I am trying to reconcile this with my understanding that all wye(?) motors are wound the same, with the same armatures. The electric fields certainly don't care weather its an LRP or Novak sticker on the outside.

How different could they be? I am by no means an electric motor expert, but the engineers working at those companies sure are, and I have to believe that a 17.5 spec is going to be fundamentally the same no matter who made it.

Now certainly it stands to reason that different manufacturers might have different ideas about where 'neutral' timing is and place their sensors accordingly, but removing that from the equation they must all be highly similar.

What exactly can vary from brand to brand? I know manufacturers would have the consumer believe their products are black boxes, varying wildly with secret incantations and black-magic techniques to be oh-so-very much better than the their competitors. Slick packaging, obfuscation of timing, it all adds up to confusion and brand-loyalty once a sweet spot is found. I'm not ranting; I've made my peace with commercial realities, I've actually been on both sides of this, but I am honestly curious about this completely new (to me) technology and the intricacies of tuning it.

-Curt