimeter of some sort. Or if its only possible at a shop with dyno capabilities and diagnostic tools.

You can buy a wireless tach that'll let you check the rpm for test purposes.

Sev wrote:You can buy a wireless tach that'll let you check the rpm for test purposes.

How accurate is something like that?

If you have a laptop or pocket PC, you can use a program called RPM from Sound.

http://www.tunelab-world.com/rpmsound.html

I've used it to check aircraft tachometers (which are notoriously inaccurate) and it works very well.

Also, I think auto parts stores still carry the old reliable tach/dwell meter. Not used much since points ignitions have faded away. They used to cost around $10-$15, and used a sensor that clipped to a spark plug to determine rpm

flynrider wrote:If you have a laptop or pocket PC, you can use a program called RPM from Sound.

http://www.tunelab-world.com/rpmsound.html

I've used it to check aircraft tachometers (which are notoriously inaccurate) and it works very well.

Also, I think auto parts stores still carry the old reliable tach/dwell meter. Not used much since points ignitions have faded away. They used to cost around $10-$15, and used a sensor that clipped to a spark plug to determine rpm

Interesting link. Thanks!

flynrider wrote:If you have a laptop or pocket PC, you can use a program called RPM from Sound.

http://www.tunelab-world.com/rpmsound.html

I've used it to check aircraft tachometers (which are notoriously inaccurate) and it works very well.

Also, I think auto parts stores still carry the old reliable tach/dwell meter. Not used much since points ignitions have faded away. They used to cost around $10-$15, and used a sensor that clipped to a spark plug to determine rpm

Have you used this program with your Nighthawk? My tach on my 99 NH is dead and I've wanted some way to check my idle and I downloaded this program to use on my PDA. I'm going to try it out tonight (if I can remember to). The only thing is that the max RPM that you can set it to is 5K, which is well below the max on my tach.

beardking wrote:
Have you used this program with your Nighthawk? My tach on my 99 NH is dead and I've wanted some way to check my idle and I downloaded this program to use on my PDA. I'm going to try it out tonight (if I can remember to). The only thing is that the max RPM that you can set it to is 5K, which is well below the max on my tach.

Are you sure it's 5k? I just set the one for the PC version to 11,500 (I'm assuming you're referring to setting the upper limit).

beardking wrote: Have you used this program with your Nighthawk? My tach on my 99 NH is dead and I've wanted some way to check my idle and I downloaded this program to use on my PDA. I'm going to try it out tonight (if I can remember to). The only thing is that the max RPM that you can set it to is 5K, which is well below the max on my tach.

Nope. The tach on my Nighthawk is still working fine. I've only used it on airplanes, which top out at about 2700 rpm.

I did cross check it on my own airplane which has an electrically driven digital tach and the program turned out to be very accurate.

Anyone know of a Mac version of this? This would be super handy.