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HEWTECH ELECTRONICS
LLC By the mid-90's the internet was available, I soon found there were parts available for the old Mercury sleds. I was a member of the VSCA & Antique / Classic club of Canada and soon found other contacts & sources for parts. A reoccurring problem was the CDI's were expensive & rumored to still be an unreliable component. That was ridiculous to me, being an electrical engineer. I have been designing reliable industrial control products since 1981. The technology is available, why are the CDI's still a black-box mystery? I began my investigation. It took a little longer than anticipated, but I soon had a unit sparking on a my 440 Kohler 2AS. The initial version did work, but I found it required a hefty yank to spin the engine fast enough to start. Changes were made, and another design was tested. This design proved to function better than the previous, and was installed on my Twister for evaluation. Prototype units were also sent to Phil Molto (fellow Sno-twister owner & Public Relations for the Antique & Classic Snowmobile Club of Canada) & Daren Carlson (RUPP Guru & all around good guy). They also provided feedback on the operation of the unit. During that time, I decided to take another approach & totally redesigned the CDI. Installed the new design on my Twister & found it to really offer all around better performance...the stage was set. I called Daren & Phil informing both that another redesigned version of the CDI was on it's way. By this time, they probably thought I was crazy, both provided positive feedback on the previous version....why change it? I assured them both this was a better design & would provide improved performance over the previous version. The CDI's arrived & both were installed on the sleds of Daren & Phil. Daren immediately called with positive feedback. He was now able to sit on the seat, pull the motor over through one compression stroke & it fired to life! Phil's a busy guy, but was able to get it installed & fired-up, only then to find he had bad crank-seals on the 75 Sno-twister...but it wasn't a CDI problem...instant relief! This design became the production version of the FIREPLUG. That unit is still on my Trail-Twister today. I met Phil for lunch in the spring of 2000 while visiting Ontario, Canada on business. Daren & I still communicate by e-mail..."Still Going" is what typically shows up on my e-mail from Daren. Since 1998, word got around fast about a CDI available that actually is reliable. My initial intentions were to provide myself with a CDI for my 2 sleds & a few buddies sleds. It soon became evident that this CDI would not remain a secret. I began receiving phone calls from Canada, Alaska & throughout the States inquiring about the FIREPLUG CDI. The first few years I probably gave away 20 units just asking for feedback. Still wasn't interested in providing a product to the market, however this evaluation was getting costly. My main efforts were still towards industrial control design, and kept me very busy. By 1999, I found the CDI was still in demand, so decided to produce the unit for public sale. I have yet to have a FIREPLUG CDI fail! In 2001, there were multiple Vintage/Classic/Relic sleds entered at EAGLE-RIVER running the FIREPLUG CDI. There are also many sleds running ice-oval, ice-drags & grass-drags using the FIREPLUG CDI throughout North America. Start watching at the sled-shows, you will see a FIREPLUG CDI...guaranteed. I'm still heavy into industrial control design, since that pays the bills. I am always investigating offering CDI's for other brands & models. I just need to figure out how to find the time to do it all! Thanks to all that helped in the process & owners of the FIREPLUG CDI units! Scott Hewelt |
