Weak spark could it be the coils?

[terrylee]

Try doing a coil relay modification, should fine it on Basscliff's site, should take care of alot of volt drop because you're bypassing alot of the old wiring inside the harness. Made a 1 volt difference when I did one. terrylee

[Steve]

Apart from pulling apart the whole harness and replacing the wires what can I do?
Run my own wiring in place of it?

As others have already mentioned, there are PLENTY of places where voltage drops can occur.

Any time you have an interface from one part to another, there is a chance for a bad connection. Any time you see a connector, there are actually THREE interfaces involved. Yes, three. Starting with the input wire, there is the interface where it gets crimped to the brass terminal in the connector. The second interface is from that brass terminal to the one on the other side of the connector. The third interface is from that second brass terminal to the wire that continues on.

Now, follow the path that current has to take to feed your coils. I will mention the connectors, but will let you count the interfaces along the way.
1. Battery to connector
2. connector to fuse panel
3. MAIN fuse in fuse panel
4. connector to main harness
5. connector to ignition switch
6. terminals in ignition switch
7. connector back to main harness
8. connector to fuse panel
9. IGNITION fuse
10. connector to main harness
11. connector to right handgrip switch assembly
12. "kill" switch
13. connector to main harness
14. connector to coil sub-harness
15. coil terminals.

Then, don't forget that other terminal on the coil.
16. coil terminal
17. coil sub-harness to main harness
18. harness to points
19. points to mounting plate
20. mounting plate to engine
21. engine to chassis/battery

Remember that there are THREE interfaces at every connector. Is it any wonder that you might be losing some voltage with all of these connections?

.

[jave101]

Thanks for the input guys. I've taken the kill switch apart and cleaned it up got up to 11.3v with the coils energised. That a bit of an improvement.
But I can't see if the bike will run properly just yet as I'm waiting on some intake gaskets due to a vacuum leak. They are on their way from the states.
I've been deciding on if I should buy a half decent wiring harness that I can strip back to bare bones, that way I don't wreck my original harness for the future. Still deciding if its worth it.

Had a look at that coil relay mod, that's really smart think that might be the go, I wonder if a standard 12v relay will do the job. Can't see why not if it can handle the current.

Got my rocker cover gasket in the mail today, in two pieces. Mailman decided to fold the package in half to fit in my letter box. Not so happy about this.

[pete]

They folded the gasket???!! Man that would make me see red!!!! Does it have do not bend on the package? Fortunately when I got mine from Boulevard Suzuki they put it in a box so it couldn't be bent...

A normal horn type relay should be fine for the coil relay mod too, they're normally rated at 30 amps or so.

[Steve]

Thanks for the input guys. I've taken the kill switch apart and cleaned it up got up to 11.3v with the coils energised. That a bit of an improvement.

Knowing the voltage is one thing, but knowing the conditions under which it was measured AND the comparison to battery voltage at the same time are much more important.

In other words, ... was the key ON and the bike not running? Was the battery at 11.5 volts at that time? If so, that's about the best we have seen. However, if the bike was running and the battery was at 14.1 volts, it's still pretty crappy. You are looking for no more than about a one volt drop from battery voltage.

Had a look at that coil relay mod, that's really smart think that might be the go, I wonder if a standard 12v relay will do the job. Can't see why not if it can handle the current.

Check my test listed just above to see if you even need "the mod". If you feel you absolutely have to have it, just about any fog light relay from Auto Zone will do, they cost about $5.

.

[koolaid_kid]

Just to add a bit about the coil relay mod: a correctly implemented mod will raise the voltage at the coils to about 14.5V at 3k RPM.

[jave101]

No the sender forgot to mention that on the package, not real pleased.

This measurements were taken with the engine off and the battery at 12v. Like I said I can't start the bike just yet. But once I get the gaskets I will be testing when the bike is running.

[Steve]

This measurements were taken with the engine off and the battery at 12v. Like I said I can't start the bike just yet.

If you actually verified that the battery was at 12 volts and saw 11.5 at the coils, I would not worry about "the mod".

.

[pete]

+1 on what Steve said... I get around that on mine and no issues whatsoever with spark.

Is the sender going to do anything about the gasket? That's really poor form on his part not to mark the package appropriately.

[jave101]

Ok well hopefully it will be all good.
If he has another gasket in stock he will send it for free if not then a refund. Pretty good of him.

[pete]

Good stuff, at least he's doing the right thing!

[jave101]

Ok so a bit of an update. Got the inlet gaskets installed so no vacuum leak. Took it down the street and it can't get past around 5000rpm. I did a plug chop while it was bouncing around 5k and left hand plug is a nice caramel colour. But right hand is black and carbon fouled.

I assume this is a sync issue as both plug aren't the same. I've also jumped from a stock 110 main jet to a 130 which maybe too rich.

[Steve]

First of all, ... you can't assume, you have to MEASURE.

Carb sync has very little effect at 5000 RPM. You will notice a mis-synched carb most at idle, not so much at 5000.

Since one of your plugs looks good, why would you ASSUME that you have the wrong jets?
Yeah, the 130 might be too rich, but you apparently haven't had a chance to get into the upper RPM range at wide open throttle to check that yet.
With pods and a pipe, I would probably look in the 125 range, but your "mileage" may vary.

Swap plugs, see if your dirty one cleans up in the other cylinder, and the clean one gets dirty. That will confirm that the problem is not the plug itself.

What are you mixture screw settings?

Have you done plug chops on the pilot and needle circuits?

.

[pete]

Also, if you're hitting a wall at 5000RPM, you might want to make sure your advance mechanism is moving freely too. It needs to spin freely and spring back quickly to be working correctly.

[jave101]

I've swapped the plugs over and it's still the same. I pulled the points plate off and inspected the advance governor. It springs back just fine but when I put my strobe light on it to test it as per the manual (set it to idle over 3,600rpm) it doesn't advance all the way to the advance marks, just about half way between the advance and normal timing marks.

Also the timing light won't fire on the right hand side cylinder for some reason. Might be a weak spark as the bike will idle fine on left hand cylinder just fine but dies when I try to run it just on right hand cylinder. I'm not sure what this means but the timing not advancing all the way worries me.

I've found a website that sells the dyna kit with coils for $160 so I'm considering buying that, just want to make sure that it will solve the problem but I'm not certain that is the only problem.