Tugs Induction System

[Ronsun]

Hello, I have an 88 venture royale, that has the Tugs Induction system on it. I have been trying to get some information on this, it seems they are no longer around? I seen in an older post it said it was supposed to increase MPG and performance. I noticed it has quite a few more electronic mounted to the top of the air box, or am i mistaking this for something else? Any information anyone can share with me would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

[cimmer]

share some pictures with us would help. The electronic on the airbox could be that the ignition control box could have been moved to get it away from the heat of the engine. I found this on the Tugs Induction System in a previous post. http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?20950-What-gas-mileage-do-you-get/page8

I am not aware of this setup myself.

Good luck.

Rick F

[Great White]

Never heard of it.

 

Sounds like snake oil IMHO. Like the 100 MPG carburetor or 100 MPG spark plug.

 

 

Lowering intake velocity is opposite of what you want. Velocity and turbulence is needed in a carbureted engine to mix the fuel with the airstream to burn properly in the cylinder. If anything, you want to increase velocity to improve MPG.

 

 

Jetting down just makes for less fuel and a lean condition, regardless of velocity.

 

 

That could account for some MPG gain and lean engines make a smooth more power, but they also run hot and have a high potential to take out a valve or errors the valve seats quickly....

 

 

Any chance we could get a picture of this "Tugs Induction"?

 

 

I'm curious to see what they think an improvement in MPG and power looks like.....

[Freebird]

I've heard of it. It was marketed back ....I don't remember the years and there has been some discussion here about it in the past. From what I have read on it, it certainly wasn't snake oil. Regardless, you have something fairly rare.

[Ronsun]

Here are a few pics of the Tugs system i have on my bike.

[Ronsun]

Please excuse the mess on the motor and wiring, these are all on my todo list, lol. The main reason I am here in this Forum is to borrow from the collective wisdom here. The bike also has many flaws on the fairing that i will address in the years to come, for this year i want to concentrate on getting the bike running good.

[MiCarl]

That looks like it might do something similar to the v-boost on the V-Max.

 

Guess is the sealed module with the 20A fuse on it is the control and the fuse panel is for protection on some sort of actuators that we cannot see in the pictures.

[Great White]

lol, that's the same as a vboost stage 7.

 

Wide open all the time.

 

Stage 7 thows in some jet work and pod filters to match it though.

 

Chummy there has just remade the vboost castings with his info cast on it. Easily done in any backyard foundry.

 

I especially like the "pat pending".

 

Yamaha would have had a field day with that one. Or, maybe he is out of business because Yamaha did find out.....

 

Here's my VBoost for comparison:

 

http://i1174.photobucket.com/albums/r618/justonepict/CA2C3555-8CD0-44C3-936F-0751D62FC882_zpsloanxbe0.jpg

 

At any rate, definitely snake oil as marketed for MPG and HP. You can buy the same stuff for a VMax under the name "stage 7". Basically uses the castings and replaces the butterfly with the straight tube. Sure as heck doesn't improve MPG, but it will improve HP in the upper rpm range. makes a VMax "soft" on the bottom end. Needs lots of jet and needle work to get it carburating well throughout the rpm range, but it can be done.

 

Chuck some vmax cams in that puppy and jet it properly and it'll go like stink!

 

 

Your wiring just looks like someone tried to do something with the fuse box or tried to add some accessories and ended up the way it is now...

Edited February 28, 2016 by Great White

[Freebird]

You need to read the first post again. He said that he saw in a previous post that he read it would supposed to increase MGP and HP. I don't know that it was ever actually marketed to do so. I don't know for sure either way but just feel that unless I see evidence that it was, I'll give TUGS the benefit of the doubt. I haven't seen any actual ads from them in a long time. Now my '89 SS, as the VMAX Boost conversions were often referred to, did not have the actuator on it and was open all the time. I don't doubt that it may have run better with the actuator, don't know because I never rode one with it, but I can tell you that it ran very strong at both the low end and top end. I did a bit of research back a good while ago and found that quite a few VMAX riders disabled the actuators and ran them open all the time. Don't remember what the reason was but it wasn't uncommon.

 

In regards to the patent, it would be interesting to know when the TUG system actually came out. I have no idea but it could have possibly come out before the VMAX was produced.

[cimmer]

Have you taken the cover off of the airbox and seen what is underneath with all the wires and fused going into the cover. I would be curious as to what is in the airbox also or if there are some activators in there also. You might PM the gentleman in the older post, Poledar, and see if he has anything on the Tugs as he did mention he was installing one on his 86 VR.

On another thought here, if you are having a hard time getting the bike to run correctly, and unable to get any information on the Tugs system, I would look at getting a set of stock carbs and maniford tubes and getting it running correctly that way so you are not fighting this mod. It sounds like the carbs may have been modified for this to work properly.

Good luck and if you need a hand, let me know as I am not that far away from you..

Rick F.

[Ronsun]

Thanks for the comments guys, I do have a better idea on what the Tugs does. Once the riding season, here in Minnesota kicks off I will get more of an Idea of what it does, thanks.

[Ronsun]

Have you taken the cover off of the airbox and seen what is underneath with all the wires and fused going into the cover. I would be curious as to what is in the airbox also or if there are some activators in there also. You might PM the gentleman in the older post, Poledar, and see if he has anything on the Tugs as he did mention he was installing one on his 86 VR.

On another thought here, if you are having a hard time getting the bike to run correctly, and unable to get any information on the Tugs system, I would look at getting a set of stock carbs and maniford tubes and getting it running correctly that way so you are not fighting this mod. It sounds like the carbs may have been modified for this to work properly.

Good luck and if you need a hand, let me know as I am not that far away from you..

Rick F.

 

Thanks Rick, later this week when our temps rise again, since I have an unheated garage, I will do some more looking into this. I did have it out this last Saturday, other than a high idle it does seem to run well at lower speeds, under 40, thanks again.

[cowpuc]

well i'llll be high sided - never ever ever heard of tugs - love learning something new!! good read, great pic! will be watching thread! thanks ronsun!!

[Rick Butler]

Well Guys,

 

I can shed more light on the history of the Tuggs Induction system. The first time I saw it was at V-Daze in Steamboat Springs in June of 1988, where Tuggs was a vendor selling the system (around $400?) and my friend Dave Henderson bought one. At that time Tuggs owned a Yamaha dealership in Phoenix or Tucson where he came up with the idea. And yes it was just a set of sand cast copies of the V-Max intakes with a solid open cross overs and I don't know why he had them marked as Patent Pending? (probably to keep someone else from duplicating his system. What this did was to allow each piston to pull from 2 carbs on the intake stroke. But to make this right the main jets were opened up from 120s to 150s and the air box had to really be opened up to get the air needed, not to mention the slide needles were changed out to real slim DynoJet Stage 7 adjustable needles. But the V-Max intakes were about 1" taller which pushed the carbs right up snug with the frame and the throttle cable had to be rerouted lower. And the air intake box also had to be modified and opened up with a flat top to clear the cover.

 

Now this system pulled really strong but still had some issues. But it did get better mileage by the fact that because each cylinder pulled from 2 carbs, you only needed half the throttle to get the same rpms, meaning only a quarter throttle gave you pretty much everything.

 

Now about a year later at V-Daze in Hot Springs, Arkansas, DynoJet was there with their version (called V-Boost) which used intakes that were built like the rubber oem but with solid 1" crossovers. But DynoJet had more resources to test with including a Venture test mule to put on the Dyno. And they pretty much used the same underlying principle used by Tuggs but at half the price, which Tuggs could not compete with and he went out of business. But they changed up a couple of pilot and idle jets to make it run better and smoother....which it did. I bought one and after I got all bugs worked I loved it and it was easy to work with because the intakes were more like stock and the air box could stay the same, except you had to drill 26 1/2" holes around the entire top cover.

 

But over time, this system had issues with the intakes with the crossovers coming apart because of the extreme pressure created which caused the rubber to separate from the aluminum base. And in 1991 after a couple of attempts of re-manufacturing these intakes DynoJet dropped the product because they were loosing money like crazy on warrenty work. I took mine off and threw it in a box. But several years later Dave Henderson talked me into dragging it out and installing it again, but with V-Max intakes, which really turned into a job. I finally got everything running good on my 93 with a V-Max flywheel and V-Max heads, and then I totaled the bike on Push Mountain road on Arkansas and that's when I decided to make the move to a new 2nd gen Venture in 2001....and the rest is history :-)

[Ronsun]

Rick thank you, this cleared up and answered many questions. I did find out that all of the extra gizmos that were added on top of my air box were controls for lights and trailer accessories. Thanks again to everyone who replied to this!