Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126469
By Mike & Anne Adair o 00 0') 22 " ... Define Lectron Fuel Systems, Lectron is a n original eq uipment m anufacturer of automobile pa rts. They make 28 d ifferent pa rts for Ch rysler and General Mot ors. Company in novat ions include sea t belt sensors, elec tronic smog cont rol solenoids, remote trunk locks and lots of ot her ite ms like that . In all th e com pa ny does about $16 million in business per yea r. Will iam Schenck is the chai rm an of the board. W here are Lcetron's pla nts? They are located in Troy, Mich igan about 15 miles south of Pon tiac. The carb uretor division which I work for is also located there. We are the smallest d ivision because we are in th e after market motorcycle end of things . Is Lcetron to tally self sustaining? Yes. There ar e only five companies in Detroit that do thei r own elec tro engineering, research, development and manufacturing. This makes Lectron very strong in the market pla ce of building the electronic com po ne n ts for automobiles. Nothing is fram ed out, everything is done in hous e. How did Lectron get into the motorcycle market? Originally becau se of m y fath er , Wi lliam Edmonsto n . He conceived the id ea of the carbu retor along the lines of the Gardner Injecto r of England. He had a company called Lak e Injec tors -then a compa ny call ed Posifuel. He left Posifu el and then decided to put a float bowl on a n enrichening circui t on th e carb o He went to Detroit looking for backers an d ran across Walt McPhail. who is pr esident and on e of the owners of Lectron Products . They gave us a n R&D budget to m ak e five pr ototypes in a year 's time . tha t's how we got started . My dad came hom e to Califo rnia - 1 was racing full time th en . and hired m e. What kind of racing were you into ? Back then MX wasn't very big and most of the heros in this country were in Class C racing - flat track, "IT, short track and that kind of thing. The basis of my background in racing is from class C involvement. We made the prototypes, presented them and got some more budget. That year we designed our own systems , made sand castings and were really getting into it. At this time (1976) dad left the com pa ny and Norman Quantz, who is vice president of engineering R&D , offered me a job to stay on . Karen and 1 were newly married and our first daughter, Jamie, was on the way. 1 needed a job and decided to sta y with the company. 1 guess you m ight say the whole carburetor thi ng was somewhat dumped in my la p. What about your early successes? Lets see, th is was in 1974. The first guys of any notoriety who used the Lectron were Bart Markel and Corky Keener. The yea r before Corky got his Harley factory ride, he was the top half mile rider in the country and he used Lectrons on Bart's bike. Bart d id a lot of work in helping us develop the system. The next person involved was Kenny Roberts, the second year (1975 ) he was AMA Grand Nation al Champion, he used Lectrons on his dirt track bikes exclusively and continued to do so until he ret ired from dirt track events. In 1977 Roberts started using them on his roadracers. He won every roadrace National that year and since then we have n't lost a 750cc National road race in this country. We 've put a lot of work into roadracing and have pretty much dominated it. H ow about Eu rope ? When Roberts went to Europe we had to some what back out because we have no European d istribution . You can't amount of horsepower, but they were afraid to run them without someone that knew more a bou t them alwa ys there. H ow d id it go? Between the time we tested and the start of the season, the Japanese developed a Mikuni Lectron. 1 understand th ey spent megabucks on it and that it gave them a little more power in th e 9,500 to 11,000 RPM range. Consequently all out testing was not too good. We got back into more R&D and now have a better carburetor and look forward to doing something with Kenny when he goes back over this year. What is u n iq u e abou t the Lectron carb? The main advantage in putting one on your motorcycle is that it breathes better · flows more air . than virtually any carb on the market. If you can flow more air and make it meter, you can obviously gain horsepower. We do n't like to push just the horsepower gai n as much as we push rideability, gas mileage and start ability. All of the enduro riders that do fairly well use the Lectron because it gives them better gas mileage and better mid range performance. When they fall in th e mud or get it upside down it doesn't load up, but starts on the first kick and goes. Sparky Edmonston Lectron's man on the circuit Lectron Fuel Systems fie ld enginee r Sparky Edmonston earned his degree on th e track . As a AMA Grand National Championship Rookie Expert Edmonston competed on occasion with a handful of bett er known names: Kenny Roberts, Gary Scott and Mik e Kidd. He majored in short tra ck, TT and scrambles riding and although dedicated. f elt that perhaps his talents would be better put to use in anotherfield . Through th e past five seasons Edmonston has put his trackside knowledge to work and seen L ectron carbureted ma chines in both th e 350 and 500cc World Championship in road racing . tak e National wins in every form of Winston Pro Series racing, set land speed records at Bonneville and claim ISDT Gold Medals . The next field of battle is the MX scene and Lectron is into it fu ll bore. We had a . chance to learn more about Sparky and L ectron on the Florida Wint er-AMA MX series circuit where Lectron was th e major sponsor. It was. basically. a giant test bed for the Troy. Michigan company. pursue something when there is no sales network. Did Kenny use Lect ro n at Houston this year? Kenny used Lectron on the short track bike. We weren't involved with his "IT bike , Mert Lawwill bu ilt it. The short track bike was built basicall y around an Yamaha IT en gin e. If anyone has adde d to th e development of t he Lectron Carb, it was Kenny. He is a perfect ionist and wants it right. He kept after us until we had the best. Did you tr a vel i n Europe with Kenny? Yes. I was in Europe for six weeks last year and also before the season opener. Kenny had his injured back then and the purpose of my going was to test Lectrons on his new 500's plus working in Japan with the factory race engineers to try and get the bike dialed in . We gave the bike a cons iderable Is the Lectron radically different? The main d iffer en ce is t ha t it onl y has one basic circui t, - a metering rod ; our stiffest com petition, Mikuni, has mul ticircu its. T he y have a pilot jet . differen t side cuts, spray bars and a m ain jet. We have only on e adj ust ment, a need le or met er ing rod which comes in d ifferent cuts . We now ha ve t he Powerj et which was d evelop ed by Yam a ha in their snowmobile division many yea rs ago , to govern over revving. Roberts to ld us that the Yamaha engineers felt that we should add a Powerjet to ou r carburetor. Is the carburetor widely adaptable? Except for four -stroke use, yes. We do offer a different unit for four strokes. We are also limited by our casting to 125cc as the sm allest application . All reed valve engines like the J a panese. use the lon g Powerjet. Piston po rt engines like KTM and Maico use the short Powerjet. We basically have th ree different func.tioning systems, all of the same body design. Do you have any teams using them? It 's difficult to get the Japanese to deviate from what they are selling on the bike. For yea rs I've worked with Bill Bell who ran Honda's off·road team for the last four or five years . He has since gone to Yamaha and tested last winter with the Lectron . To the best of my knowledge Yamaha plans to use Lectron on their off-road team . They have a good team and with Bell's leadership it should be a successful one. What is the relationship between Lcetron and Hi-Point? Hi -Po int Ra cing Products is our biggest and probably best distributor. In their three facilities t hey do a heck of a job with promoting and selling Lectron , They are also tied in very strongly with all the ISDT riders and teams. We've worked closely with the Penton family and the Leim bachs in doing R&D. John Penton was the on ly one to put Lectron carbs on his bikes as origina l equipment. They believe in Lectron and we believe in the Pentons, Was the Winter-AMA Series your first go at series sponsorship? Yes. We sponsored th e Profession al da y and Hi -Point sponsored th e . Amateur da y. We decided to sponsor the series. put up som e contingencies and bring some ca rbs down for rid er